Obama hails production of stimulus-aided batteries
Barack Obama celebrated the opening of an advanced battery plant in Michigan on Monday as a critical boost for hybrid and electric cars — and a success for his administration’s economic stimulus program.
But even as mass-produced advanced batteries start rolling off assembly lines, costs are high for consumers, and hurdles remain.
“This is about the birth of an entire new industry in America, an industry that’s going to be central to the next generation of cars,” Obama said Monday in a phone call broadcast at the opening of A123 Systems Inc.’s lithium ion battery plant in Livonia, Mich.
“And it’s going to allow us to start exporting those cars, making them comfortable, convenient, and affordable. …. When folks lift up their hoods on the cars of the future, I want them to see engines and batteries that are stamped: ‘Made in America,'” Obama said, according to a transcript of the call released by the White House.
Fending off criticism of the $814 billion stimulus program, the administration has cited the battery industry as one of the success stories. With new facilities coming online in the Midwest, battery manufacturers for the advanced vehicles are providing a test case for the government’s attempt to revive the economy.
About 300 workers, many formerly laid-off auto workers, listened Monday as Obama spoke. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and others were also on hand to promote their production of battery cells and components. Watertown, Mass.-based A123 Systems Inc. received $249 million under the stimulus program and plans to open a second facility next year in Romulus, Mich.
Automotive supplier Johnson Controls Inc. last week started shipping batteries that were made at a Holland, Mich., facility built with the help of $299 million in federal grants. The factory expects to employ 90 workers by late next year and could produce 75,000 to 150,000 batteries a year, depending on the mix of hybrid and electric vehicles it supplies.
Wild Thing’s comment…….
This is not your typical Duracell-like AA battery industry, either. These are the kind of batteries that make green cars go .
Each one of these batteries that makes one of these green cars go vroom – costs $33,000. And that doesn’t include the car!!! It’s just the cost of one battery that goes in the “green” car.
And Obama is just soooo proud of himself about this.
“This is about the birth of an entire new industry in America, an industry that’s going to be central to the next generation of cars,” Obama said Monday in a phone call broadcast at the opening of A123 Systems Inc.’s lithium ion battery plant in Livonia, Mich.
“And it’s going to allow us to start exporting those cars, making them comfortable, convenient, and affordable. …. When folks lift up their hoods on the cars of the future, I want them to see engines and batteries that are stamped: ‘Made in America,’” Obama said, according to a transcript of the call released by the White House.
Soon we’ll have $5,000 cars with $15,000 batteries. Kind of like a $30 printer with $50 cartredges, only on a much larger scale.
So he’s going to use tax dollars to produce these batteries. Then when too many batteries are laying around, he’ll use more tax dollars to create demand for all those batteries.
We will never have electric cars, They don’t have them any where else in the world. With gas pipelines in danger of being shut down and King Coal dead, what would we plug them into if we had them? Hello Obama!!
“This is about the birth of an entire new industry”
Dem politicians are geniuses. First we had Al Gore inventing the internet and now we have Obama declaring that he has invented the battery. The megalomania is off the charts. Tens of thousands have contributed to the development of the electric car, but Obama keeps trying to buy his way into receiving credit for other people’s work.
Three Hundred Million Taxpayer Dollars to build a plant that “expects” to employ 90 people?
Of course, these are all going to be Union jobs.
Thats the predicted cost now, it doesn’t consider any start up cost it takes machines to make these batteries and some raw materials. and so on.
The lithium is a good battery no doubt but like all good things they still wear out. For example the new cordless Dewalt 18 volt drill runs great with the new battery. when you put it on high speed it last 1/2 the time it does when used at low speed.
Bottom line a batery is a storage cell, rated in Amp-hours and depending how fast you use the charge depends on how fast you drive the car. The Chevy VOLT’s battery last for 40 miles before a recharge, then you need a special re charging circuit from a 240 volt source.
This is more pie in the sky Green Energy. So they are going to have to make these cars really light to conserve the charge with a top speed, more speed more energy required to move this POS.
As hard as the libtards try you can’t fool mother nature, the Law of Conservation of Energy always works against the Liberals, “you don’t get something for nothing.”
Patrick Barron has done the math for us on the electric vehicle.
http://patrickbarron.blogspot.com/
Read some of his stuff, you’ll like it. Also, he’s running for office in Massachussetts, FYI.
Correction….that’s a different Patrick Barron running for Congress. My bad.
Bob, your right, Obama loves Unions and all of that will be a must have for the Unions.
Mark, thank you for all of that information about this. I had not even thought about the weight the car would have to be, that all is very interesting and the stuff involved in re-charging too.
Jim, thank you giggle, I have done that before too. But thank you even so for the fyi.
Obama could be building Ultracapacitors at these costs. UltraCapacitors to run a subcompact car three hundred miles would cost $22,000, most important would charge in just 5 minutes and have a much longer service life than chemically cycling batteries.
But Obama never expects people to drive electric cars. He isn’t buildingthe electric power plants that would ve required! He isn’t even building the zero emission green power plants that could be built around the nation’s vocanos! Evan Hoover did a better job 80 years ago than Obama is doing today.