The Tragic Story of Sanyo: How the Company Inside Everyone's Devices Lost Its Own Name.

Sanyo was the third largest electronics company in Japan and the biggest maker of rechargeable batteries on Earth. It built close to a third of the world's digital cameras, the cells inside your camcorder and your cordless drill, and the batteries almost every gear enthusiast still swears by. Then it lost its own name to the company its founder's brother-in-law built — and the product it invented now carries somebody else's badge. This is the full story: from a bicycle dynamo workshop in occupied Osaka in 1947, through the rescue of Fisher and the golden age of Otto direct drive turntables, to the 2006 bailout that handed Goldman Sachs, Sumitomo Mitsui and Daiwa five of the eight board seats — and the moment the founder's grandson was removed for refusing to sell the company for parts. We cover the Eneloop story and why it beat every high-capacity rival, the HIT solar cells Sanyo was building fifteen years too early, the Solar Ark that's being demolished right now, the Panasonic takeover, and the pieces that went to Kyocera, Haier and FDK. Plus the one asset in the building that nobody bid for. #Sanyo #Eneloop #Panasonic #VintageAudio #HiFi #JapaneseElectronics #TechHistory #BusinessDocumentary