Battery and charging technology development company Highpower International, based in Shenzhen, China, has secured a deal to supply large format lithium-ion batteries to Huizhou Yipeng Energy Technology for use in buses in China.
In a deal worth up to $5m for the 2014 financial year, Highpower will supply 16Ah and 20Ah lithium-nickel cobalt manganese batteries to Huizhou Yipen for use in hybrid and plug-in hybrid buses. Huizhou Yipen will integrate the batteries with battery management systems into the buses for multiple Chinese bus manufacturers.
Highpower CEO, George Pan said: “Yipeng’s technical team, most notably in its battery management system, have years of prior R&D and business development experiences with global auto companies such as General Motor, Ford, Eaton Corp and ZF. By collaborating with Huizhou Yipeng, we expect to fast track our penetration into the EV market.”
The deal marks Highpower’s first foray into batteries for electrified vehicles after many years in the consumer electronics market. The company has run prototype lithium polymer batteries in electric buses since 2008 to enter the EV market. This could prove lucrative because the Chinese government has stated it aims to grow annual domestic EV production to over 5m by 2020.
