SCiB - Super Charge ion Battery
Toshiba has today announced the commercial launch of its breakthrough SCiB “Super Charge ion Battery,” a rather amazing new rechargeable battery tech. In short, SCiB cells are capable of recharging from empty to 90% capacity in just five minutes, a rather astounding advance over current Li-on cells. Better yet, Toshiba states that SCiB batteries are rated for 10-years or more of life, even under constant rapid charging stress.
Toshiba is initially targeting commercial applications in the automotive and industrial fields for the SCiB cells and is ready to begin supplying manufacturers today. The first products making use of the cells are expected to begin shipping in March 2008. Toshiba envisions a rather healthy future for the technology and has set a global sales target of 100-Billion yen (roughly $900-million) for fiscal year 2015.
The future potential for SCiB rechargeable batteries seems quite bright. Even if laptops will still only run for about 4-hours on a charge a couple years down the line, 5-minutes of recharging as opposed to an hour or more today will greatly expand the mobile functionality of almost all portable devices. If SCiB scales up well to higher voltage demand the dream of practical fully-electric cars may also be greatly advanced by SCiB. [ign.com]
