Many companies are finding benefits in going green, and a number of them are choosing to do it in the U.S. Johnson Controls, a Milwaukee-based multinational provider of automobile components, climate control and facilities management solutions, has said it plans to add 50 new jobs to a plant near Toledo Ohio for the purpose of making batteries for alternative energy vehicles.
The company, which is one of the largest in the state of Wisconsin, plans to spend over $138-million to re-work and expand the Toledo factory, so it can manufacture batteries for the latest types of fuel-efficient vehicles,
reported the Web site of Milwaukee's WTAQ talk radio.
Construction for needed new facilities is expected to begin later this summer, and the plant will reportedly add to a workforce which now totals around 400 people, bringing the total to about 450.
According to Johnson Controls, one of the new batteries it will be making is for vehicles with start-and-stop technology. The system automatically stops a regular gasoline engine when the car is idling, perhaps at a red light, switching it over to a battery (think hybrid vehicles like the Toyota Prius). The system then restarts the gasoline engine when the driver releases the brake pedal or moves the clutch. The result is a decrease in the amount of harmful exhaust the car emits while it's idling.
Johnson Controls says the new batteries have the potential to reduce total gas consumption and exhaust emissions by up to 12 percent. The predicted market for electric vehicle (EV) batteries going forward is over $37 billion in 2020,
according to research group IDTechEx.
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Tracey Schelmetic is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Tracey's articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by
Jennifer Russell
