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WASHINGTON — Seeking to put the nation back in the lead on an important technology, the Obama administration on Tuesday awarded more than $2 billion in grants for advanced battery manufacturing, mostly for electric cars.
The president and four members of his cabinet fanned out across the nation’s industrial heartland, hard hit by the recession, to announce the grants, meant to help companies scale up large-scale manufacturing lines for modern batteries of the sort now mostly made in Asia.
President Obama traveled to Elkhart, Ind., for example, to give a $39 million grant to Navistar International, a truck manufacturer. And he sent the vice president, the secretaries of energy and commerce, the deputy secretary of transportation and the head of the Environmental Protection Agency to other cities to make similar announcements.
In most cases, the recipients were required to match the federal money dollar for dollar. Some companies that received grants make chemicals for batteries, or components for chemical batteries. Several make capacitors, which are mechanical devices that can absorb or give off jolts of electricity in a few seconds. Those are useful in electric vehicles, for getting them moving or absorbing the electricity they can produce when the driver applies the brakes.
The money comes from the stimulus package and is intended to serve several goals: cutting dependence on petroleum, reducing carbon emissions, creating jobs and giving the United States a better start on what is likely to be a competitive global industry as companies start bringing electric cars to market.
Sarwant Singh, a consultant at Frost & Sullivan, said the business should work well in the United States, because only 10 to 15 percent of the cost of a battery was labor. “There’s no reason that this battery should be manufactured in China,” he said. “There’s no reason to look for a low-cost manufacturing base; you should look for a high-tech manufacturing base.”
The Volt, the coming electric car from General Motors that will have a small gasoline engine and also draw power from a wall socket, dominated the grants.
G.M. received $106 million for the production of battery packs for the car, which is planned for next year and is supposed to go the first 40 miles each day on electricity and the rest on gasoline. G.M. will make the packs in Brownstown, Mich.
Compact Power, an affiliate of LG Chemical, received $151 million, one of the largest grants, for production of cells for the Volt. It will do that work in the Michigan towns of St. Clair, Pontiac and Holland.
In addition, G.M. got $30 million to build 125 Volts for electric utilities and 500 more for other consumers to use as a test fleet. That comes to nearly $49,000 a vehicle.
And it received $105 million for construction of factories to produce a second generation of electric vehicles, with rear-wheel drive, in White Marsh, Md., and Wixom, Mich. (The Volt is front-wheel drive.)
The Ford Motor Company got $30 million to work with 15 electric utilities and deploy up to 150 plug-in hybrid vehicles, including the Escape, its small sport utility vehicle, and the E450, heavy-duty vans derived from the old Econoline series.
Chrysler got $70 million to develop and deploy 220 plug-in hybrid pickups and minivans. Since the auto bailouts, the federal government owns 61 percent of G.M. and 8 percent of Chrysler.
Greg Martin, a spokesman for G.M., said the reason that the company did so well in the grants was that it was ahead of its American competitors in developing a plug-in hybrid.
“It’s really captured the imagination of the country and the consumer,” Mr. Martin said. “If we’re not going to take the leadership in this, other countries will.”
In fact, foreign manufacturers with plants in the United States also got a slice. A partner of Nissan, Electric Transportation Engineering Corporation, which is based in Phoenix, got nearly $100 million to demonstrate up to 5,000 all-electric vehicles.
The money is mostly for lithium-ion batteries, but spread around several different chemistries within that group. A Seattle company, EnerG2, got $21 million, which it said would be used to build the world’s first commercial-scale plant for nano-structured battery materials. Those materials reduce battery weight by providing large amounts of space for chemical reactions, in nooks and crannies of finely textured materials.
Some of the money is for education, but it is not for research. Nearly all the money is being spent to reduce battery production costs, by getting manufacturing started on a mass basis.
Not all the money went to batteries. A small Oregon company, Cascade Sierra Solutions, got $22 million to install electric outlets in truck stops, and to help modify 5,450 trucks, so that when drivers park, the cabs can be heated or cooled without idling their diesel engines. Colleges and universities got money for research or for training mechanics.
By MATTHEW L. WALD
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/business/06battery.html?hp
The president and four members of his cabinet fanned out across the nation’s industrial heartland, hard hit by the recession, to announce the grants, meant to help companies scale up large-scale manufacturing lines for modern batteries of the sort now mostly made in Asia.
President Obama traveled to Elkhart, Ind., for example, to give a $39 million grant to Navistar International, a truck manufacturer. And he sent the vice president, the secretaries of energy and commerce, the deputy secretary of transportation and the head of the Environmental Protection Agency to other cities to make similar announcements.
In most cases, the recipients were required to match the federal money dollar for dollar. Some companies that received grants make chemicals for batteries, or components for chemical batteries. Several make capacitors, which are mechanical devices that can absorb or give off jolts of electricity in a few seconds. Those are useful in electric vehicles, for getting them moving or absorbing the electricity they can produce when the driver applies the brakes.
The money comes from the stimulus package and is intended to serve several goals: cutting dependence on petroleum, reducing carbon emissions, creating jobs and giving the United States a better start on what is likely to be a competitive global industry as companies start bringing electric cars to market.
Sarwant Singh, a consultant at Frost & Sullivan, said the business should work well in the United States, because only 10 to 15 percent of the cost of a battery was labor. “There’s no reason that this battery should be manufactured in China,” he said. “There’s no reason to look for a low-cost manufacturing base; you should look for a high-tech manufacturing base.”
The Volt, the coming electric car from General Motors that will have a small gasoline engine and also draw power from a wall socket, dominated the grants.
G.M. received $106 million for the production of battery packs for the car, which is planned for next year and is supposed to go the first 40 miles each day on electricity and the rest on gasoline. G.M. will make the packs in Brownstown, Mich.
Compact Power, an affiliate of LG Chemical, received $151 million, one of the largest grants, for production of cells for the Volt. It will do that work in the Michigan towns of St. Clair, Pontiac and Holland.
In addition, G.M. got $30 million to build 125 Volts for electric utilities and 500 more for other consumers to use as a test fleet. That comes to nearly $49,000 a vehicle.
And it received $105 million for construction of factories to produce a second generation of electric vehicles, with rear-wheel drive, in White Marsh, Md., and Wixom, Mich. (The Volt is front-wheel drive.)
The Ford Motor Company got $30 million to work with 15 electric utilities and deploy up to 150 plug-in hybrid vehicles, including the Escape, its small sport utility vehicle, and the E450, heavy-duty vans derived from the old Econoline series.
Chrysler got $70 million to develop and deploy 220 plug-in hybrid pickups and minivans. Since the auto bailouts, the federal government owns 61 percent of G.M. and 8 percent of Chrysler.
Greg Martin, a spokesman for G.M., said the reason that the company did so well in the grants was that it was ahead of its American competitors in developing a plug-in hybrid.
“It’s really captured the imagination of the country and the consumer,” Mr. Martin said. “If we’re not going to take the leadership in this, other countries will.”
In fact, foreign manufacturers with plants in the United States also got a slice. A partner of Nissan, Electric Transportation Engineering Corporation, which is based in Phoenix, got nearly $100 million to demonstrate up to 5,000 all-electric vehicles.
The money is mostly for lithium-ion batteries, but spread around several different chemistries within that group. A Seattle company, EnerG2, got $21 million, which it said would be used to build the world’s first commercial-scale plant for nano-structured battery materials. Those materials reduce battery weight by providing large amounts of space for chemical reactions, in nooks and crannies of finely textured materials.
Some of the money is for education, but it is not for research. Nearly all the money is being spent to reduce battery production costs, by getting manufacturing started on a mass basis.
Not all the money went to batteries. A small Oregon company, Cascade Sierra Solutions, got $22 million to install electric outlets in truck stops, and to help modify 5,450 trucks, so that when drivers park, the cabs can be heated or cooled without idling their diesel engines. Colleges and universities got money for research or for training mechanics.
By MATTHEW L. WALD
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/business/06battery.html?hp
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