A123 can unbutton their champagne. That GM is committed to the full range of electrified vehicles is also good news as that has to include battery only vehicles.

Hmmm.... 90 kW fast chargers and A123 getting an EV contract announced on the same day. Funny that, given that A123 have the best currently available battery chemistry for fast charging at reasonable energy density.

A123 Batteries: make by LG in Korea; assembled in U.S. Read that; don't know if it's true. If it is true,,,there goes more jobs!

lad...you may have to double heck your information.

1. GM went to LG (Korea) for early Volts batteries because A123 local USA production plants were not ready.

2. Currently, A123 has 5 plants in China and two in USA.

3. It took 9 months to get a plant going in China and 27 months in USA and cost 5+ times mores.

4. A123 pays $2.80/hour in their Chinese plants and $13.80+ in their Michigan plants. With that much labor cost difference, it will be difficult to remain competitive, if they ever do. If they were to pay the same salaries as the Big-3, they would have to close their USA plants within 12 to 24 months and import complete units from their China plants.

5. Over 10,000 robots could help to reduce States side labor cost but that would not help current unemployed and the Chinese plants could do the same at lower cost. Ex: Foxconn China is introducing 100,000 new robots to build a multitude of Apple high quality products.

Further disclosure notes that A123 owns no plants or factories in China. The have a 50-50 Joint Venture with the state owned SAIC - a property of the Shanghai government. This provides the door to Chinese built EVs which despite government demands have been on the very slow track for years.

The GM contract is indeed good news for the A123, the JV and EV industry in general. Being able to full charge an EV in 15 minutes will eliminate much consumer range anxiety and put charge-for-cash Energy Stations on the infrastructure map.

Folks, please be reminded that robots do not drive, they do not buy cars (that they are making), and do not contribute to the tax roll.
Henry Ford at one time decided to pay his workers decent wages so that they can afford to buy his products.

New investments in the face of ever shrinking labor force due robotization job outsourcing will result in economic bust, because fewer and fewer people will be able to participate in the new economy. This is analogous to what happened that led to the Great Depression.

The $2.8 Chinese labor rate is the root cause of the huge trade imbalance between US and China. The underpaid Chinese workers can't afford much of Western products, while Western labor forces are experiencing increasing unemployment, who then will buy less and less Chinese-made goods. NO surprise, then, that the global economy is collapsing under our watch. Greek, Spain, Italy, UK, Japan, USA, etc...

Meanwhile, the environmental abuse in order to make dirt-cheap Chinese goods are taking toll in the fragile Earth's ecology. CO2 level is going up faster than ever, fueled by the appearance like mushroom of Chinese coal-fired power plants. The ocean level of Mercury and other pollutants are higher than ever...

Are all the above sustainable? What can we do?
Try TARIFF for holding back cheap and ecologically damaging foreign goods.
Try GREEN ECONOMY to clean up the damaged environment AND to provide jobs for those who were displaced by Robots, Computers, and the Internet.

For decades, USA used cheap labor to flood the world markets with goods of all kind, created national wealth and 3,000,000+ millionaires-billionaires. Cheap labor unionized and became expensive labor, worked less and got paid more. Most manufacturing facilities became less competitive. Many moved abroad and closed down local production. The results are less job, less wealth, lowering standards of living for the two bottom classes, less tax revenues, more government debts etc. Meanwhile, the top class is getting richer and paying less taxes. The tide is extremely difficult to change short of a 1929 style recession or the arrival of new type very brave politicians without ties to you know who.

Now is China's turn to do exactly the same for the next 5 to 10 decades.

India's turn will most probably be next and try to move in on China by 2030 or so..

Meanwhile, where will the USA economy go if all the essential changes are not implemented soon. Too many of us still think that Santa and the Hollywood style American dream will come to the rescue.

@TT,
Tariffs have been around since the beginning of trades between nations. Goods from countries with similar environmental regulation and labor protection will have little to no tariff (free-trade zone). Goods from countries with unfair cost advantages due to lax environmental protection and labor protection will have tariffs adjusted to make it fair for domestic producers and other countries from the free-trade zone.

Green Economy jobs based on private investments and private companies are not "make-work jobs." These jobs are vital for the future of the country and the future of our planet. The money saved from petroleum importation will do a lot of good for our economy. Energy efficiency gained from Green conservation measures will partially offset for the initial increase in cost of renewable energy. CAFE of LDV's will double by 2025, and the same can be done for home and industrial energy usage. Eventually, renewable energy will be cheaper than fossil fuel energy per unit of BTU, but will employ a lot more people, since renewable energy is more labor intensive than fossil fuel energy. Most of the cost of a gallon of gasoline right now is not labor cost, but profit for OPEC and oil cos.

On the contrary. US has avoided the AGW carbon scheming savings billions in misdirected expenditures. The expanding Energy Independence campaign is making US more competitive by keeping more funds working at home. And US leads in EVs, viable alternative fuels and simple conservation measures like using bottles with 50% less plastic than four years ago.

As US takes the next revolutionary step to adopt CHP as a new residential energy standard - the coal-fired world will be left in the particulate dust.

@Harvey,
In fact, I have been against biofuel as replacement for petroleum.
I have been advocating solar, wind, hydro, geothermal to produce electricity for BEV, PHEV and H2 for FCV. Waste cellulosic biomass can be used to make liqued fuels for backing up PHEV.

I agree with the rest of your next-to-last posting.
WRT your last posting, a simple tariff on batteries made abroad in countries with unfair cost advantages will help keep our battery plants open and keep more jobs at home! Simple, very simple.

We cannot pollute our local environment and slave-drive our workers to death in order to compete with factories abroad. The rate of suicide of workers in Foxconn factories in China is very high, with a lot of job dissatisfaction and mental stress. Technology should serve humanity to bring more leisure and happiness, and human should not continued to be enslaved by ruthless, cut-throat competition from globalization that is enabled by modern technology. Vive la France!

@Reel$$,
Instead of carbon trading scheme, a simple "carbon tax" can be assessed on all goods made with the use of fossil fuels, depending on how much is used per unit. Manufacturer(s) that use entirely renewable energy will not have this carbon tax on their products. This will help our current budget deficit, and will provide funds needed for loan assistance to private businesses to jump start the renewable energy economy, and will create tens of millions of new jobs.

Agree, "taxes in general can become a subsidy for bad governing...addictive."
We really need more intelligent government that is more loyal to the long-term interests of the Nation as a whole and less to the whim of special interest groups. One solution to be tried is to pay top-level government positions with comparable salaries and bonuses equal to those of Fortune 500 top officers. Top-qualifying candidates for public elections should receive adequate public money for campaigns in order to reduce dependency on private contributors.

Your idea for fossil fuel tax is quite a good one. With strong leadership and public understanding of what is at stakes and hence strong commitment to go Green, perhaps the oil lobby too, will turn Green, and everyone will benefit.

Our government has been without clear direction nor vision, hence, we have been lead by Big Interest Groups that have conflicting agendas and selfish motives, leading to grid-lock like we've seen recently.
A strong, intelligent, coherent, loyal, and unified government will be needed to LEAD Big Business and Special interest groups and everyone to work together to benefit the entire Nation.

@Harveyd
Wouldn't a national sales tax and higher fuel taxes be even more regressive than the current system? While you propose 0 taxes on the first 20k the current system has earned income tax credit for levels above that to act as an income redistribution system. So in a way you would be balancing the budget on the backs of the people who can least afford to contribute.