The Maple Ridge company
that competes with the big
boys in making consumer
electronics batteries has
launched a bigger battery
for portable power tools.
E-One Moli Energy now
makes the world's most
powerful, rechargable
lithium-ion battery, the
energy source for the first complete line of cordless
power tools.
"People couldn't believe
this product was finally
coming out," spokesperson Alyson Cuthbertson said
Monday. "There was lots of
buzz."
IMONE PONNE - Photo Process operator Patrick Stenner does a visual
check on the new 26700 cells produced at E-Moli
Energy .
She was referring to Milwaukee Electric Tool Corp.'s first showing of the tools
at the International Builder's Show, Jan. 13 to 16, in Orlando, Florida.
The new battery, the 26700 [26 by 70 millimetres] was developed over three
years, and according to Milwaukee, allows cordless power tools, such as a
hammer drill, impact wrench, even a band saw, to match the performance of
tools with power cords.
For the past decade, E-One Moli has been making a smaller battery which
powers laptop computers. A plant in Taiwan also makes batteries for
cellphones.
But E-One Moli has only two per cent of the laptop market as it competes
with Sony, Sanyo and Panasonic.
While Sony and Sanyo have also developed high-power batteries, they're not
as powerful as E-One Moli's product, Cuthbertson said.
The latest product will allow E-One Moli to diversify by ranching into power
tools and eventually, supplying power sources for electric bikes or hybrid gaselectric
vehicles.The Maple Ridge plant is North America's only battery-making operation. It
competes with the rest of the world by innovating, meshing its research and
development with its manufacturing.
E-One Moli also allies itself with end customers
in developing the products while investing in new
manufacturing equipment, said executive vicepresident
Ken Broom. "We've got world-renowned scientists, PhDs that are experts in their fields,"
Cuthbertson said, adding management has remained in place
since the company started in 1987.
The plant recently started a high-speed production line that can pump out
1.5 million batteries a month. It spent more than $6 million on state-of-theart
manufacturing equipment for the new product, Broom said.E-Moli originally started as a spin-off company from research and
development at the University of British Columbia.
The company employs about 430 people in the Maple Meadows Business
Park.
It's a subsidiary of E-One Moli Energy Corp of Taiwan, which also has a plant
each in Taiwan and a battery-pack plant in China.
2005 News
