From Reuters’ “Battery pioneer Akira Yoshino on Tesla, Apple and the electric future” posted Tuesday:
Akira Yoshino, a co-winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on lithium-ion batteries, can take credit for the upheaval in both the automotive and technology industries.
Lithium-ion batteries have provided the first serious competition in a century to fossil fuels and combustion engines for transportation. Now an honorary fellow at Asahi Kasei, the Japanese chemical firm where he has worked for nearly 50 years, Yoshino sees more disruption ahead as transportation and digital technology become one industry, sharing lithium battery technology.
Yoshino spoke with Reuters about about the next generation of electric vehicle batteries, the potential for shared autonomous electric vehicles that can charge themselves, the prospects for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and the possibility that Apple could lead the convergence of the automotive and information technology industries in future mobility…
Yoshino: Right now, the auto industry is thinking about how to invest in the future of mobility. At the same time, the IT industry is also thinking about the future of mobility. Somewhere, sometime, with the auto industry and the IT industry, there is going to be some kind of convergence for the future of mobility.
Tesla has their own independent strategy. The one to look out for is Apple. What will they do? I think they may announce something soon. And what kind of car would they announce? What kind of battery? They probably want to get in around 2025. If they do that, I think they have to announce something by the end of this year. That’s just my own personal hypothesis.
My take: Maybe we’ll get a battery announcement by year’s end. I’m not holding my breath for Apple’s final plans for the future of mobility.
Beginning of a pivot with more smoke cleared from the skies.
2025 is a reasonable guess that many have made.
I wished he would had commented on why he thinks “they have to” say something now.