According to an interesting article in the financial section of my newspaper today, A123 Systems has resolved most of the outstanding issues of their bankruptcy filing. The company's assets are being sold to the "U.S. arm of Chinese auto parts conglomerate Wanxiang Group for nearly $257 million". If I read the article correctly, the battery arm of this company will be called B456 Systems, which is based in Waltham, Mass.
An interesting sidelight is that the U.S. auto parts maker, Johnson Controls, Inc. was a bad boy as they apparently tried to "torpedo" A123 Systems sale to Wanxiang by lobbing the creditors to get them to kill the deal, after losing out to the Chinese company during the bidding process. Because of this bad behavior, Johnson Controls has agreed to pay $200,000 to the bankruptcy estate and in return the creditors committee will drop any claims against JCI. Sounds like fun and games.
So it appears that if you want new versions of A123 batteries you will be buying them from B456 Systems.
