The company is one of four battery makers approved for generous state tax incentives this summer  as Michigan bids to become the nation’s battery-making center.

At least three other battery groups, from Germany, South Korea and the U.S., also have expressed interest n locating plants in Michigan, state officials say.

LG plans to make batteries for a variety of applications and customers, but is linked closely with General Motors because a subsidiary, Compact Power, earlier this year won separate contracts from GM to build the lithium ion battery packs for the 2011 Chevrolet Volt extended-range plug-in hybrid and an as-yet-unnamed 2011 Buick plug-in hybrid.

The LG plant is to be located in Holland, Mich., about 180 miles due west of Detroit. More

Well, the lower price hasn’t happened yet, but researchers have created a new generation battery by combining Nickel and Lithium to produce a battery that can store more than 3.5 times the energy of lithium-ion batteries..

This is a prime example of the payoff from the money and effort going into the development of smaller, cheaper, safer (the Nickel-Lithium batteries are less prone to burst into flames as some lithium-ion batteries in laptops have), and more powerful batteries that will deliver more miles between charges as the era of the Electrical Vehicle (EV) is knocking at the door.

Other companies are developing the components that will complete the EV. One such company (Proterra) claims to deliver a full charge to lithium batteries in ten minutes, and has produced an all electric bus that also includes a regenerative braking system that they claim will capture 90% of a vehicle’s kinetic energy during braking to put back in the battery. More

Here’s an excerpt:

I recently had the chance to ask him about the cost of lithium-ion batteries.  As some sources suggest cost could be as high as $1000 kwh, I asked him what the actual cost is in today’s market.  My question with his explanation follows:

What is the cost of lithium ion automotive batteries?
Is its risky or dangerous to quote direct numbers.

At the cell level, in consumer applications, 100% of the nominal capacity at the beginning of life is somewhere on the order of $350 per kwh.

Read the rest here

That’s more than enough lithium to meet expected demand, say researchers at consulting firm Gerson Lehrman Group (GLG), who recently released the fear-allaying figures.

In fact, the world

“could potentially meet demand for up to 2 million lithium-ion battery powered HEV [hybrid-electric vehicles] and EV vehicles in that same period,” GLG said.

GLG crunched the numbers following Nissan’s announcement that the 24kWh battery pack in its coming zero-emission, all-electric LEAF – unveiled on August 2 – would contain 4 kilograms of lithium.

Prior to the announcement, the automaker (along with just about every other electric-auto outfit) had been hush-hush on the projected lithium footprint of its coming electric fleet. The silence led some analysts to question whether there would be enough of the vital battery material to support a near-term electric car boom.

Nissan’s disclosure finally provides a window into what carmakers are actually planning. According to GLG, if the average electric vehicle has a similar 24kWh battery – and if car demand gets to a half a million – then lithium demand would reach around 2,000 metric tons. Current production is at 20,000 metric tons per year. More

While this sounds good near term, I don’t want my laptop to double in price because of the battery, it seems like  we’ll have to find something other than Lithium for our batteries if we want a significant number of our cars to be electric.

New battery technology promises to store a lot of energy combined with a discharge/recharge cycle that can be run once a day for 10 years.  It comes out of a Salt Lake company called Ceramatec, the R&D arm of CoorsTek, a world leader in advanced materials and electrochemical devices.  The possibility of using these batteries in combination with wind/solar power could decentralize our electrical grid to reduce load on the system and deter those pesky rolling blackouts.

“These batteries switch the whole dialogue to renewables,” said Daniel Nocera, a noted chemist and professor of energy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who sits on Ceramatec’s science advisory board. “They will turn us away from dumb technology, circa 1900 — a 110-year-old approach — and turn us forward.”

Making the grid smarter is something that we could try to do, but there are problems with that.

“First you have to rebuild the grid because the one we have now is a creaky machine from the 1920s, and we keep trying to retrofit it,” he said. “Then you’re going to have computers trying to manage the energy, which brings up issues like security. You have to make it really secure so you don’t have people hacking into things. And then politics. Just wait until you try to run power lines through someone’s backyard.

“I can’t imagine anything more secure than generating my own energy with the sun at my house, and now I’ll have a way to store it. It’s the ultimate in security, and the ultimate in control.”

Decentralizing the grid is the best alternative.  And we can do that with the help of these new batteries.  The essence of Ceramatec’s breakthrough is that high energy density (a lot of juice) can be achieved safely at normal temperatures and with solid components, not hot liquid.

Ceramatec says its new generation of battery would deliver a continuous flow of 5 kilowatts of electricity over four hours, with 3,650 daily discharge/recharge cycles over 10 years.  With the batteries expected to sell in the neighborhood of $2,000, that translates to less than 3 cents per kilowatt hour over the battery’s life.  Conventional power from the grid typically costs in the neighborhood of 8 cents per kilowatt hour.  More

That’s cheaper and green, what else could you ask for?

Johnson Controls, based in Milwaukee, WI has been awarded the largest single grant from the DOE at almost $300 million.  Johnson intends to make advanced batteries for EVs and hybrids.  The $299 million is almost half of the $600 million Johnson expects to invest in the new battery technology.

“We are investing in the future and creating jobs with a technology that will define the destiny of this industry,” said Edward Peper, GM’s North America vice president of Chevrolet, according to his prepared remarks.

No one knows yet where in Michigan the plant will be located but I expect it will be close to the Detroit-Hamtramck plant where the Volt is going to be assembled.  GM plans to spend about $30 million building the plant.

LG Chem is going to be the supplier for the lithium ion batteries used in the Volt, but GM is going to be the assembler of the actual battery pack.  I don’t blame them either, from a quality control standpoint and a liability standpoint GM wants to be in charge there.  It would be a PR nightmare to tell the owner of a Volt that they have to talk to a third party about their car.  So the batteries will be shipped to a plant in Michigan where the ‘T’ shaped battery pack will be assembled under GM supervision and control.

The plant will be located in Michigan, subject to negotiations with state and local government authorities. Facility preparation will begin in early 2009, with production tooling to be installed mid-year and output starting in 2010.

“The design, development and production of advanced batteries must be a core competency for GM, and we’ve been rapidly building our capability and resources to support this direction,” Wagoner said. “This is a further demonstration of our commitment to the electrification of the automobile and to the Chevrolet Volt – a commitment that now totals more than $1 billion.”

The Volt’s lithium-ion battery cells will be supplied by LG Chem. Compact Power Inc., a subsidiary of LG Chem based in Troy, Mich., will build battery packs for Volt prototype vehicles until GM’s battery facility is operational. A joint engineering contract with Compact Power and LG Chem also has been signed to further expedite the development of the Volt’s lithium-ion battery technology.

An LG spokesman in Seoul said: “We were informed that the results are due in November, but we didn’t get any official answer from GM yet. We hope for and expect a good result.”

Details about how the warranty will work out and other commercial issues surrounding the battery pack.  It is anticipated that the battery pack will be the most expensive part of the Volt so it’s important to get the details right the first time around.