A 123 Systems (NASDAQ: AONE) is an American company specializing in the development and production of lithium-ion batteries and energy storage systems. The lithium-ion battery provided by the company has high power, high energy density, long service life and excellent safety performance, leading the lithium-ion battery market. Its technology-oriented products are the next generation of transportation, power grid and consumer applications. As a benchmark enterprise in clean energy automobile industry, A 123 Systems has not only received a large amount of funding from the US government, but also established supply contracts with mainstream automobile manufacturers such as General Motors, Fisk and BMW in Germany.
A brief history of development
A 123 is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, USA, and its energy solutions, battery development and testing are all in Massachusetts; A 123' s advanced research and government solutions, automotive solutions and materials research were completed in Michigan; It has more than 1 10,000 square meters of production facilities in Missouri, German, Korean, China, Shanghai and Changzhou.
A 123 was founded in MIT on 200 1. One of the three founders is Yet-Ming Chiang, a Chinese professor of materials science and engineering at MIT, Ric fulop, a business research consultant at MIT, and Bart Riley, a doctor of materials science at Cornell University. He is the technical director. When A 123 was first established, the total number of employees was only five, and the source of funds was only US$ 65,438+million from the science and technology projects of the US Department of Energy. What's left is only 0.5g material taken out from MIT. Surprisingly, by the beginning of 2007, A 123' s capital had surged to1020,000 US dollars, with more than 250 employees and orders from Fortune 500 companies exceeding1000,000 US dollars.
Today, A 123 has more than 2,000 employees worldwide. The investment in capacity building is nearly $654.38 billion (from 2009 to 2065.438+02), and millions of batteries and hundreds of tons of cathode material powder are produced every year.
10 On June 6th, American battery manufacturer A 123 Systems announced that it had filed an application for bankruptcy protection in Delaware Bankruptcy Court, and indicated that johnson controls, a component supplier, was interested in acquiring its automobile battery business.
On June 28th, 2065438+local time1October 28th, Washington, DC, USA, the Committee on Foreign Investment (CIFUS) officially approved Wanxiang Group to acquire American A 123 Systems Company (A 123). On the second day of local time, Wanxiang and A 123 completed the acquisition and delivery. At this point, this acquisition with a history of more than five months has finally come to a successful conclusion. 123 On February 28th, Wanxiang beat johnson controls and Japanese NEC in the A 123 bankruptcy auction for US$ 256.6 million, and successfully photographed all the assets of the company except government and military business.
20 13 on March 28th, A 123 submitted a document to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, announcing its name change to B456 Systems, and explaining the reasons for its name change.
core technology
The core competitive advantage of A 123 is that the Ferrous lithium phosphate cathode material of lithium ion battery is made into uniform nano-sized ultrafine particles. Due to the sharp increase of particles and total surface area, the high discharge power of the battery is greatly increased, and the overall stability and cycle life are not affected. At present, the powder particles of general lithium ion cathode materials are about 0/00 times larger than A 123/KLOC-0. If it is made into small particles, it will weaken the stability and safety at the same time, so it will face the inherent limitation that it is difficult to improve the discharge power.
The main feature of lithium ferrous phosphate A 123 is nano-powder, and then the conductivity of the material is improved by the patented technology of doping high-valent metal ions. In the process of film making, the high current discharge capacity of the battery was greatly improved by corrosion and carbon coating on the surface of aluminum foil. In addition, the battery uses graphite with special material as the negative electrode, which greatly improves the rate performance and service life of lithium iron phosphate battery.
Power: the capacity density of high-energy products reaches140 w h/kg, and the output density reaches 3000W/kg, which can withstand high power.
The pulse discharge rate is as high as 100C( 100 times the nominal capacity current discharge);
The capacity density of high-power products reaches140 w h/kg, and the output density reaches 3000 W/kg.
Medium power products have higher performance and efficiency advantages.
Safety: it has been verified by many national laboratories and many automobile customers, and has strong abuse tolerance.
Cycle life: A 123 nano-phosphate technology provides excellent performance and cycle life.
Life. In the low interest rate cycle, it can provide thousands of cycles, and even in the discharge rate cycle of 10C, it can provide more than 1 000 complete cycles.
Other relevance
A 123 lithium-ion battery has always occupied more than half of the market share of automobile, military and government projects with high power, high performance and of course high price.
Why can A 123 rise rapidly and occupy the high-end battery market?
Look at its board members and major shareholders, including Motorola, Singular, Qualcomm, P & amp； G and many successful investments in Apple, Cisco and Google's Sequoia Capital, YankeeTek and other important American venture capital institutions. And many people are rushing to invest in A 123. In the recent140 million capital increase plan, they were favored by the management team of A 123, and they can further increase their investment. p & amp； G is a new shareholder, and besides a bunch of big companies holding money, even black &; Dacker was also declined by A 123.
In addition, A 123 not only obtained the development contract of a new generation hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) from the US Department of Energy, but also was received by President Bush and the Energy Minister at the White House to investigate that 1 battery can run more than 65,438 with only 1 gallon of gasoline. David Vieau of A 123 emphasized to Bush that after adopting A 123 lithium battery in hybrid electric vehicles, the gasoline demand of most car owners can be reduced by 70%, the carbon emission can be reduced by 50%, and the harm to the environment can be minimized.
A 123 is also developing lithium iron phosphate battery modules for automobiles and buses together with GM and Singularity. The Volt Concept concept electric vehicle exhibited by General Motors at the beginning of this year, its power supply system was jointly developed by General Motors and American Cobasys Company, and Ferrous lithium phosphate rechargeable battery was produced by A 123.
The contract with a value of $654.38+0.5 million was awarded by the US Department of Energy and USABC (American Advanced Battery Alliance). Because ABC in the United States is jointly organized by research institutes jointly established by Daimler-Benz Group, Ford Motor Company and General Motors Company, and 50% of its annual budget comes from the Department of Energy, it is an important symbol of gaining the attention and trust of national units and international automobile manufacturers.
Existing customers include AES, BAE system, Black and Decker, Cessna, Chrysler and General Motors.
A 123 launched the KillaCycle, the fastest electric motorcycle manufacturer in the world. Using 990 A 123 battery modules (equivalent to 350 horsepower), the speed is 156 kilometers per hour, the acceleration from 0 to 60 miles only takes10.5 seconds, and the 0.25 mile runs 8. 16.
In March 2009, A 123 submitted a loan application of $1800 million under the US Department of Energy's Advanced Technology Automobile Manufacturing Incentive Program to support the construction of a new world-class lithium-ion battery production facility in the United States, which was built in southeastern Michigan. After the scheme is fully put into production, the workshop A 123 is expected to occupy 700,000 square feet and create14,000 jobs. These factories will produce batteries and systems to meet the investment portfolio of A 123' s extensive automobile customers, currently including 7 automobile manufacturers and 19 models, including hybrid electric vehicles (Hev) and electric vehicles (EV).