Report: Shin-Kobe, GS Yuasa Targeting Battery Market for Stop-Start Systems

10 July 2010

The Nikkei reports that Shin-Kobe Electric Machinery Co. and GS Yuasa Battery Ltd. are increasing their presence in the growing market for high-performance batteries for cars with an stop-start function. The Yano Research Institute estimates that more than 10 million cars worldwide will be equipped with stop-start systems in 2015, compared with some 900,000 in 2009.

Shin-Kobe is expanding a Chinese battery factory this fiscal year, doubling the annual production capacity to 2 million units. It will also build in 2012 a new Thai factory with a capacity of 1 million units a year. The plan is to use a portion of the capacity at both bases to make high-performance batteries for cars with an idling-stop function.

GS Yuasa Battery, a subsidiary of GS Yuasa Corp., is expanding its line of high-performance batteries carried by dealerships and autoparts shops. It has prepared a battery for Mazda Motor Corp.’s recently released Premacy minivan and plans to market batteries that support other makes of cars with the idling-stop function as automakers introduce them.