Free Republic

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama celebrated the opening of an advanced battery plant in Michigan on Monday as a critical boost for hybrid and electric cars — and a success for his administration's economic stimulus program. But even as mass-produced advanced batteries start rolling off assembly lines, costs are high for consumers, and hurdles remain. "This is about the birth of an entire new industry in America, an industry that's going to be central to the next generation of cars," Obama said Monday in a phone call broadcast at the opening of A123 Systems Inc.'s lithium ion battery plant in...