Connecticut-based Yardney Technical Products and California-based Coda Automotive have formed a joint venture that will design, manufacture and sell automotive grade, lithium-ion battery power systems in the US.
The joint venture, Coda Battery Systems, submitted a proposal under the US stimulus grant programme to the US Department of Energy in May for funding to manufacture the batteries at a facility in Enfield, Connecticut. Once operational, the Coda Battery facility is expected to employ 600 US workers in manufacturing positions.
Scheduled for delivery to the California market in the fall of 2010, Coda’s four-door, five-passenger, fully-equipped mid-size, all-electric sedan will initially be sold with a battery system from a joint venture between Coda Automotive and Chinese-based Tianjin Lishen Battery, one of largest suppliers of lithium-ion batteries in the world.
Coda Battery Systems will begin supplying the battery power system for the Coda sedan as soon as the new US facility can be brought on-line. It is anticipated that Lishen, Coda’s battery partner in China, will participate in the US manufacturing joint venture.
Yardney has been providing batteries for the US military since 1944.
Development of Yardney’s first major lithium-ion battery began in 1998 when the company won a contract to develop a battery for a planned NASA Mars lander.
Since then, Yardney has also developed such batteries for many other aerospace applications, including a variety of satellites, the US Air Force’s B2 Bomber and Global Hawk unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, and the Mars Exploration Rovers.
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