Technology Review has an article on Chrysler's choice of A123 Systems' batteries in its electric and hybrid vehicles - Why Chrysler Chose A123 Batteries.

This week, Chrysler announced that it will use batteries from A123 Systems in its planned electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, the first of which will be available in small demonstration fleets by the end of the year. The automaker will use a modular battery system that the two companies developed together over the past three years.

Chrysler chose A123 in part because the company was looking for a supplier based in the United States, says Lou Rhodes, the vice president of advanced vehicle engineering at Chrysler. A123 is based in Watertown, MA, and is building factories in Michigan. The company's battery cells--the basic components of a battery pack--met Chrysler's performance and safety specifications, and the company was developing battery modules that could be easily adapted to fit different vehicles. This was important, Rhodes says, because the automaker plans to start selling several different electric vehicles at around the same time.

A123 and Chrysler developed battery systems that use the same battery cell--one with a flat shape known as a prismatic cell--rather than tailoring the cells' chemistries for each different vehicle. Rhodes expects that this will lead to larger volume production for the battery cell, which could drive down costs. The companies also developed battery modules--units that consist of a collection of cells with safety systems and electronic controls. The modules are designed so that the number of cells in each, as well as the voltage, can be varied according to the application. Finally, the companies developed battery packs for each vehicle. These comprise a varying number of modules arranged in different ways, depending on the configuration of the vehicle.

A123's technology also lent itself to relatively simple battery packs, Rhodes says. The cells use a lithium iron phosphate electrode that is chemically much more stable than the lithium cobalt oxide used in most laptops and in some electric vehicles. Cobalt oxide batteries have been known, in very rare cases, to catch fire in laptops. To prevent this in the much larger and potentially more dangerous battery packs in electric vehicles, companies such as Tesla Motors have designed elaborate cooling systems that carry coolant past each of the thousands of cells in the pack. Because iron phosphate cells are less prone to overheating, the coolant system can be far simpler.

Technology Review reports that rumour has it that A123 Systems' batteries won't be used in the first generation Chevy Volt - Why A123 Didn't Get the Volt Contract.

There's still no official word (it's expected by the end of the year), but it looks as though A123 Systems, a company based on a remarkable new battery chemistry formulated at MIT, won't be supplying the batteries for the first generation of GM's new electric car, the Volt. The contract, according to a couple of news reports released in recent weeks, will go to LG Chem, a Korean company.

GM had considered A123, a startup with no large-scale experience manufacturing automotive batteries, in part because A123 had developed a novel battery chemistry that produced very powerful, safe, and long-lasting batteries. So, why didn't the company get the contract? ...

Here are some guesses about why A123 didn't get the contract (if indeed it didn't).

GM may be betting that LG Chem is more likely to supply packs on time. LG Chem is a bigger and older company than A123, a startup founded in 2005, and it has more manufacturing capacity. What's more, Continental, which packaged hundreds of A123's battery cells into a large battery pack, was late delivering packs to GM for testing. Getting the Volt out on time is a big deal for the cash-strapped automaker, which is counting on the Volt to change its image and help turn around its sales. After disclosing that only one of the two battery companies would get the Volt contract, GM vice chair Bob Lutz has reportedly explained that "we feel that at this point we have a lower risk with the one company."

Chem's battery pack might be cheaper. There are a couple of reasons why the many cost-saving features of A123's batteries may not have led to a lower-cost battery pack. First, while replacing cobalt with iron reduces materials costs, working with nanoscale powders is very difficult and can add to processing costs.

Second, the design of the Volt may not take best advantage of A123's cells. The Volt design calls for far more battery cells than are actually needed to supply the car's 40-mile electric range. The pack has a capacity of 16 kilowatt-hours, or 2.5 miles per kilowatt-hour. In comparison, Tesla Motors is selling an electric car that gets 220 miles on a 53 kilowatt-hour pack, or more than four miles per kilowatt-hour. A direct comparison between the two isn't possible because they use different battery chemistries and have vehicles that don't weigh the same, and because the Volt is designed to operate like a hybrid after the first 40 miles, which requires keeping some battery charge in reserve. But the difference shouldn't be this much. According to one GM engineer, 12 kilowatt-hours should be plenty of energy. The extra four are essentially for insurance against battery degradation, so that at the end of a decade, the Volt still gets 40 miles out of the battery. A123's batteries may not need this kind of insurance, since they are so stable. That stability could make it possible to use fewer batteries than is possible with other chemistries, cutting costs. But GM requires A123 to supply the extra cells anyway. That could be wise, since better tests are needed to guarantee battery lifetimes, but the result is that the potential of A123's innovations isn't being exploited, so the packs are likely more expensive than they need to be.

Not getting the contract, which is reported to be for 50,000 battery packs, can't be good news for A123. But it's not the end for the company. It is still in the running for the next-generation Volt. What's more, the company is working on batteries for 18 other vehicles.

The latest installment of Tech Review's "TR35 2008 Young Innovator" series looks at the founder of battery manufacturer A123 Systems - Ric Fulop, 33.

In 2001, a professor of materials science and engineering at MIT, Yet-Ming ­Chiang, announced some promising results concerning new battery materials. But those materials might still be in the lab today were it not for Ric Fulop, then an enterprising 26-year-old from Vene­zuela. Today, the materials are being used to make high-performance batteries that General Motors is testing for use in its new electric car, the Volt. ...

Fulop dropped out of college to found one of his companies, only to return for an MBA after starting A123. But despite a lack of academic training in materials science, he is quick to grasp technical details. He spent months scouring scientific journals, attending conferences, and picking the brains of university technology licensing officers before his search led him to Yet-Ming Chiang. And thanks to this preparation, it took just one meeting to convince the MIT professor that Fulop's idea for a battery company was sound.

Commercializing battery technology, especially for new cars, is a capital-intensiv­e and risky business. To help jump-start the company, Fulop helped negotiate a deal with Black and Decker to supply batteries for the power-tool market. Not only did the agreement give A123 an early and much-needed source of revenue from an industrial customer, but it was an ideal way to start testing its production technology for the much larger automotive market. In 2006, partly on the strength of the com­pany's success in reliably producing millions of battery cells a year for power tools, Fulop and his partners persuaded GM to give A123 a chance. The automaker is testing two different battery technologies for its Volt, with a decision expected by the end of the year. If GM does select A123's technology, Fulop will have played a key role in making possible the United States' first mass-produced electric car.

Technology Review has a look at A123 Systems' new lithium ion battery which they think could "help electric cars and hybrids come to dominate the roads".

It is the quickest electric motorcycle in the world. On a popular YouTube video, the black dragster cycle nearly disappears in a cloud of smoke as the driver does a "burn-out," spinning the back wheel to heat it up. As the smoke drifts away, the driver settles into position and hits a switch, and the bike surges forward, accelerating to 60 miles per hour in less than a second. Seven seconds later it crosses the quarter-mile mark at 168 miles per hour--quick enough to compete with gas-powered dragsters.

What powers the "Killacycle" is a novel lithium-ion battery developed by A123 Systems, a startup in Watertown, MA--one of a handful of companies working on similar technology. The company's batteries store more than twice as much energy as nickel-metal hydride batteries, the type used in today's hybrid cars, while delivering the bursts of power necessary for high performance. A radically modified version of the lithium-ion batteries used in portable electronics, the technology could jump-start the long-sputtering electric-vehicle market, which today represents a tiny fraction of 1 percent of vehicle sales in the United States. A123's batteries in particular have attracted the interest of General Motors, which is testing them as a way to power the Volt, an electric car with a gasoline generator; the vehicle is expected to go into mass production as early as 2010.

In the past, automakers have blamed electric vehicles' poor sales on their lead-acid or nickel-metal hydride batteries, which were so heavy that they limited the vehicles' range and so bulky that they took up trunk space. While conventional lithium-ion batteries are much lighter and more compact, they're not cost effective for electric vehicles. That's partly because they use lithium cobalt oxide electrodes, which can be unstable: batteries based on them wear out after a couple of years and can burst into flame if punctured, crushed, overcharged, or overheated. Some auto­makers have tried to engineer their way around these problems, but the results have been expensive.

A123's batteries could finally make lithium-ion technology practical for the auto industry. Instead of cobalt oxide, they use an electrode material made from nanoparticles of lithium iron phosphate modified with trace metals. The resulting batteries are unlikely to catch fire, even if crushed in an accident. They are also much hardier than conventional lithium-ion batteries: A123 predicts that they will last longer than the typical lifetime of a car.