Marriage made in ebike heaven?

[halfmedley]

Just read this article on the web about Panasonic preparing to buy out Sanyo:

Panasonic wary of rivals as it prepares bid for Sanyo - Times Online

Given that a lot of ebikes have Panasonic motors, I thought the quote that "Panasonic would suddenly become by far the biggest global player in rechargeable batteries" would be of significance for ebikers!

 

[flecc]

Yes, Tim reported it on this thread and it looks as though it's going through without problems.

With China around it wouldn't be a monopoly threat though.
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[Footie]

halfmedley posted:
.... Given that a lot of ebikes have Panasonic motors, I thought the quote that "Panasonic would suddenly become by far the biggest global player in rechargeable batteries" would be of significance for ebikers!

I'm not sure I'm happy with the thought of Panasonic having a monopoly on rechargeable batteries.
A blessing and a curse rolled into one.
Good - may mean that batteries become more standardised. Not sure if they would influence the bikes coming in from China; cheap, cheerful bikes for the masses (not everyone wants to pay £1500 for a bike).
Bad - no good competition to make them keep high standards (also bad for fledgling technology).
Of course a recession also has a silver lining for the big players (who can weather the storm) - when it's all over all those annoying smaller traders will be gone to the wall
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[flecc]

No risk of monopoly except in Japan. China has a number of manufacturers, for example Phylion, Lishen and Advance to name but three influential ones.

Phylion are a part of Lenovo, a large electronics company who manufacture all the the ex IBM computers.

There are also EU manufacturers, though one was burnt out recently so production disrupted for a while.
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