GM has just announced that the Chevy Volt battery will come with an 8-year / 100,000 mile warranty.

The announcement came today during a media briefing at a battery manufacturing facility in Michigan by GM Vice Chairman tom Stephens who went on to say that it has always been GM’s goal and intention to provide the Chevy Volt with a lithium-ion battery pack that would last for the entire life of the vehicle.

While GM refers to the Volt as an electric car, the California Air Resources Board looks at the range extending engine and considers the battery to be part of the its emission control system which means that it is mandated to have an eight-year warranty.

Other Chevy Volt battery pack details include the fact that 95% of its components were designed and built by GM, it weighs a hefty 400 lbs., and packs 110 kilowatts.

Toyota president Akio Toyoda recently let it slip that Toyota is currently creating an electric car that uses a Tesla battery pack. The interesting tidbit came out while he was answering inquiries regarding the Tesla and Toyota relationship.

While Toyota currently has a joint venture with Panasonic who is building their larger car batteries, Toyoda indicated that they are definitely interested in seeing what they can do with the Tesla 18650-format cells that are generally the type of battery found in laptops. By way of example, the Tesla Roadster battery pack uses 6,831 of these cells to power the electric sports car.

The likelihood of seeing Toyota cars using Tesla battery packs will all depend on how well they perform in these prototype tests which will look at the their ability to function past large scale accumulated mileage and extreme weather conditions.

If you’ve got a Christmas wish list that includes, “Electric vehicle with 500 mile range,” then you might be in luck. The Electric Drive Vehicle Deployment Act of 2010 is a bill that’s currently sitting in the House and Senate which could help grant you your Christmas wishes.

The bill has several important measures but the Senate version has a particularly interesting measure that would award a $10 million prize to the first company to create a commercially viable electric vehicle battery that could provide a range of 500 miles on a single charge.

While a 500 mile range sounds wonderful, it also sounds a little ridiculous. Maybe it would be better to encourage a lower cost battery with a range closer to 200 miles and focus on quick charging stations. Lots of gas powered cars can’t even make 500 miles on a single tank of gas. So heck, why stop at 500. Why don’t they offer $100 million for a 2,000 mile range battery that sings Carmina Burana to you while massaging your back and doing your laundry?

Toyota is reportedly looking to parlay the popularity of the Prius into a whole new line of vehicles under a possible Toyota sub-brand. This sub-brand would be made up of a line of hybrid vehicles including a Hybrid SUV and a Hybrid Station Wagon (pictured above).

With hybrid vehicles gaining popularity in the U.S., larger hybrid versions of the popular Prius might satisfy that American need to size and storage capacity. Soccer mom’s alone could justify a Toyota Hybrid Station Wagon.

According to a Japanese newspaper, Toyota executives are looking at using lithium-ion battery packs for the upcoming line of hybrid vehicles, even though Toyota has in the past stated that they felt lithium-ion batteries were too expensive.

There is still a great deal of speculation surrounding this possible new line of eco-friendly vehicles, so stay tuned as more details come forth.

According to a recent report by Japanese news agency, Nikkei, Toyota is planning to start producing around between 20,000 and 30,000 Plug-in versions of the Prius hybrid. The new electric plug-in version of the Prius Hybrid will cost around $48,000.

An interesting price point considering that the Chevy Volt is expected to start selling this year for $8,000 less than that. Plus, the standard Toyta Prius will be selling for less than half the cost of a plug-in Prius.

Toyota is expected to use lithium ion batteries with a 12-18 mile range although it hasn’t been revealed if that’s just on battery power alone or if the engine will need to run at all.

Test fleets of the plug-in Toyota Prius will start running this year. We’ll keep you informed on the results of those test.

It didn’t take long for Michigan’s recently announced tax breaks to accomplish the goal of bringing in electric and hybrid vehicle battery manufacturing facilities. In fact, in just two days since it was declared that the tax breaks and incentives would be extended to $555 million we have seen the announcement of four manufactures planning to build plants in Michigan.

The four companies, each of whom are expected to receive the maximum of $100 million in tax credits, are: A123 Systems, KD Advanced Battery Group LLC along with Dow Chemical and Kokam America, LG Chem-Compact Power, and Johnson Controls-Saft Advanced Power Solutions LLC.

The plants will create a combine 6,600 jobs while the cost of building them will be around $1.7 billion.

Car-battery maker A123 Systems Inc. has just finished raising $69 million, $15 million of which came from General Electric. This sum puts GE’s total ownership of the company at 10 percent and gets it a seat on the company’s board.

The money will go to building factories in Michigan to build lithium-ion batteries for the hybrid and electric car industry.

A123′s large investment is great news for Michigan, who has obviously suffered terribly from the recession and it’s effects on the auto industry.

A123 has already secured a major purchase of its batteries in Chrysler who will use the batteries for its upcoming line of electric cars.

President and chief executive of A123, Dave Vieau, stated that the success of the capital campaign shows that despite the crippled economy, investors are still looking for alternative energy tech that has potential.

By 2013 the production facilities that A123 is going to build will be capable of producing batteries for five million hybrid vehicles or a half-million plug-in electric cars like the Chrysler 200C EV pictured above.

In its latest bid to raise enough funds to build 10,000 electric cars by 2012, Daimler has sold off $2.7 billion worth of its shares to the Abu Dhabi government.

This isn’t an unusual move for Abu Dhabi companies. They have already invested in eco-friendly vehicles with Zap and Lotus.

Nor is this an unusual move for Daimler who has partnered with Evonik to develop and produce lithium ion batteries. They also partnered with Tesla Motors on the Smart Ed.

Axeon, the largest supplier of lithium-ion batteries throughout Europe, has just announced the development of a lithium-ion battery that nearly doubled the range of its test electric vehicles.

The Deparment of Transport funded a two year test program that saw the new Axeon batteries power a 2.5 ton delivery truck and increase its range from 76 miles to 150 miles.

While this is an extreme increase it is contradicted by a similar independent study which only saw a 25 percent increase in range.

Nonetheless, news of this most recent study helped propel Axeon stock prices up by two-thirds.

Axeon is currently producing lithium-ion battery packs for several electric car manufacturers including Daimler, who will use the new battery for their upcoming Smart Ed.

Volkswagen’s upcoming new line of small electric cars will see their electric drive trains developed in concert with Japan’s Toshiba Corporation.

According to Volkswagen, their goal is to produce the first affordable electric car. They admit that while there is a still a lot of research and development required in order for them to be able to mass produce such an electric car, they expect their first model to be available as early as 2012.

Toshiba’s lithium-ion batteries will power the new line of Volkswagen electric cars and will use their Super Charge Ion Battery (SCIB) technology. The SCIB is resistant to shorting and can impressively absorb 90 percent of its maximum charge in only a few minutes.

Toshiba will also be looking for other places to make use of the SCIB technology like electric bikes and electric industrial vehicles.