A123 Systems opens largest lithium-ion battery plant in North America
A123 Systems, the developer and producer of advanced Nanophosphate lithium ion batteries and systems, announced today that it has opened the largest lithium ion automotive battery production facility in North America.
The new plant, located in Livonia, Michigan, is expected to expand the company’s manufacturing capabilities by up to 600MW hours per day when full operational. The opening of the plant comes over one year after A123 received an award of $249 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to help the company execute its strategy to ramp up U.S. manufacturing capabilities.
“The opening of our Livonia facility is a significant milestone and confirms that we are accomplishing our stated objectives that accompanied the DOE grant. Bringing this factory on line in just over a year is a testament to our technology innovation and strategic plan to ramp up manufacturing, but it also speaks to the maturity of the market””without significant customer demand for our products today, a capacity expansion of this magnitude would not be possible,” said David Vieau, president and CEO of A123 Systems. “We are grateful to the DOE, the state of Michigan and everyone else who helped make this vision a reality.”
A123 will focus on manufacturing prismatic cells and systems at the new 291,000-square-foot Livonia facility.
– By: Omar Rana
