How US is Losing the Plug-in Race (Part 2 of 2) – Batteries And Recharging Stations Being Built, But Not in US
Submitted by EnergyTechStocks.com
At the rate things are going, relatively few of the millions of lithium-ion batteries that will power the new generation of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) will be manufactured in the United States.
Currently only one American firm, Florida-based Ener1, makes lithium-ion batteries in the U.S., according to Michael Millikin of the web site Green Car Congress. Perhaps America’s brightest hope for lithium-ion batteries, soon-to-go-public A123 Systems of Massachusetts, does its manufacturing in China, according to Millikin. Ironically, probably the biggest manufacturer in the U.S. is South Korea’s LG Chem, whose Michigan-based unit, Compact Power Inc., is in the running to supply the batteries for General Motors’ new plug-in Chevrolet Volt being introduced in 2010.
But while it looks increasingly likely that China and Japan will end up stealing upwards of a million or more green battery manufacturing jobs from the U.S., what’s happening in Denmark and a handful of other countries holds out hope that the U.S. can still create a million or more PHEV-related jobs, not in the car industry but in high-tech and the electric utility industries.
Denmark in particular is drawing considerable interest from European car manufacturers thanks in part to a new energy policy that exempts taxes on electric vehicles until 2012. The U.S., too, recently instituted healthy financial incentives for buyers of electrified vehicles. But what Denmark and others are starting to do that the U.S. is not is create a network of “recharging stations” that makes it as easy to fill up an electric vehicle as it is a gasoline-fueled vehicle.
Working with the electric utility industry and with high-tech developers such as IBM, General Electric and Honeywell, the new Obama administration could spearhead a crash program for creating literally millions of recharging stations, putting them everywhere cars are routinely parked. Installing this new infrastructure would create construction jobs in every state and city. Further, it would put a charge into plug-in vehicles sales that could lead to more U.S.-based manufacturing of both plug-in vehicles and the batteries that go in them. In addition, many of the recharging stations could be solar or wind-powered, which would give a jolt to these other green industries.
