The building was leased, the press alerted, and the state had pledged millions in support. Boston-Power Inc.,dell laptop battery the high-tech battery maker in Westborough, was ready to accept a huge chunk of change from Washington to pay for a new factory in Auburn.
Then, on Aug. 5, the word came down. The company would not get the $100 million in federal stimulus money it hoped for. That funding, and more, went instead to a handful of rivals that included A123Systems Inc. of Watertown, which is building a plant in Michigan to make car batteries for Chrysler.
Now, as lawmakers and Boston-Power executives deal with the shutout, chief executive Christina Lampe-Onnerud said without a quick injection of cash, the company will build its new plant somewhere else - perhaps in Europe or Asia.Inspiron 630m Battery, “Our issue is that we need to expand production capacity now,’’Inspiron 1100 Battery, Inspiron 5100 Battery, 6T473 Battery
Inspiron 630m Battery, Lampe-Onnerud said.
Boston-Power has begun to manufacture for the automotive market and believed it was a strong candidate for some of the stimulus money - $2.4 billion doled out by the US Department of Energy, much of it specifically meant to boost next-generation car battery makers.6T473 Battery The company has a plant in Taiwan that builds laptop batteries for Hewlett-Packard Co. and a new car battery called the Swing, both of which use lithium-ion technology, which is considered to be environmentally friendly. Lampe-Onnerud said the car battery is already being sold to several clients she declined to name. The company has no announced deal with any of the Big Three American auto companies: Ford, General Motors, or Chrysler.
Lampe-Onnerud said the 450,000-square-foot Auburn plant would create 600 jobs, establish manufacturing operations in the United States, and possibly help the company break into the domestic automotive market.
Without federal funding, the factory project “just can’t happen in the United States, and that’s the sad reality,’’ she said.
The stimulus money was meant to help revive the nation’s ailing automotive industry,Inspiron 5100 Battery, a priority of the Obama administration. From a pool of more than 250 applicants, 48 projects received shares of the stimulus funding.
More than $1 billion in grants went to companies and institutions with projects in Michigan, the nation’s automotive heart, according to a list of award winners. That included the two largest awards: Inspiron 1100 Battery, Inspiron 5100 Battery, 6T473 Battery
Inspiron 630m Battery,$249.1 million to A123Systems and $299.2 million to Johnson Controls Inc.Inspiron 1100 Battery, of Milwaukee, for battery and related manufacturing facilities.
US Representative James P. McGovern, a Democrat whose district includes Westborough and Auburn, said he was “disappointed’’ when the company failed to get funding from the Department of Energy.
“There was buzz that the application was very, very strong,’’ he said. “People within the industry and at the DOE intimated that this was a really good company with good technology
没有评论:
发表评论