Equinor ASA, Norsk Hydro ASA and Panasonic Corp are to explore opportunities to set up a lithium-ion battery production business in Norway, targeting automakers as potential customers, the firms said yesterday.
Norway, which relies heavily on oil and gas revenues, aims to become the world’s first country to end the sale of fossil-fuel powered vehicles, setting a 2025 deadline. Electric vehicles make up about 60 percent of sales in the country.
“The companies intend that this initiative is based on Panasonic’s leading technology and targets the European market for electric vehicles and other applications,” they said in a joint statement.
The potential business could supply batteries to Tesla Inc’s new electric-vehicle plant in Germany, a Panasonic spokeswoman said.
The electronics maker is planning to expand its joint battery venture with Tesla in the US by adding a new production line next year.
As Europe seeks to reduce its carbon footprint, oil major Equinor and metals producer Norsk Hydro both aim to increase areas of their business benefiting from transition to new forms of energy use.
“We expect battery production to grow rapidly as a solution to the world’s number one challenge, climate change,” Norsk Hydro executive vice president Arvid Moss said.
“Our companies will seek to create a battery business that is profitable, scalable and sustainable,” Equinor executive vice president Al Cook said.
Separately, Hyundai Motor Co is being sued over a string of battery fires in its electric vehicles, just as General Motors Co recalls nearly 70,000 vehicles with batteries from the same maker, LG Chem Ltd.
The owner of an electric-powered Hyundai Kona, who asked to be identified only by his surname Kim, is among about 200 people who last week lodged a class-action lawsuit against Hyundai, seeking compensation for what they say is the reduced value of their vehicles, Kim and two lawyers representing them told Reuters.
The lawyers said that they were seeking 8 million won (US$7,250) per plaintiff who wants Hyundai to replace their vehicle’s entire battery pack — its most expensive part — not just update the software, as the company’s recall provides.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day