News and New Products

Electric-car development spurs investment in US battery manufacturing

By Margery Conner, Technical Editor -- EDN, 1/16/2009

At last month’s Detroit Auto Show, General Motors made the long-awaited announcement that LG Chem, a Korean lithium-ion-battery-cell manufacturer, will be providing the cells for the Chevy Volt PHEV (plug-in-hybrid-electric vehicle). GM made much of the fact that it will assemble keep assembly of the battery pack in the United States. However, the guts of a battery pack, both in weight, cost, and intellectual property, are in the cells, of which the United States has apparently fallen off the map in being a volume producer.

Contrast these start-up ventures with BYD’s F3DM PHEV, which it unveiled a few weeks ago in China and planned to begin selling in the United States for around $20,000, in 2011, priced at around $20,000. BYD got its start making after-market lithium-ion batteries for cell phones, and got into the EV-battery market on the strength of its founder’s belief that the future of transportation lay in EVs. BYD has more than 20 years’ experience developing and manufacturing lithium-ion batteries.

Innovation over the long haul in a technology often goes hand in hand with volume production. The United States may be unable to retake and maintain a lead in battery development unless it also keeps the manufacturing here.

But maybe there’s hope: In a briefing to a US Senate committee, Kleiner Perkins’ venture capitalist John Doerr claimed that a US company “somewhere in the Midwest” is manufacturing a stable, durable lithium-ion battery with higher effective-storage capacity. “The result is [that] electric vehicles will be able to travel twice as far and, eventually, three times as far, to over 100 miles before recharging,” he says. Kleiner Perkins is investing in the company, but would give no details, such as the company’s name or what the actual battery specs are.

In addition, researchers at the University of Michigan have spun out, Sakti3, a Michigan-based battery start-up. The venture-capital community has invested $2 million in Sakti3, and the state of Michigan has put in $3 million, with $2.4 million in tax credits. Again, no word on when we can expect to see the batteries.