I take minor issue with the way you describe the situation Ejected Filament. I haven’t seen any protected cells with an external wrapper claiming to be a Panasonic. It’s a clear external wrapper used to cover a protection circuit and a Panasonic cell. Nothing disingenuous about that. It’s just a way of making it clear what’s under the hood.
IMO auto manufacturer rebadging and shared parts across affiliated or non-affiliated brands really doesn’t illustrate the Panasonic/Sanyo situation all that clearly except to show that “it’s complicated.” The key thing to note in your example is that while GM may have had all 4 of those brands, most Pontiacs were not rebadged Chevys, Buicks, etc. Parts sourcing isn’t really what we are talking about here… we don’t care where the cans come from or who mixes the slurry. We care about things like the proprietary mixes of “stuff” that define the slurry and the R&D driving those mixes. It seems that even if a company wants to combine product lines it can take a very long time do get it done. You’ve got industrial customers depending on the features of two somewhat divergent product lines, so you may not be able to just axe either one - even if it’s clearly not as good as the other. Plus you’ve got all the research to collate - both R&D teams were probably not operating from the same playbook so the “features” from your different chemistries may not be obviously compatible. You could spend a ton of time getting the stars to align for that. Or you could just operate most of it as a separate business unit, wait for opportunities to arise, and sell it off if it becomes convenient. In the meantime you sell yourself licenses at a very fair price whenever it seems that you can get stuff to work together. At least that’s what it seems like to me.
The notions regarding GM relate to shared R&D and the comments made earlier about still having the Mustang and Camaro, and that shared R&D is separate. An actual situation did occur in that we got both the Firebird and Camaro and those companies (Pontiac and Chev) shared a lot of R&D, and those cars share the F platform not simply some parts. I understood the demonstration of the Mustang and the Camaro, but a closer actual application occurred was what I was saying. While we have to some degree had much sharing, US makers are moving toward global platforms more and more. Companies have and will share anything from a supplier to a recipe to a design to anything really, if they are subsidiaries or co-owned. In fact Nissan and Ford, and GM and Toyota had a sharing arrangement with entire vehicles here and in those cases I dont think there is any co ownership. The Ford XF Utility was sold as both the Ford XF Utility, and the Nissan ute. They were, identical (panels, engines, gearboxes, differentials, headlights, taillights, mirrors etc) except for badging, with the exception that each company had selected its own material for interior finishes and I think slight grille changes. They had a reciprocal arrangement to rebadge the Nissan Patrol as the Ford Maverick 4x4. I never said its all they do, I just said they do it and not necessarily by half. Toyota also had a product named from the GM stable. Ford also bought a chunk of Mazda to learn how to build a small car for Europe and Asia, and produced what we know as the Ford Laser, I think the US has it as the Mercury Tracer, which is from Mazdas 323 (here at least, the grilles and lights were different, and slight changes in front panels and interior finishes too). Ford had to buy more of Mazda to get its hands on the process and not simply benefit from that knowledge Mazda had, at the original ownership percentage, Mazda wasnt sharing the proprietary processes it used.
I wasnt being literal in relation to calling Pansonic cells fakes. The comments regarding Panasonic and the protection ICs were related to the notion of under licence. I get that knowing the cells origins is important, but its not a Panasonic protected cell its a Panasonic cell, protected. There is potential for some degree of confusion in calling it a Panasonic Protected Cell in that some people would perceive that as a product released by Panasonic as it is. We know that it is not, but not everyone does. Just as a common thing I hear said by people about their LED light is its a Cree light but they mean it was built by Cree, same goes for Chinese LED light bars on cars, not simply the LED maker is Cree in their mind, and it doesnt even matter that the LED is not Cree either, its just bright to them so must be one of these wang fangled Cree lights they hear tale of.
Didnt the Eneloops, Duraloops and Fujitsu LSD cells appear to be made not simply in the same place but to the same standards and recipes according to tests. I guess the can could be different but the testing demonstrated or at least implied they were not just from the same place, but essentially the same cell from what I recall. This is in relation to the two companies in question.
Im not suggesting any line would be deleted, I agree the cells were likely designed for a specific set of demands by lets say HP for a specific laptop or Milwaukee for a cordless power tool range. While another maker has requested different demands with their supplier. Now both chemical mixes exist and when a buy out occurs, unless demand for one fell, they would both continue unless rationalised by the maker. But ideally for the cell maker would be a single chemistry that fitted all demands. While say HP might like to set itself apart by using the “best” designed cell for X performance parameter, even if its nothing more than hype.
