A Twisted Clean-Tech Tale: How A123 Wound Up In Bankruptcy

curtwoodward writes "Advanced battery maker A123 Systems was supposed to be one of the marquee names of the U.S. cleantech manufacturing scene — it won hundreds of millions in federal grants, had operations around the globe, and supplied the luxury Fisker electric car. In 2009, as the economy sputtered, A123 registered the country's biggest IPO. Today, it's in bankruptcy court, with possible buyers submitting bids for its parts and pieces. How'd A123 fall so far, so fast? As losses mounted, its reliance on just two big customers came back to haunt the company — and a series of screwups at a Michigan plant delivered the final blow."

Bullshit.

[Anonymous Coward]

A123's 'success' was built on DOE funded research dollars that went to MIT. This money was used to develop key patents that were then 'auctioned off' to A123. A123 just happened to be a company set up by the head researcher whose name appears on the MIT patents. Of course, he was only a minority shareholder as it was the cigar-smokers who get to be the majority shareholders. None of these cronies know anything about actually running a company, but they can certainly sell shares, which is what they did. I tried to find out how to get in on these patent auctions and the process is so guarded that an outsider can't even find out how it goes down. When I tried to inquire about it, I was immediately sent to an MIT public relations officer who would only give me long sermons about all these studies that have demonstrated that since Congress passed the laws to create patents and grant exclusive licenses on technologies developed with public monies it's been nothing but unicorns and rainbows. I finally had to hang up on the guy when he wouldn't even respond to any question I tried to ask him. He just kept spewing his propaganda like a fucking robot.

Re:Just another cautionary tale

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think the government is not doing enough, feel free to donate your money. No need to force your wealth transfer religion on others.

Re:Just another cautionary tale

[Nadaka]

The wealth transfer religion is that of the demagogs insisting that the unregulated market cures all ills. And it is a transfer of wealth from the productive working members of society to the non-working class of the plutocrats, those wealthy enough to grow their wealth by leaching off the labor of others without contributing any real labor in return. It is a religion that is destroying America as a power and will ultimately lead to the annihilation of our liberties and way of life, a return to absolute despotism at the hands of a noble class that feels entitled to everything their serfs can produce.

I think I know what the bottleneck was

[LoRdTAW]

I know A123 is still doing business, we got an RFQ from them the other day.

About a year ago we were working with them on their new battery technology. The challenge was to weld the battery electrolyte fill port in a moisture and oxygen free environment. We have a glove box but the big problem was to leak test the cell before it left the environment and that was the hard part. The glove box environment is 90% argon and 10% helium which is used as a trace gas for helium mass spectrometer leak testing. The part goes into a vacuum oven antechamber and held under vacuum (and baked if necessary, usually to get rid of vapors from glues and moisture) until its safe to open the door in the glove box chamber. Once you hermetically seal a part you need the trace gas to already be inside the part and that is why there is a 10% helium mix. The sealed parts are put into a bell-jar on the leak detector and the leak rate is measured in atm-cc/sec, around 5x10^-5 is when liquid water begins to leak. Below that is where you want to be in the 10^-8/10^-9 range or better. The problem is If your environment is already contaminated with helium how do you test a part for leaking helium? There are other methods we use for parts but that requires the part to be removed from the glove box. If the battery is not sealed 100% it will be ruined if any moisture or oxygen gets into the battery. If we catch the leak inside the box then we can repair it.

  I believe that was the major bottleneck in the process, welding shut the battery electrolyte fill port and checking the seal without introducing the battery to air. They could have two glove boxes with a vacuum antechamber joining them, one filled with the trace gas mixed in, the other without trace gas but helium is a pain in the ass to pump out. you would have to do a gas purge and then vacuum it out and possibly another purge then leak check the part.

We did the development on the job and I don't know what happened after we gave them our solutions.

Re:Not at all better

[jythie]

*smirk* you actually think private investors are more careful? Or that they are generally working with their own money? Wow.....

The government is generally not trying to pick individual winners or losers, it is trying to steer an economy, the two are not the same thing. As for A123 being 'propped up'.. in case you have not noticed, the battery market has almost completely left the US at this point. Countries that have solid government investment in research and incubators have pretty much taken that market. Private firms in the US currently do not stand a chance, esp since the private equity market generally will not take risks on them because they do not care about the over all economy, only which individual companies can return a profit. We again encounter the old game theory problem.. the individual players do not have an incentive for a strong general economy, the government does.