http://www.reuters.com/article/americasDealsNews/idUSTRE56D1FI20090714


Samsung-Bosch battery venture buys U.S. Cobasys
Tue Jul 14, 2009 4:37am EDT

SEOUL (Reuters) - SB LiMotive, an electric vehicle battery joint venture between South Korea's Samsung SDI (006400.KS) and Germany's Robert Bosch, is acquiring U.S. battery maker Cobasys, Samsung SDI said on Tuesday.
Ener1 - Russian owned.
Cobasys - Sold to Samsung-Borsh
Dow Chemical - Too busy selling Korean cells in the US

Is A123 the last US battery maker standing?

Wait, didn't Cobasys hold patents on NiMH instead of Li-Ion? Why did Samsung buy this?

So that it can now keep blocking Toyota from having larger capacity NiMH battery packs in plugins?

Wait, didn't Cobasys hold patents on NiMH instead of Li-Ion? Why did Samsung buy this?

So that it can now keep blocking Toyota from having larger capacity NiMH battery packs in plugins?

I thought Chevron owned the patent and sold Cobasys without patent rights. They basically abandoned it and let it die. If I'm not mistaken, Panasonic makes Toyota's batteries, but of course they must be paying license fees to Chevron.

If Samsung does somehow get some kind of interest in the patent, they could make it even more costly to make NiMH forcing the dependence on Lithium Ion even greater (giving the Korean's an even larger advantage).

To your other point, the battery industry in the US is a microcosm of all of the US industries. They are all on the brink of bankruptcies or foreign owned. Our ridiculous corporate taxes are sucking them dry during the good times, and they have no extra capital during the slow times. I'm sure glad we are spending trillions bailing out banks that don't produce anything, or dumping ridiculous amounts of money on our military efforts to police the world.

To your other point, the battery industry in the US is a microcosm of all of the US industries. They are all on the brink of bankruptcies or foreign owned. Our ridiculous corporate taxes are sucking them dry during the good times, and they have no extra capital during the slow times. I'm sure glad we are spending trillions bailing out banks that don't produce anything, or dumping ridiculous amounts of money on our military efforts to police the world.





Our corporate taxes are very low compared to the developed world! Maybe you are including health care? Other countries have universal health care and thus their corporations have less to pay. Also, Europe has a much higher level of unionized labor. Thus, America and Europe are both in deep **** because Asia is hungry, nonunion, very low tax, low to no regulations and getting much better in terms of quality. They really value education and are churning out engineers like crazy. Over here in America? Americans are running away from engineering because it's a very hard career. Music and sports are much more fun! lol. Yeah, we are screwed. The trend has been know for quite some time, like people knew GM was going to eventually go bankrupt. It was just a matter of time.

I look at England and just bow my head. They are in a real bad way. They could barely keep afloat with the North Sea oil! They went from a major oil exporter to now a major oil importer. Their wealth is spilling out of their boarders faster than ours. They have far less resources that we do and spend a lot more. Tick-tock.

America wake up! If we are going to remain the most powerful economy in the world status we need to maintain a competitive advantage. Currently we have our excellent higher-education and business friendly government systems to fall back on. However, with expensive and a less educated workforce getting more expensive and less educated every year and our production of petroleum going down and our energy imports going up with our manufacturing base and soon our engineering base being moved over to Asia what can we expect other than collapse? The writing has been on the wall for a long time.

Energy, education and job creation. If we don't work hard on those areas we are screwed. Asia is coming, and coming on strong. Oh, China just overtook America as the leading market for automobiles. Ouch. What's next?

Oh, China just overtook America as the leading market for automobiles. Ouch. What's next?

Sadly, electric automobiles.

Is A123 the last US battery maker standing?Johnson Controls / Saft is still a big player. Not sure how much of their arrangement is French though. Johnson Controls itself is headquartered in Milwaukee, WI.

There may be others I'm forgetting.... anyone?? Bueller? Bueller?

Johnson Controls / Saft is still a big player. Not sure how much of their arrangement is French though.
Johnson-Saft currently resells Saft cells made in France.
Johnson-Saft's US plant will make cells of Saft design. After all, Saft is the li-ion battery maker; Johnson isn't.

The same arrangement with Dow Chemical's Li-Ion battery venture; initial cells come from Korea, and their US plant is a transplant of Korean plant pressing out Korean-designed cells.

Both Johnson and Dow rely on foreign engineering. Only A123 and Ener1's cells are of US engineering. A123 is US owned, Ener1 not so much.

America wake up! If we are going to remain the most powerful economy in the world status we need to maintain a competitive advantage.

The Cobasys sale underscores why we have no competitive advantage. To get enough capital to develop new tech and still stay in business, companies go public. This essentially makes them for sale at all times. So when a company has great new product, all a foreign company has to do is come in and buy the company. I don't see us maintaining much of a lead on anything anymore. We are in the twilight years of an empire. Your look to England as a model for where we are headed is spot on.

Our corporate taxes are very low compared to the developed world! Maybe you are including health care? Other countries have universal health care and thus their corporations have less to pay.


Well, we (Sweden) have the worlds highest taxes, and we be in deep **** too if it weren't for some major companies that have been keeping this country alive for 2 decades. We must lower our taxes and abolish (or change) the universal state healthcare to lower the taxes here in Sweden.

U.S is going the wrong way. Money is being put to non profit companies through the tax payers, and last time that happened here in my country so did we get an huge dept and went from taxes at 30% like U.S. to todays 60-70%.
Over dimensioned state organizations/companies, universal state health care etc.

Obamas stimulus and universal healthcare will def make the worlds only superpower to the worlds superdebt.

Corporate Taxes in general may be similar or lower than other European countries (which as Texas pointed out, are completely economically screwing themselves over right now), but let's look at Asia. Their governments either own the major players, heavily subsidize them, or both. They also have the advantage of understanding how important raw material resources are. The only two ways to create wealth are by mining some kind of raw material, or building something with it. (Asian countries understand that extremely well because they've always been at a resource disadvantage being either really small, or over populated.) That's something that most Americans either don't realize or don't care about anymore.

These facts make it extremely difficult for me to pick a political party. The democrats are fiscally irresponsible (but so are the Republicans), and the Republicans are resource irresponsible.

Add to this one of the biggest factors. China is still cheating when it comes to trade by fixing it's currency well below the dollar. In the last 10 years they've effectively taken most US manufacturing jobs. Our gov't watched it happen and did nothing, but help them along There's no was the green economy is going to make up for that. A strong robust economy is based on manufacturing and nothing else. You can green up the manufacturing sector, but if it makes it non-competitive with foreign competition it's less than useless. In order for a green economy to even begin to work you have to put some sort of legislation in place that requires imports to meet the same standards. The competition that's currently killing or has already killed our economy doesn't even have any meaningful labor standards let alone any restrictions on pollution and the like.

Add to this one of the biggest factors. China is still cheating when it comes to trade by fixing it's currency well below the dollar. In the last 10 years they've effectively taken most US manufacturing jobs. Our gov't watched it happen and did nothing, but help them along There's no was the green economy is going to make up for that. A strong robust economy is based on manufacturing and nothing else. You can green up the manufacturing sector, but if it makes it non-competitive with foreign competition it's less than useless. In order for a green economy to even begin to work you have to put some sort of legislation in place that requires imports to meet the same standards. The competition that's currently killing or has already killed our economy doesn't even have any meaningful labor standards let alone any restrictions on pollution and the like.





Somebody doesn't like China very much. Little do most American's know that China has been our massive, low cost manufacturing arm and has provided us with unprecedented about of goods as well as OPEC has been our massive, low cost oil well.

Yep. We reached peak oil in 1970 and if it were not for OPEC we would have seen a much deeper decline in our economy (unless we started to use other forms of energy). Also, our union labor and social systems started to cost a lot so we would not have been able to enjoy so much crap if it were not for the Chinese working for around a $1 / day.

So, don't go blaming China like they had this master plan. lol. It was all us and our lazy greed that got us to where we are today. Our get-something-for-nothing attitude. Make others do the hard work while we sit back and get fat on chocolates and ice cream. Complacency has brought down many a corporation and country. Look in the mirror if you want to blame someone. Most Chinese just want to eat.

Somebody doesn't like China very much. Little do most American's know that China has been our massive, low cost manufacturing arm and has provided us with unprecedented about of goods as well as OPEC has been our massive, low cost oil well.

Yep. We reached peak oil in 1970 and if it were not for OPEC we would have seen a much deeper decline in our economy (unless we started to use other forms of energy). Also, our union labor and social systems started to cost a lot so we would not have been able to enjoy so much crap if it were not for the Chinese working for around a $1 / day.

So, don't go blaming China like they had this master plan. lol. It was all us and our lazy greed that got us to where we are today. Our get-something-for-nothing attitude. Make others do the hard work while we sit back and get fat on chocolates and ice cream. Complacency has brought down many a corporation and country. Look in the mirror if you want to blame someone. Most Chinese just want to eat.

Totally agree here. Americans loved the idea of dumping money in the stock market and making tons of money without working. They loved the idea of buying a house just so that it could go up in value and make money for free. They loved the idea of gas guzzling muscle cars in the 70's and now we are reliant on OPEC. They loved the idea of just buying stuff from other countries at a cheaper price, now we have Chinese stepping in to do all of our busy work.

It always come back to bite you in the end.

By the way, 2 out of 3 Americans are overweight, and 1 in 3 of all Americans are obese. I read somewhere that at the current rate of increase, 100% of Americans will be overweight in about 20 years.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE50863H20090109

I feel the best thing for us is to realize just what is happening so we can try to turn it around before it's too late. If anyone wants an example of what we are dealing with just read the following article about BYD. Do you think our exexutives can beat this guy or can our union workers beat these workers? Do you even want to? Scary and there are a billion of them!

Warren Buffett takes charge (Warren decribes why he invested in BYD - it's a tech play afterall): http://www.byd2009.com/press.php?id=49

You can also check out their electric cars here. Dual mode looks good: http://www.byd.com/

The only two ways to create wealth are by mining some kind of raw material, or building something with it.

How did Switzerland do it?

How did Switzerland do it?

There's lots of money to be made producing Army Knives and Swatches :)

How did Switzerland do it?

Banking. Large banks were created out of Nazi wealth deposited there at the end of the war that was never claimed. Their unique (at the time) banking policy of client confidentiality made them a very attractive place to deposit money you might want shielded in the future. Their neutrality status and lack of dependence on other countries made this possible.

The Swiss were never occupied by the Nazis, but they sure did business with them. A clever strategy of doing business with the Nazis combined with the prospect of a difficult military campaign for little gain kept the Germans at bay. In the end they reaped the benefits of doing business with the Germans without any consequence.

In addition to their main industry of banking, they also excel in the hospitality industry, engineering, specialty foods and tourism.

So, don't go blaming China like they had this master plan.

I agree with all that you have said about us doing it to ourselves, however China does have a plan. They are not just passively benefiting from our stupidity. They manipulate their currency to keep it of low value, they control the wages people can earn in factories and keep unions out to keep labor costs down, they allow piracy of intellectual property to bolster home industries, they engage in business deals that help western companies earn huge short term profit while slowly transferring technology and assets to Chinese companies and turn a blind eye to environmental or public health. All of this is a long term plan to exploit our weaknesses to build up their country and their power.

It's working and we are now screwed. China reported this week that their economic stimulus plan has allowed them to achieve double digit growth while everybody else is still in recession. What this means is, China's home market is not only self sustaining, but growing without any outside help. They don't really need us all that much now. Their home industries are still learning, but their quality, technology and design are getting better everyday.

In addition, China's navy has grown in size and capability and is no longer intimidated by us any longer. This has been a great benefit of them gaining technology from the West, who now are dependent on China to build much of the needed components for weapons systems, they have applied this knowledge to their own military. Mark my words, Taiwan will fall to the Chinese in the next few years and it will be done without a shot fired. They will be absorbed much like the Czech Republic was during WWII, only now we will be playing the role of Britain and France. With the acquisition of Taiwan, they will gain even more technology and solidify their status as a new world power with a bite.

All of this has taken long, careful planning on how to best exploit their own people and environment along with our greed and short sightedness to eventually lift their country and people up. The kind of patience and generational planning we don't really understand. Chinese think as a collective, we think as individuals so much so, that we are now a self centered cult of the individual. What once made us great is now dragging us down.

Switzerland only has about 7.5 million people. Tourism alone could make them rich, plus they have enough industry there between tourism, their banking industry and their auto industry which used to be amazing and is still decent, this on top of all of the other reasons listed. Rolexes and Swatches probably don't hurt lol.

The bottom line is the main way for a country to build wealth is to figure out a way to export goods and services. Whether those goods are raw, or refined, or the services are tourism, or whatever. This is something the US has almost completely forgotten how to do.

In fact, another thing the US has forgotten, something that we learned during World War 2, that is that wars are not won with the largest army, they are won with the largest economy who can sustain that military.

Obamas stimulus and universal healthcare will def make the worlds only superpower to the worlds superdebt.

You heard it here first.

"Obamas stimulus and universal healthcare will def make the worlds only superpower to the worlds superdebt."


You heard it here first.





?? Sounds like an ignorant and depressed Republican bitching about the change in leadership. Shall we talk about the healthcare cost increases over the past 8 years? They exceeded tree times inflation. I'm not going to explain economics here but let's just say that's not good. Oh, about that superdebt status? Where have you been? We have enjoyed that status for decades!

In fact, the Obamus healthcare plan is simply not enough. It's trying to fit a round peg in multiple square holes. If you could strip away all of the politics and powerful interests and step back, look at all the different universal healthcare systems in the world (not hard, all developed countries but us have one) work up the most technologically advanced and financially responsible system then we could cut costs by at least half AND have the best system on earth.

Everyone but the current people making all that cash would be happy. Unfortunately, we are not going to get that system. Same with a great new smart grid working towards a sustainable energy policy. That's just the way it is. Keeps things interesting, otherwise everything would already be fixed and then what would we do?

their banking industry and their auto industry which used to be amazing and is still decent, ...

I guess you mean the auto parts and engineering services business, because Switzerland has never been an auto producer to my knowledge. Making and engineering parts for others, yes, they do that well enough.


The bottom line is the main way for a country to build wealth is to figure out a way to export goods and services. Whether those goods are raw, or refined, or the services are tourism, or whatever. This is something the US has almost completely forgotten how to do.

In fact, another thing the US has forgotten, something that we learned during World War 2, that is that wars are not won with the largest army, they are won with the largest economy who can sustain that military.

This is all very true.

"Obamas stimulus and universal healthcare will def make the worlds only superpower to the worlds superdebt."







?? Sounds like an ignorant and depressed Republican bitching about the change in leadership. Shall we talk about the healthcare cost increases over the past 8 years? They exceeded tree times inflation. I'm not going to explain economics here but let's just say that's not good. Oh, about that superdebt status? Where have you been? We have enjoyed that status for decades!

In fact, the Obamus healthcare plan is simply not enough. It's trying to fit a round peg in multiple square holes. If you could strip away all of the politics and powerful interests and step back, look at all the different universal healthcare systems in the world (not hard, all developed countries but us have one) work up the most technologically advanced and financially responsible system then we could cut costs by at least half AND have the best system on earth.

Everyone but the current people making all that cash would be happy. Unfortunately, we are not going to get that system. Same with a great new smart grid working towards a sustainable energy policy. That's just the way it is. Keeps things interesting, otherwise everything would already be fixed and then what would we do?

The same thing is happening in U.S. which made us (Sweden) bankrupt! To implent universal healthcare will not cut the costs, it will rocket the prices. People that really doesn't deserve healthcare will suddenly have the chance to use it.
I know more people "using" the system than deserving it. People that have never worked, overweighted and doesn't care about anything. No education, never paid taxes and because of their overweight where in need of extremly expensive healthcare.

We in the west have big problems with the healthcare system. It's really bad per spend $, and we know that we must soon go to a insurance system.

What made Swden go from third richest country to bankrupt:
*The state give loans/investing to non-profitable comanies
*The state taking control of companies
*Universal healthcare
*An over dimensioned public sector

Recognize it?

The biggest reason Switzerland is rich with little industry and resources is peace.. they have stayed out of wars for a long time and thus built up their wealth slowly over the decades.. this does not mean they are pacifists, they are not.. they are armed to the teeth. They also made lots of cash arming the Nazis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Companies_of_Switzerland_by_industry

http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Europe/Switzerland-INDUSTRY.html

Manufacturing is 34% of GDP

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Switzerland

Protectionism DOES NOT CREATE WEALTH. Despite what the economically illiterate leftists and the unions are telling you, erecting tariffs and borders with duties, REDUCES the general wealth of society as it introduces turbulence (inefficiency) in the flow of goods by killing comparative advantages and has its own overhead costs in addition.

Do not let international socialists and national socialists tell you that you can create wealth by protectionism - its like trying to levitate with the bootsrap. Sounds good, until the long run impoverishes society. You cannot mess with the laws of economics (and physics), no matter how well meaning or how clever you think you are.

This is probably obvious to all here. But I keep on hearing the contrary from the uselss literature, artist, and cultural types.

Protectionism DOES NOT CREATE WEALTH. Despite what the economically illiterate leftists and the unions are telling you, erecting tariffs and borders with duties, REDUCES the general wealth of society as it introduces turbulence (inefficiency) in the flow of goods by killing comparative advantages and has its own overhead costs in addition.

Do not let international socialists and national socialists tell you that you can create wealth by protectionism - its like trying to levitate with the bootsrap. Sounds good, until the long run impoverishes society. You cannot mess with the laws of economics (and physics), no matter how well meaning or how clever you think you are.

This is probably obvious to all here. But I keep on hearing the contrary from the uselss literature, artist, and cultural types.







Actually, it all comes down to what your neighbors are doing. If they are much less advanced than you then giving up your technology and seeding their economies may bring you more markets but it also may bring you more competition.

Let's look at China. Their population is bigger than all of America, Canada, Australia, Europe, and Japan put together! Additionally, they have such a low utilization of modern technology that they can grow, all by themselves for decades. Of course they need the raw materials from around the world so they can't simply close the gates.

Then there is the point of who do we want to compete against and what do we want from our lives. Protectionism can be very dangerous because you can be left behind in terms of technology. Japan is famous for closing it's boarders for a long time only to find out how backward they became.

Also, there is not a yes or no situation here. EVERY country has some level of protectionism. There are always millions of deals and agreements going on so that each side feels they have a fair deal. Obviously, we can't just accept Chinese cars at face value. It would put out every one of America's auto manufacturers overnight.

So, anyone who says that protectionism is bad does not understand globalization. Perhaps that term is used in general that a county makes it very hard to do trade. We should then define the terms. No country is freely open for everything and no country is closed to everything.

Now, here in America we have a situation where corporations want to do things that are good for them but not good for our country. For example, they can send out all of their manufacturing and engineering out to India and make a ton of money. However, that forces all the others to do the same or go out of business. If all of our manufacturing and engineering goes out of the country it makes us much weaker to be independent should war or crisis hit.

Let's look at a country like Cuba. They were forced to be isolated. They struggled tremendously but now have a very good level of sustainability. If we do hit peak oil they will not be nearly as negatively effected as the U.S. will. We could be in deep trouble because we rely on that resource so completely. Cuba will just yawn and tell us how their resources were cut in half in one day! They are growing their own food, ride their bikes around, have excellent health care, etc. No, they don't have all the luxuries we have but they also can't have them stripped away as easily.

The post peak oil era might bring the end of globalization as we know it. It just might cost too much in transportation cost to make it worth it. We just don't know what will happen. Many countries are so dependent on outside forces that they could collapse. Think about many places that rely on tourism and outside petroleum (Hawaii, etc.). They need food shipped in, fuel shipped in and pay for it with tourism revenue. If fuel rises too high their economy collapses because the tourists cannot afford the trip. Now they have no way to feed their population or fuel their power plants. Deep trouble.

So, many countries may be headed towards the protectionism path. Not because they want to but because they have to. They need to protect their economy from collapse. When crisis' hit it comes down to the basics - food, water and shelter. Imported wine from France is very easy to give up.

I'm more angry at our politicians for letting them cheat on the trade deal they got when they were allowed into the WTO. They're just doing what's in their best interest. Currency fixing isn't allowed and they still do it to this day with no consequences. Now our manufacturing sector is crippled and our competition has an unfair advantage. If our politicians wouldn't have sold us out in all probability our economy would still be running strong and we would be much better off for it. They should have had tariffs placed on their goods until they started playing by the rules. We are also short sighted idiots for letting it happen both with our purchases and the people we voted into office.

I'm more angry at our politicians for letting them cheat on the trade deal they got when they were allowed into the WTO. They're just doing what's in their best interest. Currency fixing isn't allowed and they still do it to this day with no consequences. Now our manufacturing sector is crippled and our competition has an unfair advantage. If our politicians wouldn't have sold us out in all probability our economy would still be running strong and we would be much better off for it. They should have had tariffs placed on their goods until they started playing by the rules. We are also short sighted idiots for letting it happen both with our purchases and the people we voted into office.





It's all about what perspective you have. Outside countries are always accusing America for being the 800 pound gorilla in the global market. Americans often think we are being taken advantage of but that couldn't be further from the truth.

Think about it. We are the biggest market and have the most money and lawyers to throw at the problem. We wheel and deal like bandits in the night. We are famous for it! We throw our weight around just like we do on the battle field. Believe it. We are not sitting in the corner like a big idiot child getting kicked by tiny countries.

One thing the 800lb Gorilla (the US) can do is print money like nobody else and it doesn't significantly devalue our currency. For now we have the best of both worlds, we can print as much money as we want and people still want it, and then we can buy cheap products from China with that money at an insanely good exchange ratio. If smaller countries tried to print money, it would spell the end, just ask Iceland and Poland.

I would hardly call countries like china and and to a lesser extent India small countries. We've been in a pretty rapid decline since 1999 the only thing that masked it was all of the loose lending the banks did. The value of our currency has also dropped about 40% since then. We'll really see the dollar plummet when the last year and a half of "stimulus" is distributed in earnest. Hold onto your butts; because we're nowhere near the bottom of the hole we've dug for ourselves. We're probably in for a Japanese style lost decade at the very least. I honestly hope I'm wrong, but I doubt it. At least not about how big the hole is.