Losing A123 and the American Lithium Batter Industry

[john61ct]

and how that connects to our loss of manufacturing in general
and medical suply shortages specifically

https://www.propublica.org/article/to-understand-the-medical-supply-shortage-it-helps-to-know-how-the-us-lost-the-lithium-ion-battery-to-china/amp

 

[dogman dan]

Betting on the wrong chemistry was part of the problem, but fires may prove it was the right bet eventually.

Its a shame they did not convert that lifepo4 plant to producing stationary batteries to store solar and wind, at taxpayers expense of course. At least then the factory would keep rolling along, and work out the production bugs. No problem with size and weight for daytime storage.

But for sure, free market chaos should not be in control of what we need for pandemic, for war, and so on. We should have had an n95 mask factory in the strategic reserve, along with more product.

 

[Hillhater]

Its a shame they did not convert that lifepo4 plant to producing stationary batteries to store solar and wind,.

They did...... way before Musk latched on to that idea,.
http://esmailshariff.blogspot.com/2011/02/a123-power-supplying-12-megawatt-li-ion.html

 

[Balmorhea]

Betting on the wrong chemistry was part of the problem, but fires may prove it was the right bet eventually.

LFP batteries also don't contain any cobalt, which is a huge advantage going forward.

 

[Hillhater]

Betting on the wrong chemistry was part of the problem, but fires may prove it was the right bet eventually.

They certainly should have kept their options open,..but what really killed them was the quality problems with the pouch cells, which was a very public failure with Fisker etc .
That killed their prospects for mass sales to EV makers , preventing any chance of cost reduction through volume production, and hence killed their business, ..
.....even though their cylindrical cells were/are some of the best high performance batteries available