A spark of interest

Somehow, I kinda doubt Toshiba is going to risk damage to their considerable corporate reputation with a scurrilous announcement.

That being the case, they must already have their production facility up and basically running for them to be able to announce order shipments this coming spring. If that indeed be true, then a fairly straight-forward strategy appears. Using their existing production facility to attract investment interest from potential future customers (like every auto manufacturer in the world for only one example) is a very powerful strategic maneuver to minimize Toshiba's capital risk in purchasing the no doubt considerable infrastructure that will be necessary to service such a massive market.

Toshiba executives are certain to be aware that virtually the first "customers" to buy whichever product utilizes their new battery technology will be other battery manufacturers seeking to reverse engineer it. Having an investment agreement in place with as many potential customers as possible before that inevitably occurs will work to extend Toshiba's market advantage. For potential retail customers like myself, those corporations that do invest in this battery technology for their markets will be pressing for as rapid a development curve as practicable so as to not keep such substantial amounts of capital unproductive. This means an earlier availability of products using this battery technology then would be possible for Toshiba to achieve on it's own.

If I start saving with the new year, I ought to have a reasonable percentage of the purchase price for an all-electric vehicle in the 2.5 years I expect will be required for this new battery tech to begin retail product sales. And then only if this tech scales as well as Toshiba seems confidant it will. No way to tell about that aspect of the corporation from this remove.

All in all, a positive development to look forward to, I think.