Toshiba to Launch Innovative Rechargeable Battery Business

TOKYO--Toshiba Corporation announced the commercial launch of the SCiB the Super Charge ion Battery a breakthrough rechargeable battery primarily targeting the industrial systems market that can recharge to 90% of full capacity in less than five minutes.

"This is a truly innovative battery," said Mr. Toshiharu Watanabe, Corporate Vice President of Toshiba Corporation and Chief Executive Officer of Toshiba's Industrial Systems Company. "The excellent performance of the SCiB will assure its successful application in industrial systems and in the electronic vehicles markets as a new energy solution. In terms of environmental impacts, the SCiB offers a long life that will reduce waste."

Toshiba also revealed. In addition to applications that include battery-powered bicycles, motorcycles, automated guided vehicles, electric forklift trucks and construction machinery, the SCiB is also a promising candidate for emergency power sources, electric power regeneration in wind power systems and stabilization of electric power supply. 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.

The battery has a tremendous lifetime as stated by Toshiba. "Capacity loss after 3,000 cycles of rapid charge and discharge is less than 10%. SCiB has an excellent long lifecycle, and is able to repeat the charge-discharge cycle over 5,000 times. This means that the SCiB can be continuously used for more than 10 years with a once-a-day recharge-discharge cycle."

Along with the battery life, the power of the battery is excellent. As Toshiba explains. "The SCiB has an input-output performance equivalent to that of an electric double layer capacitor. This feature is suited to high power applications."