China's Envision to buy controlling stake in Nissan battery unit

Envision Energy will acquire from Nissan Motor Co Ltd (TYO:7201) a controlling stake in Automotive Energy Supply Corp (AESC), a developer and producer of batteries for automotive applications.

Chinese wind technology and intelligent energy software firm Envision said Friday that Nissan will keep a minority equity stake in AESC. The latter will focus on the further development of battery storage technology and the Internet of Things (IoT) in the energy sector.

Envision said it plans to upgrade AESC's existing production facilities in Japan, the UK, and the US so as to produce higher density, long-range electric batteries. In order to better serve the Chinese market, where demand for EV and stationary lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries keeps growing, Envision intends to establish production capacity in Wuxi.

Envision's founder and chief executive, Lei Zhang, explained that electric vehicles (EVs) are in fact mobile intelligent power stations, whose growing popularity will have a significant impact on the electricity grid. The Chinese company is to integrate its IoT technology to make both the batteries and the charging process more intelligent. Thus, it will be possible to connect EVs into an energy eco-system and facilitate the intelligent balancing of energy usage and generation, which will be more and more important as renewable energy use grows, said the CEO.

For Nissan, the deal supports its plan to focus on developing and producing EVs. “We are confident that Envision will be a strong, long-term owner of the new company and that it will further grow as a battery company with increased competitiveness,” said Nissan chief competitive officer Yasuhiro Yamauchi.

The Li-ion batteries of AESC are used in over 340,000 Nissan LEAF vehicles. Envision’s intelligent IoT operating system, EnOS, currently manages 100 GW of energy assets globally.

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