NGK Spark Plugs Shift Focus to Building Solid-State EV Batteries

As the world’s biggest economies set their sights on eliminating gasoline engines in the years to come, the world's biggest spark plug manufacturer follows suit by shifting its focus to replacing its core products with one that it believes will be vital to electric cars just as spark plugs are to gasoline engines--solid state batteries.

For years, Japan's NGK Spark Plug Co. has harnessed ceramics technology to expand from spark plugs to sensors, semiconductors, and other automobile-centric products. Now, it wants to leverage its expertise in electronics to build 100-percent solid-state batteries, which many believe will be safer and more powerful than the lithium-ion batteries, which are currently the top-of-the-line tech in battery-powered electric vehicles (EVs).

"We realized that it was inevitable that the industry would at some point shift from the internal combustion engine to battery EVs, and that ultimately this could make our spark plug and oxygen sensor businesses obsolete," Takio Kojima, senior general manager of engineering and R&D at NGK Spark Plug said in an interview. "Our expertise is in advanced ceramics, and so we have decided to pursue all solid-state batteries."

It's interesting that this statement, which openly accepts the inevitability of EVs, comes from one of Japan's top auto parts suppliers. However, contrary to Kojima’s belief, many in the industry are citing hydrogen fuel cell batteries are the future of EVs.

Established in 1936, NGK has lorded over the spark plug market for 150 years, but with the internal combustion engine nearing its demise and ever-tightening global emissions regulations make life more difficult for automakers, the spark plug company feels now is the right time to shift its gears.

Kojima said that the company started feeling the need for change around 2010, the year Nissan Motor Co. launched the Nissan Leaf, the world's first mass-production battery-powered EV. It was also the year after Tesla Inc. released its first production car, the Roadster.

Other global auto parts makers are also feeling the pinch, and are speeding up the overhaul of their product portfolios. Japan's Denso Corp, another spark plug manufacturer, partnered with Toyota and Mazda to develop battery EVs. Meanwhile, transmission maker Aisin Seiki Co. is developing EV-specific four-wheel drive hybrid transmission systems.