Battery Cell Manufacturers Time Impact

Many of our battery product lines use larger "D" and "F" cell nickel cadmium and nickel metal hydride battery cells.

For dry cell lithium ion, dry cell nickel cadmium, dry cell nickel metal hydride, and dry cell lead acid we use only Enersys Hawker, Panasonic, Saft France, and Sanyo battery cells.

Many of our primary industries use battery cell sizes such as "D" and "F" cells.  Today these size cells are no longer the main stream of the world wide industry.  They are the more durable but most expensive cell sizes.

Sanyo is the only one of the above that has an available "Sintered Positive Electrode Rapid Charge" Nickel Cadmium "D" cell, (4.0AH).

In today's Economy the above battery cell manufacturers are reluctant to activate large assembly runs of these cells and stock in warehouses inside the United States.  Like everyone else they too have gone to a perpetual inventory system.  But they are more drastic in their measures including a minimal cost savings at our expense.

EVEN WITH PLACED BLANKET ORDERS, WE NOR OUR EMPLOYEES HAVE ANY CONTROL OVER THE US WAREHOUSE STOCK DECISIONS OF ANY OF THESE MANUFACTURERS!  Our bills come due monthly, not every other 16 weeks.

For example:

Today's Battery Cell Manufacturers are basically:

• Chinese Plant, Chinese Management: There is NO regard or respect for quality, safety, or human beings.  Even though they now supply most of our market We will Not buy from these manufacturers. 

• Chinese Plant, Japanese Management: We will buy from Panasonic and Sanyo.  I have heard "rumor" in my grapevine that Panasonic is so disgusted in the quality standard, logistics, and Government personnel to the point that they have decided to construct a new facility back in Japan.

  • Panasonic has an Alkaline plant in South Georgia, USA.

• Chinese Plant, American Management: We will possibly by from UniRoss-x Saft Employees, but to date they have proven as unreliable to us as Saft direct.

• Duracell has plants all over the world, BUT, they have an alkaline plant nearby in Cleveland Tennessee.

• Enersys Hawker is from Britain but has facilities in Missouri and a lead acid plant outside Chattanooga in Ocoee Tennessee

Panasonic

Knowing that in 2009 Europe will no longer allow the sales of nickel cadmium products within the Europe, Panasonic has already dropped all larger nickel cadmium battery cells, which are the cells that are more expensive to produce and store.  Panasonic moved all USA battery sales offices to one location years ago.

• 10/24/2007: Panasonic plant for manufacturer of lithium ion cells in Japan recently burned.  Until that facility is back up and running Sanyo, Moli, and other lithium ion battery cell manufacturers have taken on the Panasonic clients and are allocating their cells causing longer lead times.

Sanyo

Sanyo has recently closed all US regional sales offices, leaving only one US office in Dallas Texas.

Saft France

Saft France likes to take off eight weeks in the winter and does not carry stock in the US during this time.  If you have an outstanding blanket order, tough.  They have also proven to have very unreliable delivery dates.  Depending on Saft alone with our blanket orders we went 39 out of 88 weeks with no "D" battery cells.

All four have reduced the volume of D and F cell assembly and have reduced the volume shipped into the US.

Remember, no chemical battery cell has an infinite shelf storage life.  Yes, you may get a charge into a battery not of recent manufacture, but, you will most definitely get less performance out of that cell. 

Quality battery cells are always expensive, but the "D" and "F" cell sizes used in many of the industries we support are much more expensive than other cells.

We never trust the age of battery cells available through most authorized value added vendors, (AVAD), for battery cells. We buy Saft and Sanyo direct and are the only stocking SAFT distributor in the US, when we can get cells.

Because we had none on the shelf, In April 2007 we placed, through our normal Sanyo AVAD channel, a small test order of 500 Sanyo N4000DRL cells for a space satellite project.  A quality sensitive order. The cells that arrived were date coded for January 2001.  We sent them back and had a 16 week lead time for new N4000DRL cells.

Because of our quality standards, the economy, and the new policies of the higher quality battery cell manufacturers we are constantly at the mercy of our selected battery cell manufacturers.

We could purchase today's norm, lower quality Chinese cells, but we are not like everyone else, especially the retail franchises.

Many times turn around is directly related or effected by the new policies of the battery cell manufacturers.  Please appreciate our position on selecting only the best available, and our inspection of battery cells we must occasionally purchase through another AVAD.

Panasonic, Saft, and Sanyo all have a new 10AH Ni-MH D cell heading for the US.  Their June 2007 stock in the US was ZERO.  All have a 16 week lead time.  Sanyo was to port first and we have this cell in stock.

The Cost of Nickel Impact on Your Price