TAIPEI — Dreams of fuel cells serving the power needs of a laptop PC or other new technology to significantly increase battery life won’t likely be available for years, an Acer Inc. executive says.
In fact, the recent recall of nearly 9.6 million notebook PC batteries over fears a manufacturing problem could cause them to overheat or catch fire highlights the main reason why battery technology moves slower than other technologies inside a laptop, said Jim Wong, president of IT products at Acer Inc., in an interview on Thursday.
Safety is a huge issue with batteries. Electricity is generated by chemical reactions inside a battery, which produces heat as a byproduct. With so much chemistry involved, a lot more product testing is required, therefore battery technology progresses more slowly, he said.
“The lithium-ion materials used in batteries today were discovered 30 to 40 years ago,” said Wong.
Fuel cells are promising, but the technology isn’t ready yet, and an infrastructure needs to be in place before the technology can be widely used, he said.
Fuel cells require fuels such as hydrogen, butane, methanol, or natural gas to produce power. Not only would fuel packets or refueling stations be needed for mass adoption of the technology in laptops, they would also need to be approved by aviation officials for use on airplanes.
There has been progress made on such approval, but in an age of terrorism fears, where even cigarette lighters have been banned, the process is moving understandably slow. And users aren’t likely to buy a laptop that can’t be taken with them on vacations or business trips that require air travel.
The battery issue is gaining more importance recently because the new era of multimedia laptops threatens to shorten battery life.
“High definition is a most formidable enemy to battery life,” said Wong.
HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc players in laptop PCs really drag on battery life. Companies offset some of the drain by putting bigger batteries inside machines and with power management technology aimed at shutting off parts of the machine that aren’t immediately being used. But such improvements only help a little bit. They’re not the kind of breakthrough that fuel-cells are expected to be.
Meanwhile, the company’s chairman predicted Acer will make big gains sales gains this year in both desktop and laptop PCs.
The company, which leaped into the number three spot in the global PC business during the first quarter of this year, expects first half shipments of desktop PCs to grow 50 percent year-on-year in the first half, J.T. Wang said in an interview.
“The first quarter was slow, but the second quarter has been very encouraging,” he said.
In laptops, Acer’s biggest product, Wang expects to see a sharp lift-off in consumer notebook shipments.
He forecast consumer laptop PC shipments to rise 50 percent to 70 percent year-over-year in 2007, mainly after its redesigned Aspire line of notebook PCs launches later this year. Next year, sales of the laptop will top 10 million units, he said.
Consumer notebooks make up about a third of Acer’s total notebook PC sales.
Acer worked with a design subsidiary of car maker BMW AG on its latest revamp of the Aspire, its mass market consumer notebook PC. The upgrade is aimed at putting a touch of fashion on a consumer laptop without increasing its price.
The sleek, curvy black laptop will be available globally in June, armed with Intel Corp.’s latest Santa Rosa set of chips, which includes upgrades of its notebook microprocessors and wireless technology. The Aspire is also packed with multimedia features, including Dolby surround sound, an HDMI slot, and more. Eventually, Acer plans to offer dozens of versions of the Aspire for different market segments, and with a range of features including built in HD DVD players, 17-inch screens and a choice of microprocessors and other components.
Acer passed Lenovo Group Ltd. to become the world’s third largest PC vendor in the first quarter. The company’s share of the global PC market rose to 6.8 percent in the first quarter, up a blistering 46.1 percent over the same three months last year, according to figures from market research company Gartner Inc. Lenovo’s share was 6.3 percent, dropping it to fourth place.
During the company’s first quarter investor conference last week, Acer executives said the company will increase PC shipments by 30 percent to 40 percent year-on-year in 2007.
IDG News Service
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