Factory for Toshiba SCiB Batteries Planned Next Fall

To whoever is a fan of electric gadgets, it’s good to know that Toshiba is planning a factory in Japan for their new SCiB batteries. The building will start next Fall.

The SCiB batteries are a modified and improved version of the Li-Ion used currently in the industry. They will come in 24V/4.2A, that is 100W of power, and can be recharged to 90% of their capacity in 10 minutes. Compared to their older sisters, the Li-Ion, SCiBs can be recharged 5,000 to 6,000 times, not 500 to 600.

That’s a pretty neat performance in these batteries. Toshiba predicts these batteries’ uses: “In addition to applications that include electric bicycles, motorcycles, automated guided vehicles, electric forklift trucks and construction machinery, which already use rechargeable batteries, the SCiB can be applied to electric power regeneration and stabilization in emergency power sources and wind power systems. Application in hybrid cars is also planned, with the intent of extending application to electric cars in the future, after advancing development of a high-performance SCiB cell.”

I wonder why everybody plans to use better batteries in everything but cars in the near future… They already built a bike running on SCiB.