The U.S. auto industry may be floundering in part because it failed to embrace fuel-efficient and alternative fuel cars, but U.S. companies can still position themselves to lead the way in the next phase of automobile manufacturing, a group of battery makers is arguing. Fourteen companies have announced that they're teaming up and will seek $1 billion in federal aid to build a large-scale factory that produces lithium-ion batteries, which would be used in plug-in electric cars.
Many experts believe battery technology and manufacturing capacity could become as strategically important as oil is today. Auto makers, including General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co., say they plan to roll out plug-in electric cars by 2010 [The Wall Street Journal].
The consortium, which calls itself the National Alliance for Advanced Transportation Battery Cell Manufacture, is modeled after a group formed in 1987 by computer-chip manufacturing companies that were struggling to compete ...
