A year after first revealing its interest in Sanyo, Panasonic has finally won control of its electronics rival.
Panasonic said Thursday that it has secured a 50.2 percent majority ownership of Sanyo, as it moves to turn Sanyo into a subsidiary and create one of the world's largest electronics makers. To win its slice of Sanyo, Panasonic is paying 403 billion yen ($4.59 billion), or 131 yen per Sanyo share.
The deal gives Panasonic control of such Sanyo products as rechargeable batteries and solar panels, potentially lucrative businesses in light of the world's desire for greener technology. Both firms already enjoy a huge market share selling fuel-efficient batteries to automakers, a segment that's likely to skyrocket with the growing popularity of hybrid cars.
Panasonic is buying more than 3 billion shares from Sanyo's top three investors--Goldman Sachs, Daiwa Securities SMBC, and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking. Collectively--which own a 70 percent slice of Sanyo, purchased in 2006 when Sanyo was forced to issue stock to raise extra cash.
Panasonic revealed its interest in Sanyo in December 2008, when the deal was first valued much higher than the final purchase price. Delayed by regulatory concerns, the takeover offer was finally initiated last month.
Both Panasonic and Sanyo have faced a tough market as the two have had to cut staff and trim expenses to make ends meet. Sanyo has been hit badly, most recently losing 37 billion yen in its April-September quarter.
Lenovo's ThinkPad T61 is one of several notebooks known to have an error-prone battery.
(Credit: CNET)Lenovo on Friday said it will replace batteries on several of its ThinkPad laptops that show error messages.
Some users are reporting batteries are displaying error messages that read "Irreparable damage" or "Battery cannot be charged," and others are reporting their battery runs only for a very short time or experiences a sudden drop in its fuel gauge. It's known to occur on these ThinkPad models: T60, T61, R60, R61, X60, and X61.
Though it does not pose a safety risk, and it is not a product recall, Lenovo said, it will give those affected a replacement battery.
After two reports of flaming laptop batteries, the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced Thursday that Hewlett-Packard is voluntarily recalling 70,000 lithium-ion batteries that shipped with several models of its HP and Compaq laptops.
HP's Pavilion dv9500 is one of 21 HP laptops affected by Thursday's battery recall.
(Credit: CNET)The recall affects nine models of HP Pavilions, nine models of Compaq Presarios, two models of HPs, and one HP Compaq laptop model sold between August 2007 and March 2008. For the full list, see the CPSC's site.
There were two separate reports of batteries that "overheated and ruptured, resulting in flames/fire that caused minor property damage" but no injuries, according to the CPSC report.
HP is instructing consumers who may be part of the recall to remove the battery from their notebook and contact HP to find out if theirs is affected. HP says it will provide a free replacement battery. For more information, see HP's Battery Replacement Program site.
Palo Alto, Calif.-based HP is the world's largest computer vendor, and like many of its peers in the industry has been part of several similar battery recalls. The most recent incident involved 100,000 Sony-made batteries faulted for overheating late last year. HP had sold 32,000 of the affected batteries in its laptops. But that was tiny by comparison to the massive recall caused by Sony batteries in 2006.
Intel-backed start-up ZPower may be the first to introduce an alternative to the ubiquitous lithium-ion laptop battery, with a silver-zinc technology the company says will make its debut with a large laptop maker in 2009.
The company promises up to 40 percent more run time than current lithium-ion batteries, and says its batteries are 95 percent recyclable.
ZPower's silver-zinc battery
(Credit: CNET News)ZPower made the announcement ahead of the Batteries 2008 conference in Nice, France, which began Wednesday, and where ZPower's chief executive, Ross Dueber, will be presenting ZPower's take on silver-zinc technology, also known as silver-oxide.
Silver-zinc batteries were initially developed for aircraft, and were used to power the Apollo spacecraft, as well as finding their way into torpedoes and the U.S. Alfa class submarine.
ZPower has also improved the batteries to be good for more than 200 cycles at full discharge. While this is an improvement over older silver-zinc technology, it is still lower than lithium-ion batteries, which laptop makers say should last for 300 to 500 cycles at full discharge. However, silver-zinc holds a charge longer, so you can use the battery for longer before it needs a recharge.
The lack of lithium and a water-based chemistry means silver-zinc batteries are not susceptible to the inflammability issues that have plagued some lithium-ion batteries, and that caused widespread laptop battery recalls last year, ZPower said.
Due to the high cost of silver, silver-zinc batteries have never come into large-scale consumer use except for in small "button" cells, such as watch batteries. ZPower said it plans to offset this cost through a trade-in policy that will reduce the need to mine for new materials. Ninety-five percent of the key materials in the batteries are recyclable and reusable, and the raw materials recovered in the recycling process are of the same quality as those used to create the battery, ZPower said.
Another traditional concern with silver-zinc batteries is mercury leakage. Mercury has been traditionally used in the batteries to suppress zinc corrosion, which leads to hydrogen production and deformation of the shape of the battery. The poisonous mercury left in such cells at the end of their useful lives is a serious ecological concern.
ZPower said it has addressed shape-change problems with its zinc anode, a composite polymer electrode that inhibits both shape change and the growth of dendrites, a problem for silver-zinc batteries as well as other battery technologies.
Other innovations in the batteries are a new separator stack that resists dendrite growth and silver cathode degradation, and a nano particle coating on the silver cathode that is designed to enhance conductivity, ZPower said.
ZPower, which counts Intel as one of its main financial backers, first demonstrated its technology at the Intel Developer Forum in August.
Battery life has remained a major issue for powering laptops and consumer electronics, with electronics makers looking to extend the length of a charge via techniques such as silicon nanowires or simply by making other parts of the device, such as the screen and the disk drive, more efficient.
Environmental impact has also been a serious concern, since most batteries end up in a landfill; currently less than 2 percent of consumer batteries are collected when they become waste, according to Defra. The European Union is attempting to encourage battery recycling via a revised Batteries Directive, which became law in EU member states in late September.
Matthew Broersma of ZDNet UK reported from London.
Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry is examining three reports of overheating iPod Nanos sparking fires, Reuters reported.
The first-generation iPod Nano.
(Credit: Apple)The government agency said Apple had reported two other cases in which people had suffered minor burns.
The trade ministry said iPod Nanos with known overheating incidents were sold in Japan between September 2005 and September 2006.
Faulty batteries may be the cause of the incidents, the agency said.
Batteries have been traced to a host of issues with laptops and other mobile devices. Apple was one of several companies that had to recall notebooks in 2006 after problems led to overheating and fires.
Apple officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
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