Feb 22 2008
The Swedish ambassador, Stefan Noreén, today opened Morphic’s new Technology and Customer Center in Yokohama, Japan. The center will offer optimization of flow plates for fuel cells to customers in all Asian markets.
The flow plates are a key component of the fuel cells, and their design is crucial to the fuel cells’ performance as well as the overall cost. At the facility Morphic’s customers will be able to produce test series prior to ramping up for serial production.
One the world’s five largest automobile manufacturers has already booked the facility for the next six months, and several other car makers and consumer electronics manufacturers have also booked time. Serial production will then be carried out at Morphic subsidiary Cell Impact’s own production plants in Sweden or directly adjacent to the customer, provided that the volumes are large enough to justify establishing such facilities.
“There is strong interest in fuel cells in Asia, and several of our customers are on the verge of a broad market launch, so cutting the time-to-market is high on their agendas”, Martin Valfridsson, Cell Impact’s CEO, says. The venture marks an important step in Morphic’s marketing strategy for the Asian market. The aim is to show, on site, how flow plates can be produced less expensively and to a higher standard of quality using Morphic’s technology than is possible with the conventional methods available today.
“The customer center will allow us to increase our level of service in Asia, and also makes it possible for considerably larger teams of specialists from our client companies to take part in fine-tuning the products. This will help us to further raise awareness of the technology’s potential, which may lead to subcontract production work for components other than flow plates”, Martin Valfridsson adds.