Micro Hybrid Market a Major Growth Area for Varta Brand

The trend towards environmentally-friendlier vehicles, particularly those drawing on the benefits of start-stop technology, has been observed with interest by Johnson Controls. The company notes that, of the 20 plus new cars at the show fitted with its Varta batteries, nearly a quarter of them featured an AGM (absorbent glass matt) battery to power this energy-saving technology. Indeed, driven by EU targets to reduce CO2, the micro-hybrid market is accelerating. Johnson Controls notes that, since the adoption of stop-start technology in the BMW1 Series, more than a million micro-hybrid cars fitted with Varta AGM battery power have been sold in Europe. A further estimated 2.5 million micro hybrid vehicles will be manufactured by 2010, and this is expected to rise to 10 million by 2015.