Lithium-Ion Battery Companies going Bankrupt

[elektra]

With all we here about the Great Battery Advances, I thought a tiny bit of truth was in order.

In actuality, thus far they have all been failures and most likely will continue to be failures. Strange thing is, we actually do not need battery storage, given that Solar and Wind will never provide a fraction of the total power we need at one time, unless of course the government believes they can cover the entire Earth with Solar Panels and Wind Turbines.

One thing nobody mentions, is companies like EverReady and Duracell, do people beleive they have not researched and developed batteries for years to bring us the best product for the least expensive price. Last I checked the price for a few double AA batteries is $5 and they only last a bit of time. I bet these batteries that the Government is developing/subsidizing with our tax money will be super expensive and last a tiny amount of time.

The saddest thing of all, is all this is waste, was never needed, is simply a Government created dilemma, a hoax. We had the best Energy in the World. We had the Strongest Energy economy in the World, that gave us the Greatest Standard of Living in the World. But no more, its all been squandered and destroyed, to make us weak.

China is now the World's leader and the Democrats can point to us as failures (a democrat created failure).
Anyhow, here is a nice article on the Battery failures created with billions of our taxes.

Lithium-Ion Batteries Were A Bust But Advanced Lead-Acid Batteries Are Booming Seeking Alpha

The Lithium-ion Battery Bust
2012 has been a year of unprecedented carnage in the lithium-ion battery industry as one manufacturer after another went bankrupt, dissolved joint ventures, wrote-off assets or restructured operations in a desperate attempt to survive. The year's headline stories include:

January 26, 2012

Ener1 (NASDAQ:HEV) filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and left its stockholders holding worthless paper.

March 31, 2012

Panasonic (PC) booked $3.7 billion of asset and goodwill impairments in the lithium-ion battery and solar cell businesses it acquired from Sanyo.

July 12, 2012

Valence Technology (OTCPK:VLNCQ) filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and left its stockholders holding worthless paper.

September 12, 2012

Bosch and Samsung (OTC:SSNLF) dissolved their SB LiMotive joint venture and Samsung launched a global effort to reposition its lithium-ion battery business in non-automotive sectors.

September 30, 2012

Panasonic booked another $3 billion of asset and goodwill impairments and announced plans to close three of its six battery plants.

October 16, 2012

A123 Systems (OTC:AONEQ) filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and left its stockholders holding worthless paper.

October 24, 2012

Dow Chemical (NYSE:DOW) announced plans to record a substantial fourth quarter impairment charge to write down the value of its lithium-ion manufacturing assets.

November 1, 2012

Sony (NYSE:SNE) reportedly opened discussions to sell its lithium-ion battery unit to Chinese buyers for roughly 0.35 times sales.

December 7, 2012

In conjunction with plans to move its operations to China, Altair Nanotechnologies (NASDAQ:ALTI) announced a 1 for 6 reverse split after implementing a 1 for 4 reverse split in October 2011.

December 11, 2012

Substantially all of A123's assets, which had a book value of $495 million at June 30, 2012, were sold to China's Wanxiang America Corp. for $256.6 million.

While Dow, Ener1, Valence, A123 and Altair were relative newcomers to the lithium-ion battery space, Samsung, Sony and Panasonic/Sanyo have been industry leaders for decades and collectively account for about 60% of global production. Each of these manufacturers faced and succumbed to different business challenges, but the underlying themes were remarkably similar:

• Manufacturers overbuilt capacity in anticipation of demand that didn't develop;
• Consumers balked at the high cost and limited utility of electric cars, so demand ramped more slowly than advocates, pundits, governments and product managers expected;
• Expected improvements in energy density and battery performance proved elusive as unicorns;
• Expected economies of scale couldn't be achieved in a mature industry with highly refined manufacturing methods, equipment and supply chains; and
• Profit margins were savaged as manufacturers tried to meet unreasonable price expectations of automakers and match unreasonably optimistic price quotes from competitors.

The last few years have been a textbook example of the hype cycle as human imagination latched onto lithium-ion batteries as a panacea solution that would give rise to a thriving electric car industry and painlessly free us from the tyranny of big oil. The frenzy peaked in the summer of 2009 when the government doled out $1.2 billion in battery manufacturing grants. Within a year, the euphoria started to fade and by December of 2010, Energy Secretary Chu was cautioning that competitive electric cars will require batteries that can endure 15 years of deep discharges, offer five to seven times the energy storage capacity of current lithium-ion batteries and cost two-thirds less.

These would have been lofty goals in information technology where electrons don't take up space, have weight or dictate the choice of materials. They were impossible goals in the battery industry where ions do take up space, do have weight and do dictate the choice of materials. There's a reason that today's best batteries are only four or five times better than the batteries Thomas Edison manufactured a century ago. The laws of chemistry are nowhere near as flexible or forgiving as the laws of physics that dominated the information technology revolution.

Now, for the first time in a decade, the DOE is devoting substantial resources to financing R&D on new technology instead of trying to force unsuitable and uneconomic legacy technology into a reluctant and price sensitive market. Absurd public relations positions like promising five times the energy and one-fifth the cost in five years are still common, but they're no longer credible.

Meanwhile, a growing consensus among industry analysts cautions that while the dream of cost-effective lithium ion batteries endures, the possible performance gains and production economies that will be required for mass market adoption are not likely before 2020, and may take far longer to migrate from laboratories to factory floors

 

[william the wie]

just lurking, good thread.

 

[Mr. H.]

The saddest thing of all, is all this is waste, was never needed, is simply a Government created dilemma, a hoax.

Like ethanol and the RFS mandate.

 

[Mr. H.]

just lurking, good thread.

Turn your clock forward and go back to bed.

 

[william the wie]

I did.

 

[Politico]

Where is that goosestepper Matt when we need him lol.

 

[Old Rocks]

You silly dumb fucks. Even as you are posting, millions of craftsmen all over the world are using tools powered with lithium ion batteries. And huge factrories in this nation are being built to manufacture lithium ion grid scale batteries, as well as batteries for EV's and home solar systems.

It is damned funny that every time a manufacture of batteries or solar panels goes broke because they invested in the wrong technology, you silly asses celebrate. Ever hear of a Whippet?

 

[william the wie]

Climate change is a cult based on the oxymorons of settled science and chaotical system trend lines are meaningful.

 

[Syriusly]

With all we here about the Great Battery Advances, I thought a tiny bit of truth was in order.

In actuality, thus far they have all been failures and most likely will continue to be failures. Strange thing is, we actually do not need battery storage, given that Solar and Wind will never provide a fraction of the total power we need at one time, unless of course the government believes they can cover the entire Earth with Solar Panels and Wind Turbines.

One thing nobody mentions, is companies like EverReady and Duracell, do people beleive they have not researched and developed batteries for years to bring us the best product for the least expensive price. Last I checked the price for a few double AA batteries is $5 and they only last a bit of time. I bet these batteries that the Government is developing/subsidizing with our tax money will be super expensive and last a tiny amount of time.

The saddest thing of all, is all this is waste, was never needed, is simply a Government created dilemma, a hoax. We had the best Energy in the World. We had the Strongest Energy economy in the World, that gave us the Greatest Standard of Living in the World. But no more, its all been squandered and destroyed, to make us weak.

China is now the World's leader and the Democrats can point to us as failures (a democrat created failure).
Anyhow, here is a nice article on the Battery failures created with billions of our taxes.

Lithium-Ion Batteries Were A Bust But Advanced Lead-Acid Batteries Are Booming Seeking Alpha

The Lithium-ion Battery Bust
2012 has been a year of unprecedented carnage in the lithium-ion battery industry as one manufacturer after another went bankrupt, dissolved joint ventures, wrote-off assets or restructured operations in a desperate attempt to survive. The year's headline stories include:

January 26, 2012

Ener1 (NASDAQ:HEV) filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and left its stockholders holding worthless paper.

March 31, 2012

Panasonic (PC) booked $3.7 billion of asset and goodwill impairments in the lithium-ion battery and solar cell businesses it acquired from Sanyo.

July 12, 2012

Valence Technology (OTCPK:VLNCQ) filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and left its stockholders holding worthless paper.

September 12, 2012

Bosch and Samsung (OTC:SSNLF) dissolved their SB LiMotive joint venture and Samsung launched a global effort to reposition its lithium-ion battery business in non-automotive sectors.

September 30, 2012

Panasonic booked another $3 billion of asset and goodwill impairments and announced plans to close three of its six battery plants.

October 16, 2012

A123 Systems (OTC:AONEQ) filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and left its stockholders holding worthless paper.

October 24, 2012

Dow Chemical (NYSE:DOW) announced plans to record a substantial fourth quarter impairment charge to write down the value of its lithium-ion manufacturing assets.

November 1, 2012

Sony (NYSE:SNE) reportedly opened discussions to sell its lithium-ion battery unit to Chinese buyers for roughly 0.35 times sales.

December 7, 2012

In conjunction with plans to move its operations to China, Altair Nanotechnologies (NASDAQ:ALTI) announced a 1 for 6 reverse split after implementing a 1 for 4 reverse split in October 2011.

December 11, 2012

Substantially all of A123's assets, which had a book value of $495 million at June 30, 2012, were sold to China's Wanxiang America Corp. for $256.6 million.

While Dow, Ener1, Valence, A123 and Altair were relative newcomers to the lithium-ion battery space, Samsung, Sony and Panasonic/Sanyo have been industry leaders for decades and collectively account for about 60% of global production. Each of these manufacturers faced and succumbed to different business challenges, but the underlying themes were remarkably similar:

• Manufacturers overbuilt capacity in anticipation of demand that didn't develop;
• Consumers balked at the high cost and limited utility of electric cars, so demand ramped more slowly than advocates, pundits, governments and product managers expected;
• Expected improvements in energy density and battery performance proved elusive as unicorns;
• Expected economies of scale couldn't be achieved in a mature industry with highly refined manufacturing methods, equipment and supply chains; and
• Profit margins were savaged as manufacturers tried to meet unreasonable price expectations of automakers and match unreasonably optimistic price quotes from competitors.

The last few years have been a textbook example of the hype cycle as human imagination latched onto lithium-ion batteries as a panacea solution that would give rise to a thriving electric car industry and painlessly free us from the tyranny of big oil. The frenzy peaked in the summer of 2009 when the government doled out $1.2 billion in battery manufacturing grants. Within a year, the euphoria started to fade and by December of 2010, Energy Secretary Chu was cautioning that competitive electric cars will require batteries that can endure 15 years of deep discharges, offer five to seven times the energy storage capacity of current lithium-ion batteries and cost two-thirds less.

These would have been lofty goals in information technology where electrons don't take up space, have weight or dictate the choice of materials. They were impossible goals in the battery industry where ions do take up space, do have weight and do dictate the choice of materials. There's a reason that today's best batteries are only four or five times better than the batteries Thomas Edison manufactured a century ago. The laws of chemistry are nowhere near as flexible or forgiving as the laws of physics that dominated the information technology revolution.

Now, for the first time in a decade, the DOE is devoting substantial resources to financing R&D on new technology instead of trying to force unsuitable and uneconomic legacy technology into a reluctant and price sensitive market. Absurd public relations positions like promising five times the energy and one-fifth the cost in five years are still common, but they're no longer credible.

Meanwhile, a growing consensus among industry analysts cautions that while the dream of cost-effective lithium ion batteries endures, the possible performance gains and production economies that will be required for mass market adoption are not likely before 2020, and may take far longer to migrate from laboratories to factory floors

Meanwhile, Tesla is opening a lithium ion battery factory in Nevada....

 

[william the wie]

With all we here about the Great Battery Advances, I thought a tiny bit of truth was in order.

In actuality, thus far they have all been failures and most likely will continue to be failures. Strange thing is, we actually do not need battery storage, given that Solar and Wind will never provide a fraction of the total power we need at one time, unless of course the government believes they can cover the entire Earth with Solar Panels and Wind Turbines.

One thing nobody mentions, is companies like EverReady and Duracell, do people beleive they have not researched and developed batteries for years to bring us the best product for the least expensive price. Last I checked the price for a few double AA batteries is $5 and they only last a bit of time. I bet these batteries that the Government is developing/subsidizing with our tax money will be super expensive and last a tiny amount of time.

The saddest thing of all, is all this is waste, was never needed, is simply a Government created dilemma, a hoax. We had the best Energy in the World. We had the Strongest Energy economy in the World, that gave us the Greatest Standard of Living in the World. But no more, its all been squandered and destroyed, to make us weak.

China is now the World's leader and the Democrats can point to us as failures (a democrat created failure).
Anyhow, here is a nice article on the Battery failures created with billions of our taxes.

Lithium-Ion Batteries Were A Bust But Advanced Lead-Acid Batteries Are Booming Seeking Alpha

The Lithium-ion Battery Bust
2012 has been a year of unprecedented carnage in the lithium-ion battery industry as one manufacturer after another went bankrupt, dissolved joint ventures, wrote-off assets or restructured operations in a desperate attempt to survive. The year's headline stories include:

January 26, 2012

Ener1 (NASDAQ:HEV) filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and left its stockholders holding worthless paper.

March 31, 2012

Panasonic (PC) booked $3.7 billion of asset and goodwill impairments in the lithium-ion battery and solar cell businesses it acquired from Sanyo.

July 12, 2012

Valence Technology (OTCPK:VLNCQ) filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and left its stockholders holding worthless paper.

September 12, 2012

Bosch and Samsung (OTC:SSNLF) dissolved their SB LiMotive joint venture and Samsung launched a global effort to reposition its lithium-ion battery business in non-automotive sectors.

September 30, 2012

Panasonic booked another $3 billion of asset and goodwill impairments and announced plans to close three of its six battery plants.

October 16, 2012

A123 Systems (OTC:AONEQ) filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and left its stockholders holding worthless paper.

October 24, 2012

Dow Chemical (NYSE:DOW) announced plans to record a substantial fourth quarter impairment charge to write down the value of its lithium-ion manufacturing assets.

November 1, 2012

Sony (NYSE:SNE) reportedly opened discussions to sell its lithium-ion battery unit to Chinese buyers for roughly 0.35 times sales.

December 7, 2012

In conjunction with plans to move its operations to China, Altair Nanotechnologies (NASDAQ:ALTI) announced a 1 for 6 reverse split after implementing a 1 for 4 reverse split in October 2011.

December 11, 2012

Substantially all of A123's assets, which had a book value of $495 million at June 30, 2012, were sold to China's Wanxiang America Corp. for $256.6 million.

While Dow, Ener1, Valence, A123 and Altair were relative newcomers to the lithium-ion battery space, Samsung, Sony and Panasonic/Sanyo have been industry leaders for decades and collectively account for about 60% of global production. Each of these manufacturers faced and succumbed to different business challenges, but the underlying themes were remarkably similar:

• Manufacturers overbuilt capacity in anticipation of demand that didn't develop;
• Consumers balked at the high cost and limited utility of electric cars, so demand ramped more slowly than advocates, pundits, governments and product managers expected;
• Expected improvements in energy density and battery performance proved elusive as unicorns;
• Expected economies of scale couldn't be achieved in a mature industry with highly refined manufacturing methods, equipment and supply chains; and
• Profit margins were savaged as manufacturers tried to meet unreasonable price expectations of automakers and match unreasonably optimistic price quotes from competitors.

The last few years have been a textbook example of the hype cycle as human imagination latched onto lithium-ion batteries as a panacea solution that would give rise to a thriving electric car industry and painlessly free us from the tyranny of big oil. The frenzy peaked in the summer of 2009 when the government doled out $1.2 billion in battery manufacturing grants. Within a year, the euphoria started to fade and by December of 2010, Energy Secretary Chu was cautioning that competitive electric cars will require batteries that can endure 15 years of deep discharges, offer five to seven times the energy storage capacity of current lithium-ion batteries and cost two-thirds less.

These would have been lofty goals in information technology where electrons don't take up space, have weight or dictate the choice of materials. They were impossible goals in the battery industry where ions do take up space, do have weight and do dictate the choice of materials. There's a reason that today's best batteries are only four or five times better than the batteries Thomas Edison manufactured a century ago. The laws of chemistry are nowhere near as flexible or forgiving as the laws of physics that dominated the information technology revolution.

Now, for the first time in a decade, the DOE is devoting substantial resources to financing R&D on new technology instead of trying to force unsuitable and uneconomic legacy technology into a reluctant and price sensitive market. Absurd public relations positions like promising five times the energy and one-fifth the cost in five years are still common, but they're no longer credible.

Meanwhile, a growing consensus among industry analysts cautions that while the dream of cost-effective lithium ion batteries endures, the possible performance gains and production economies that will be required for mass market adoption are not likely before 2020, and may take far longer to migrate from laboratories to factory floors

Meanwhile, Tesla is opening a lithium ion battery factory in Nevada....

That's also part of a venture capital portfolio. Presumably Musk is assuming the usual 80% failure rate of this field. Also I would suspect that Musk has investments in fuel cells and capacitors since his solar cell financing company is purportedly cash positive.

 

[elektra]

With all we here about the Great Battery Advances, I thought a tiny bit of truth was in order.

In actuality, thus far they have all been failures and most likely will continue to be failures. Strange thing is, we actually do not need battery storage, given that Solar and Wind will never provide a fraction of the total power we need at one time, unless of course the government believes they can cover the entire Earth with Solar Panels and Wind Turbines.

One thing nobody mentions, is companies like EverReady and Duracell, do people beleive they have not researched and developed batteries for years to bring us the best product for the least expensive price. Last I checked the price for a few double AA batteries is $5 and they only last a bit of time. I bet these batteries that the Government is developing/subsidizing with our tax money will be super expensive and last a tiny amount of time.

The saddest thing of all, is all this is waste, was never needed, is simply a Government created dilemma, a hoax. We had the best Energy in the World. We had the Strongest Energy economy in the World, that gave us the Greatest Standard of Living in the World. But no more, its all been squandered and destroyed, to make us weak.

China is now the World's leader and the Democrats can point to us as failures (a democrat created failure).
Anyhow, here is a nice article on the Battery failures created with billions of our taxes.

Lithium-Ion Batteries Were A Bust But Advanced Lead-Acid Batteries Are Booming Seeking Alpha

The Lithium-ion Battery Bust
2012 has been a year of unprecedented carnage in the lithium-ion battery industry as one manufacturer after another went bankrupt, dissolved joint ventures, wrote-off assets or restructured operations in a desperate attempt to survive. The year's headline stories include:

January 26, 2012

Ener1 (NASDAQ:HEV) filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and left its stockholders holding worthless paper.

March 31, 2012

Panasonic (PC) booked $3.7 billion of asset and goodwill impairments in the lithium-ion battery and solar cell businesses it acquired from Sanyo.

July 12, 2012

Valence Technology (OTCPK:VLNCQ) filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and left its stockholders holding worthless paper.

September 12, 2012

Bosch and Samsung (OTC:SSNLF) dissolved their SB LiMotive joint venture and Samsung launched a global effort to reposition its lithium-ion battery business in non-automotive sectors.

September 30, 2012

Panasonic booked another $3 billion of asset and goodwill impairments and announced plans to close three of its six battery plants.

October 16, 2012

A123 Systems (OTC:AONEQ) filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and left its stockholders holding worthless paper.

October 24, 2012

Dow Chemical (NYSE:DOW) announced plans to record a substantial fourth quarter impairment charge to write down the value of its lithium-ion manufacturing assets.

November 1, 2012

Sony (NYSE:SNE) reportedly opened discussions to sell its lithium-ion battery unit to Chinese buyers for roughly 0.35 times sales.

December 7, 2012

In conjunction with plans to move its operations to China, Altair Nanotechnologies (NASDAQ:ALTI) announced a 1 for 6 reverse split after implementing a 1 for 4 reverse split in October 2011.

December 11, 2012

Substantially all of A123's assets, which had a book value of $495 million at June 30, 2012, were sold to China's Wanxiang America Corp. for $256.6 million.

While Dow, Ener1, Valence, A123 and Altair were relative newcomers to the lithium-ion battery space, Samsung, Sony and Panasonic/Sanyo have been industry leaders for decades and collectively account for about 60% of global production. Each of these manufacturers faced and succumbed to different business challenges, but the underlying themes were remarkably similar:

• Manufacturers overbuilt capacity in anticipation of demand that didn't develop;
• Consumers balked at the high cost and limited utility of electric cars, so demand ramped more slowly than advocates, pundits, governments and product managers expected;
• Expected improvements in energy density and battery performance proved elusive as unicorns;
• Expected economies of scale couldn't be achieved in a mature industry with highly refined manufacturing methods, equipment and supply chains; and
• Profit margins were savaged as manufacturers tried to meet unreasonable price expectations of automakers and match unreasonably optimistic price quotes from competitors.

The last few years have been a textbook example of the hype cycle as human imagination latched onto lithium-ion batteries as a panacea solution that would give rise to a thriving electric car industry and painlessly free us from the tyranny of big oil. The frenzy peaked in the summer of 2009 when the government doled out $1.2 billion in battery manufacturing grants. Within a year, the euphoria started to fade and by December of 2010, Energy Secretary Chu was cautioning that competitive electric cars will require batteries that can endure 15 years of deep discharges, offer five to seven times the energy storage capacity of current lithium-ion batteries and cost two-thirds less.

These would have been lofty goals in information technology where electrons don't take up space, have weight or dictate the choice of materials. They were impossible goals in the battery industry where ions do take up space, do have weight and do dictate the choice of materials. There's a reason that today's best batteries are only four or five times better than the batteries Thomas Edison manufactured a century ago. The laws of chemistry are nowhere near as flexible or forgiving as the laws of physics that dominated the information technology revolution.

Now, for the first time in a decade, the DOE is devoting substantial resources to financing R&D on new technology instead of trying to force unsuitable and uneconomic legacy technology into a reluctant and price sensitive market. Absurd public relations positions like promising five times the energy and one-fifth the cost in five years are still common, but they're no longer credible.

Meanwhile, a growing consensus among industry analysts cautions that while the dream of cost-effective lithium ion batteries endures, the possible performance gains and production economies that will be required for mass market adoption are not likely before 2020, and may take far longer to migrate from laboratories to factory floors

Meanwhile, Tesla is opening a lithium ion battery factory in Nevada....

Financed by us, with the help of the democrat senator from neveda, with an experimental lithium recovery project, which the entire project depends on.

 

[Syriusly]

With all we here about the Great Battery Advances, I thought a tiny bit of truth was in order.

In actuality, thus far they have all been failures and most likely will continue to be failures. Strange thing is, we actually do not need battery storage, given that Solar and Wind will never provide a fraction of the total power we need at one time, unless of course the government believes they can cover the entire Earth with Solar Panels and Wind Turbines.

One thing nobody mentions, is companies like EverReady and Duracell, do people beleive they have not researched and developed batteries for years to bring us the best product for the least expensive price. Last I checked the price for a few double AA batteries is $5 and they only last a bit of time. I bet these batteries that the Government is developing/subsidizing with our tax money will be super expensive and last a tiny amount of time.

The saddest thing of all, is all this is waste, was never needed, is simply a Government created dilemma, a hoax. We had the best Energy in the World. We had the Strongest Energy economy in the World, that gave us the Greatest Standard of Living in the World. But no more, its all been squandered and destroyed, to make us weak.

China is now the World's leader and the Democrats can point to us as failures (a democrat created failure).
Anyhow, here is a nice article on the Battery failures created with billions of our taxes.

Lithium-Ion Batteries Were A Bust But Advanced Lead-Acid Batteries Are Booming Seeking Alpha

The Lithium-ion Battery Bust
2012 has been a year of unprecedented carnage in the lithium-ion battery industry as one manufacturer after another went bankrupt, dissolved joint ventures, wrote-off assets or restructured operations in a desperate attempt to survive. The year's headline stories include:

January 26, 2012

Ener1 (NASDAQ:HEV) filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and left its stockholders holding worthless paper.

March 31, 2012

Panasonic (PC) booked $3.7 billion of asset and goodwill impairments in the lithium-ion battery and solar cell businesses it acquired from Sanyo.

July 12, 2012

Valence Technology (OTCPK:VLNCQ) filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and left its stockholders holding worthless paper.

September 12, 2012

Bosch and Samsung (OTC:SSNLF) dissolved their SB LiMotive joint venture and Samsung launched a global effort to reposition its lithium-ion battery business in non-automotive sectors.

September 30, 2012

Panasonic booked another $3 billion of asset and goodwill impairments and announced plans to close three of its six battery plants.

October 16, 2012

A123 Systems (OTC:AONEQ) filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and left its stockholders holding worthless paper.

October 24, 2012

Dow Chemical (NYSE:DOW) announced plans to record a substantial fourth quarter impairment charge to write down the value of its lithium-ion manufacturing assets.

November 1, 2012

Sony (NYSE:SNE) reportedly opened discussions to sell its lithium-ion battery unit to Chinese buyers for roughly 0.35 times sales.

December 7, 2012

In conjunction with plans to move its operations to China, Altair Nanotechnologies (NASDAQ:ALTI) announced a 1 for 6 reverse split after implementing a 1 for 4 reverse split in October 2011.

December 11, 2012

Substantially all of A123's assets, which had a book value of $495 million at June 30, 2012, were sold to China's Wanxiang America Corp. for $256.6 million.

While Dow, Ener1, Valence, A123 and Altair were relative newcomers to the lithium-ion battery space, Samsung, Sony and Panasonic/Sanyo have been industry leaders for decades and collectively account for about 60% of global production. Each of these manufacturers faced and succumbed to different business challenges, but the underlying themes were remarkably similar:

• Manufacturers overbuilt capacity in anticipation of demand that didn't develop;
• Consumers balked at the high cost and limited utility of electric cars, so demand ramped more slowly than advocates, pundits, governments and product managers expected;
• Expected improvements in energy density and battery performance proved elusive as unicorns;
• Expected economies of scale couldn't be achieved in a mature industry with highly refined manufacturing methods, equipment and supply chains; and
• Profit margins were savaged as manufacturers tried to meet unreasonable price expectations of automakers and match unreasonably optimistic price quotes from competitors.

The last few years have been a textbook example of the hype cycle as human imagination latched onto lithium-ion batteries as a panacea solution that would give rise to a thriving electric car industry and painlessly free us from the tyranny of big oil. The frenzy peaked in the summer of 2009 when the government doled out $1.2 billion in battery manufacturing grants. Within a year, the euphoria started to fade and by December of 2010, Energy Secretary Chu was cautioning that competitive electric cars will require batteries that can endure 15 years of deep discharges, offer five to seven times the energy storage capacity of current lithium-ion batteries and cost two-thirds less.

These would have been lofty goals in information technology where electrons don't take up space, have weight or dictate the choice of materials. They were impossible goals in the battery industry where ions do take up space, do have weight and do dictate the choice of materials. There's a reason that today's best batteries are only four or five times better than the batteries Thomas Edison manufactured a century ago. The laws of chemistry are nowhere near as flexible or forgiving as the laws of physics that dominated the information technology revolution.

Now, for the first time in a decade, the DOE is devoting substantial resources to financing R&D on new technology instead of trying to force unsuitable and uneconomic legacy technology into a reluctant and price sensitive market. Absurd public relations positions like promising five times the energy and one-fifth the cost in five years are still common, but they're no longer credible.

Meanwhile, a growing consensus among industry analysts cautions that while the dream of cost-effective lithium ion batteries endures, the possible performance gains and production economies that will be required for mass market adoption are not likely before 2020, and may take far longer to migrate from laboratories to factory floors

Meanwhile, Tesla is opening a lithium ion battery factory in Nevada....

Financed by us, with the help of the democrat senator from neveda, with an experimental lithium recovery project, which the entire project depends on.

The State of Nevada competed heavily with California and Texas for that project.


(Reuters) - Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval[Republican] signed a package of bills on Thursday to provide $1.3 billion in tax breaks and other incentives for Tesla Motors, putting a bow on the deal for the electric car company to build a massive factory in the state.

Sandoval said the agreement has "changed the trajectory of our state forever" during the signing ceremony late on Thursday, shortly after the four bills were unanimously passed by both legislative chambers.

"Nevada has announced to the world - not to the country, but to the world - that we are ready to lead," Sandoval said, to applause.

The biggest chunk of the deal won support in day two of a special session called by Sandoval to implement an agreement for Tesla to locate its planned $5 billion lithium-ion battery factory in an industrial park 20 miles east of Reno along Interstate 80.

 

[william the wie]

With all we here about the Great Battery Advances, I thought a tiny bit of truth was in order.

In actuality, thus far they have all been failures and most likely will continue to be failures. Strange thing is, we actually do not need battery storage, given that Solar and Wind will never provide a fraction of the total power we need at one time, unless of course the government believes they can cover the entire Earth with Solar Panels and Wind Turbines.

One thing nobody mentions, is companies like EverReady and Duracell, do people beleive they have not researched and developed batteries for years to bring us the best product for the least expensive price. Last I checked the price for a few double AA batteries is $5 and they only last a bit of time. I bet these batteries that the Government is developing/subsidizing with our tax money will be super expensive and last a tiny amount of time.

The saddest thing of all, is all this is waste, was never needed, is simply a Government created dilemma, a hoax. We had the best Energy in the World. We had the Strongest Energy economy in the World, that gave us the Greatest Standard of Living in the World. But no more, its all been squandered and destroyed, to make us weak.

China is now the World's leader and the Democrats can point to us as failures (a democrat created failure).
Anyhow, here is a nice article on the Battery failures created with billions of our taxes.

Lithium-Ion Batteries Were A Bust But Advanced Lead-Acid Batteries Are Booming Seeking Alpha

The Lithium-ion Battery Bust
2012 has been a year of unprecedented carnage in the lithium-ion battery industry as one manufacturer after another went bankrupt, dissolved joint ventures, wrote-off assets or restructured operations in a desperate attempt to survive. The year's headline stories include:

January 26, 2012

Ener1 (NASDAQ:HEV) filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and left its stockholders holding worthless paper.

March 31, 2012

Panasonic (PC) booked $3.7 billion of asset and goodwill impairments in the lithium-ion battery and solar cell businesses it acquired from Sanyo.

July 12, 2012

Valence Technology (OTCPK:VLNCQ) filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and left its stockholders holding worthless paper.

September 12, 2012

Bosch and Samsung (OTC:SSNLF) dissolved their SB LiMotive joint venture and Samsung launched a global effort to reposition its lithium-ion battery business in non-automotive sectors.

September 30, 2012

Panasonic booked another $3 billion of asset and goodwill impairments and announced plans to close three of its six battery plants.

October 16, 2012

A123 Systems (OTC:AONEQ) filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and left its stockholders holding worthless paper.

October 24, 2012

Dow Chemical (NYSE:DOW) announced plans to record a substantial fourth quarter impairment charge to write down the value of its lithium-ion manufacturing assets.

November 1, 2012

Sony (NYSE:SNE) reportedly opened discussions to sell its lithium-ion battery unit to Chinese buyers for roughly 0.35 times sales.

December 7, 2012

In conjunction with plans to move its operations to China, Altair Nanotechnologies (NASDAQ:ALTI) announced a 1 for 6 reverse split after implementing a 1 for 4 reverse split in October 2011.

December 11, 2012

Substantially all of A123's assets, which had a book value of $495 million at June 30, 2012, were sold to China's Wanxiang America Corp. for $256.6 million.

While Dow, Ener1, Valence, A123 and Altair were relative newcomers to the lithium-ion battery space, Samsung, Sony and Panasonic/Sanyo have been industry leaders for decades and collectively account for about 60% of global production. Each of these manufacturers faced and succumbed to different business challenges, but the underlying themes were remarkably similar:

• Manufacturers overbuilt capacity in anticipation of demand that didn't develop;
• Consumers balked at the high cost and limited utility of electric cars, so demand ramped more slowly than advocates, pundits, governments and product managers expected;
• Expected improvements in energy density and battery performance proved elusive as unicorns;
• Expected economies of scale couldn't be achieved in a mature industry with highly refined manufacturing methods, equipment and supply chains; and
• Profit margins were savaged as manufacturers tried to meet unreasonable price expectations of automakers and match unreasonably optimistic price quotes from competitors.

The last few years have been a textbook example of the hype cycle as human imagination latched onto lithium-ion batteries as a panacea solution that would give rise to a thriving electric car industry and painlessly free us from the tyranny of big oil. The frenzy peaked in the summer of 2009 when the government doled out $1.2 billion in battery manufacturing grants. Within a year, the euphoria started to fade and by December of 2010, Energy Secretary Chu was cautioning that competitive electric cars will require batteries that can endure 15 years of deep discharges, offer five to seven times the energy storage capacity of current lithium-ion batteries and cost two-thirds less.

These would have been lofty goals in information technology where electrons don't take up space, have weight or dictate the choice of materials. They were impossible goals in the battery industry where ions do take up space, do have weight and do dictate the choice of materials. There's a reason that today's best batteries are only four or five times better than the batteries Thomas Edison manufactured a century ago. The laws of chemistry are nowhere near as flexible or forgiving as the laws of physics that dominated the information technology revolution.

Now, for the first time in a decade, the DOE is devoting substantial resources to financing R&D on new technology instead of trying to force unsuitable and uneconomic legacy technology into a reluctant and price sensitive market. Absurd public relations positions like promising five times the energy and one-fifth the cost in five years are still common, but they're no longer credible.

Meanwhile, a growing consensus among industry analysts cautions that while the dream of cost-effective lithium ion batteries endures, the possible performance gains and production economies that will be required for mass market adoption are not likely before 2020, and may take far longer to migrate from laboratories to factory floors

Meanwhile, Tesla is opening a lithium ion battery factory in Nevada....

Financed by us, with the help of the democrat senator from neveda, with an experimental lithium recovery project, which the entire project depends on.

The State of Nevada competed heavily with California and Texas for that project.


(Reuters) - Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval[Republican] signed a package of bills on Thursday to provide $1.3 billion in tax breaks and other incentives for Tesla Motors, putting a bow on the deal for the electric car company to build a massive factory in the state.

Sandoval said the agreement has "changed the trajectory of our state forever" during the signing ceremony late on Thursday, shortly after the four bills were unanimously passed by both legislative chambers.

"Nevada has announced to the world - not to the country, but to the world - that we are ready to lead," Sandoval said, to applause.

The biggest chunk of the deal won support in day two of a special session called by Sandoval to implement an agreement for Tesla to locate its planned $5 billion lithium-ion battery factory in an industrial park 20 miles east of Reno along Interstate 80.

Good on Musk. With 30% taxpayer financing he should be able to avoid major losses.

 

[Old Rocks]

Elon Musk has created three money making businesses against all the odds in each sphere. His Tesla car is the fastest roomy 5 passenger luxery sedan in the world. Space X is a money making business, with a record of successes where many of his competitors have failed. And Solar City is the biggest distributed utility in the world.

The money that Musk has borrowed from the government he has paid back with interest, and way ahead of schedule. As far as the tax breaks go, you really ought to look at what Boeing demands when they are looking for a place to build a new plant.