Stimulus package’s $2B investment in domestic US battery manufacturing

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Did anyone else notice this? Even if 8 awards at $150M were granted, that only adds up to $1.2B. Where does the other $800M go? Administrative costs? I'll only take a 0.1% finder's fee, thank you very much. :-)

Lithium is entering a huge market due to the low weight/power ratio. The market for Aerospace is just starting with the Boeing 787 and soon, the 737NG. For the automotive market however, power density just took a huge leap with carbon nano technology for lead-acid. Companies such as Exide are pumping jusge resources into this. A portion of the stimulus would be well spent in this area so, as D. Pawlick wrote, not "all the eggs in one basket."

wow... batteries get $2Bn while the polywell, which has such potential to change tohe world for the better(a lot better), gets a measly $2M. sad

I would like to add to Margery's fine article from the Imara perspective and weigh in on the comments. Imara's technology was initially funded as R&D by the Department of Energy. We strongly encourage more R&D spending in this space as it enables us to stay ahead for future products. Historically the challenge for US battery companies has been raising enough capital investment to buy the highly automated equipment to commercialize these advanced batteries. The Stimulus dollars are a 50:50 share with private investment to cross from R&D into large scale production. In the past, all lithium-ion batteries were consumed in Asian laptop and consumer electronic products so US companies would have to pay to ship the product overseas and are at a disadvantage by not being close to their customer's development teams. This time around, the technology has advanced to enable a new class of outdoor power equipment, vehicles and grid storage... and these are mostly made in the USA. Today, Imara has a 50,000 sgft facility right here in California, and we are committed building batteries near their point of consumption.

Very interesting discussion. Great points , but I still think that 2 billion dollars is a huge amount of money and it should last further than development.Under no circumstances any of that money should envolve ANY other countries.Idea here is simple and of for some reason those of you Ladies and Gentleman who disagree with a high tech commodity - trust me , we have enough golf carts in this country which could use new batteries :o)

Stimulus should be focused on transferrable R&D, with a proviso that the IP generated won't be transferred to overseas under any conditions. The problem with doing this as stimulus, though, is that it will run out. When is this country going to invest in R&D the way everyone else does--as a real line item in the budget rather than being hidden?

I concur with M. Simon. Batteries are great but the tech is so rapidly evolving smaller research grants to more companies and universities would be much more effective. From what I've been reading about new battery technologies of late, I suspect that Imara's tech will be out-of-date by the time they get to market with car batteries - although they may still do well with AA's. What should be getting big grants are the energy production technologies that require more upfront funding for R & D. Polywell fusion is a great example of a technology that could radically change all our lives - much more than new batteries ever will.

Very interesting Article. It is great to see that investments like this are being made again in the US. If the companies, whoa re getting the government funding for technology development start to develop the next generation battery technology immediately with an understanding of the commodity need for those products down the road, there is a very real chance to keep the whole supply chain in the US. In my opinion it is all a question of mindset, strategy setting and planning for running a technology driven commodity business. You do have to make sure that you do have a highly flexible high volume manufacturing capability and than "invent" your products continuously new and make sure that you develop your products from the start for the lowest product cost possible. Last not least, the closer you stay to your key markets and leading customers, the faster you can ramp to volume and earn your money back. After that, keep repeating. Planned that way, run that way, there is no reason why these companies should not be able to keep technology development AND manufacturing in the US for the long run.