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Bridgestone soars on battery prospect
TOKYO, Japan -- Bridgestone Corp. has developed a way of doubling how long an electric car's battery can run, according to a report. Bridgestone stock is racing ahead on Tuesday as a result, up 9.79 percent to 1,671 yen by the noon break. That's outpacing the Nikkei average on a day it is also performing well, up 2.94 percent. Bridgestone's invention is an additive that goes in a battery's electrolyte solution, making lithium-ion batteries noncombustible, according to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun. Lithium-ion batteries can hold twice as much electricity as a conventional nickel-hydrogen battery. But they catch fire at high temperatures because they are made of phosphorus and nitrogen. That means they have been restricted to smaller applications, such as in mobile phones. But Bridgestone's additive will let carmakers use the batteries in electric cars. A 400 kilometer rideThe new battery would double the distance a car could run on a single charge, to around 400 kilometers (250 miles). The company said there is no loss of the battery's power storage using the additive. According to the Nikkei, the additive would also make it around 20 percent cheaper to make lithium-ion batteries for mobile phones and personal computers. Those devices currently require a device to stop the batteries combusting. The Tokyo-based tire maker plans to start selling the battery in test markets in 2003. It projects that half of the battery makers in Japan would begin using the additive. That would boost the lithium-ion battery market from around 300 billion yen ($2.5 billion) in 2000 to 1.6 trillion yen ($13.1 billion) by 2010.
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