4) Of the 30 battery and electric drive companies that have received stimulus funds, A123 is now the second to go bankrupt. Let’s review the stimulus scorecard. To date, 30 battery and electric drive firms have received stimulus funding. A full list is
here. Two companies, A123 Systems and Ener1, have filed for bankruptcy so far. (It’s important to note, however, that the subsidiary of Ener1 that actually received the stimulus grant, EnerDel, never went through restructuring and has
continued to operate two factories in Indiana the whole time.)
In a similar vein, of the
26 clean-energy projects that have received federal loan guarantees under a separate 1705 program, just three have filed for bankruptcy, including Solyndra, Abound, and Beacon Power. (Though, again, Beacon is still operating and
has largely paid back its federally backed loans.)
5) Here’s the administration’s defense of its broader battery investments, for those curious. Over at the Department of Energy’s website, public affairs officer Dan Lestikow
offered his take on the A123 bankruptcy. First, he noted that A123′s factories aren’t disappearing—they’re being taken over by Johnson Controls. “In an emerging industry,” he writes, “it’s very common to see some firms consolidate with others as the industry grows and matures.”
Second, Lestikow wrote that other U.S. battery factories are still going strong, such as the
newly expanded Rockwood Lithium plant in North Carolina. And third, he argued that the stimulus program has helped bring electric car-battery prices down from $33,000 before the stimulus to $17,000 today and an expected $10,000 by 2015. “As costs come down even further,” Lestikow writes, “the market for hybrids and electric vehicles—which has nearly doubled in the U.S. since last year—will grow even further.”
That was the big gamble with the stimulus investments. By driving down the cost of batteries, the Energy Department was hoping to make electric cars affordable and widespread. But the plan hasn’t gone entirely smoothly—and two of the federally backed companies have now gone bankrupt—which is why it’s now such a frequent target of criticism.
