Guess Who Hopes to Help Power New Hybrid Cars

Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s largest gasoline refiner, wants a piece of the hybrid-car market.

After filling automobile gas tanks for decades, the company has started looking under the hood. It’s betting that further development of a component it created for cellphone batteries can help improve a new type of battery that may eventually power most hybrid cars. If it’s right, Exxon could play a part in ushering in a new generation of hybrid and electric cars, lessening the world’s reliance on gasoline.


Exxon won’t make the actual batteries, but its scientists have developed a plastic “separator” film that is already a critical part of lithium-ion batteries. As these batteries become more powerful — and if Exxon can keep them from exploding — they are expected to make the jump into hybrid cars.

At first blush, Exxon’s embrace of “green” hybrid technology may seem surprising — especially for a company whose executives scoffed for years at the idea that fossil fuels were causing global warming.

But even as it hunts the earth for new supplies of oil and natural gas, Exxon has worked on developing alternative energy technology. The company, which has big plastic and chemical operations, isn’t keen on the long-term prospects for biofuels, but it is bullish on the hybrid market. It believes that these gasoline sippers will grab a larger share of new-vehicle sales than the federal government forecasts. “We are interested in good business opportunities, and that is what this is,” says Jim Harris, senior vice president of Exxon’s chemical company.

Wall St. Journal