A123 Systems
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This is a tough time for lithium-ion cell maker A123 Systems, but the company did get one little piece of good news yesterday. The U.S. Department of Energy has agreed to lengthen the time period over which A123 can use funds from a $249.1 million grant it received from the DoE in August 2009 to build a lithium-ion cell fabrication plant in Livonia, Michigan. The funds can now be used any time through December 2014. Per the terms of the original grant, A123 must match DoE grant dollars with its own funds to draw against them. According to an SEC Filing, A123 [NSDQ:AONE] said it has thus far...
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A123 Systems To Recall Electric-Car Battery Packs For Fisker, OthersHundreds of recalls a year get announced for gasoline cars, the vast majority completely under the radar. The high visibility of the electric-car business makes any recalls of batteries different, though. With that in mind, lithium-ion cell maker A123 Systems [NSDQ:AONE] said this morning it will...
John Voelcker -
Battery Maker A123 To Supply Cells For Tata Hybrid Buses
Lithium-ion cell maker A123 Systems announced today that it would supply complete battery packs to Tata Motors, the largest vehicle maker in India, to be used in hybrid systems for commercial vehicles. The lithium-ion battery packs will first be deployed in city transit buses in the latter half of...
John Voelcker -
Via Motors To Use A123 Lithium-Ion Cells In Electric Trucks
Via Motors, the extended-range electric truck conversion company with GM legend Bob Lutz on its board, announced today that it would use lithium-ion cells from A123 Systems in its battery packs. The startup company will show its full lineup of electric-drive pickup trucks at next week's Detroit...
John Voelcker -
Fisker Karma Electric-Car Production Ramps Up, But Slowly
Every carmaker ramps up production on a new vehicle slowly. So Fisker Automotive struck back at the thesis of a GigaOm article yesterday that suggested the company was delaying the production schedule for its 2012 Karma extended-range electric luxury sport sedan into the middle of next year...
John Voelcker -
A123 Gets Lithium-Cell Deal For Unspecified GM Electric Car
Another shoe dropped today, revealing one more little piece of General Motors' electric-car strategy. GM said this morning it had awarded a production contract for nanophosphate lithium-ion cells to A123 Systems, to be used in "future GM electric vehicles" that will be "announced at a later date"...
John Voelcker -
General Electric, the conglomerate that produces everything from power-plant turbines to television shows, wants to jumpstart the electric-vehicle market. To do that, said CEO Jeffrey Immelt yesterday in London, it will place the "largest order in history" for electric vehicles, numbering in the tens of thousands. That order could come as soon as next week. It will likely be spread across mutliple manufacturers, since early production by General Motors and Nissan is limited, and will encompass not only passenger cars but also delivery trucks. Immelt did not specify whether the order would be...
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At 307 MPH, Ohio-Built Electric Racer Is Anything But Slow
Land speed records have long been a integral part of motor racing, but for many years electric vehicles have been viewed as slow and cumbersome. With a 0-60 mph time of less than four seconds, the 2010 Tesla Roadster Sport certainly puts the myth of slow vehicles to bed, but just how fast can an...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
A123 Spin-Off 24M Lands $16M To Explore Next Frontier Of Batteries
Last week, advanced battery company A123Systems announced that it was spinning off a new venture called 24M Technologies, which would focus on more unorthodox energy storage innovations, including grid-scale flow batteries. One of the reasons it decided to release the new entity into the wild was...
John Voelcker -
A123 Spins Out Energy Storage Startup, Loses Chrysler Deal
Advanced battery maker A123 announced more than its quarterly earnings yesterday. In addition to posting a lackluster $22.6 million in revenue, the company spun off a new energy storage startup called 24M Technologies to work on more unorthodox lithium-ion architectures. The company also tempered...
John Voelcker -
Fisker bumps up latest funding round to $175 Million
This story, written by Camille Ricketts, was originally posted on VentureBeat's GreenBeat, an editorial partner of GreenCarReports. Having already banked $100 million Fisker Automotive has raised its sights on a new round of venture capital funding, now seeking $175 million, according to a filing...
John Voelcker -
Chrysler To Build All-Electric Version of Fiat 500 for U.S. Market
Much mystery surrounded the electric versions of the Fiat 500 that have appeared at auto shows over the last year. Now, Chrysler has cleared up a bit of the confusion: It will build an electric Fiat 500 for the U.S. market, with a powertrain developed by engineers at its Michigan headquarters, at a...
John Voelcker -
Last Friday, startup plug-in hybrid maker Fisker Automotive announced it had raised another $115 million in funds from private backers, including lithium-ion cell supplier A123 Systems and legendary venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Buried in the press release was a startling fact: Fisker has switched lithium-ion cell suppliers, less than a year before it delivers its first car. The company said last week it had "signed a multi-year supply agreement with A123 Systems for the lithium-ion batteries that will power the Karma." Staying on schedule, sort of Deliveries of...
