Toda Kogyo Planning U.S. Manufacturing Plant For Li-ion Batteries

Toda America, Inc., a subsidiary of Japan’s Toda Kogyo Corp. announced that it plans to build a U.S.-based manufacturing plant to support lithium-ion battery production, depending upon whether the company is awarded a Department of Energy (DOE) grant under the Electric Drive Vehicle Battery and Component Manufacturing Initiative of the recently passed Recovery Act.

The company is considering manufacturing sites in South Carolina and Michigan, as well as developing plans for a Customer R&D center to work with automotive and battery companies to integrate its advanced cathode materials into customer products.

Last year, Toda Kogyo Corp. and the DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory reached a world-wide licensing agreement for the commercial production and sales of Argonne’s patented composite cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries.

The company states that it intends to be a catalyst for the development of the U.S. lithium-ion battery industry supply base, and that having a local supply base is a key step in the development of a sustainable electric drive vehicle market in the United States.