Intel the world leader company on technology is going to introduce battery for car ! Good news ,also its a alternative fuel innitiative ,"strategic objective is tackling big problems and turning them into big businesses." He said Intel, with its cash resources, can invest in battery technology and manufacturing to bring down the cost of car batteries, which would drive adoption of plug-in electric cars.
Intel is arguably the world's most important technology company ,Andy Grove former Intel chairman told Rebecca Smith and Don Clark that he has been urging the company to get into the business of making car batteries. Like so many in Silicon Valley, Grove is apparently an electric car booster, and he has been evangelizing car batteries as a potential growth industry—one that he'd like to see Intel get in on the ground floor of.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Friday, Grove said he is urging Intel to invest in battery manufacturing as a way to diversify from its core chip business.
Grove told the Journal that Intel's "strategic objective is tackling big problems and turning them into big businesses." He said Intel, with its cash resources, can invest in battery technology and manufacturing to bring down the cost of car batteries, which would drive adoption of plug-in electric cars.
Batteries are the most expensive component in plug-in electric vehicles, a market being pursued by a few U.S. companies.
General Motor's 2011 Volt is testing batteries from lithium-ion maker A123 Systems. Other U.S. companies include Ener1 and Valence Technology. Notebook battery maker Boston Power also intends to enter the auto market.
But battery makers and analysts say that U.S. manufacturers lack the financial means to meet the anticipated demand of electric cars.
"The technology exists today to put (electric drives) into an automobile," said Ener1 CEO Charles Gassenheimer at last week's Electric Drive Transportation Association's Conference & Exposition. "But it is not doable without the ability to drive down the cost of manufacturing."
Intel has invested in battery technology through its venture capital arm and other energy-related firms. Earlier this year, Intel also spun out SpectraWatt, which intends to lower the cost of manufacturing solar cells.
Grove has become an advocate for government policies that promote plug-in hybrid cars. This summer, he published a manifesto, called "Our Electric Future," in The American magazine, where he called for transitioning the American auto fleet to electricity for national security reasons.
"Because electricity is the stickiest form of energy, and because it is multi-sourced, it will give us the greatest degree of energy resilience. Our nation will be best served if we dedicate ourselves to increasing the amount of our energy that we use in the form of electricity," he wrote.
In a speech at the Plug-in 2008 conference in August, he called for a goal of putting 10 million plug-in vehicles on the road in 10 years.
Over here, or over there?
The WSJ piece leaves the reader with the impression that Grove might like to see Intel making batteries in the US. I'd love a transcript of the interview that underlies the piece, because it's not clear to me if this is the authors' takeaway, or if "let's make them in the US" was a point that Grove himself wanted to emphasize.
I bring this up because Intel doesn't actually make as many chips over here as they used to. Most of the company's sales are overseas (Asia is the biggest market), so that's where a large and growing percentage of its workforce is, as well. The company's pronounced shift in moving jobs abroad has been a sore spot for American Intel employees over the past decade, but I hear that, internally, the Intel top brass makes no bones about the fact that they have no qualms about moving the plants closer to the customers.
But regardless of where Grove wants to see these batteries made, Intel CEO Paul Otellini can't be too happy that his former chairman is exercised enough about this battery scheme that he's talking to the press about it and instigating a news cycle's worth of "should Intel make car batteries?" stories.
