Electric Carmaker Coda Plans Ohio Plant on Possible Yuan Rise

[Ed Barrow]

Source: Bloomberg

Coda Automotive, which makes batteries in China for its electric cars, plans to open a factory in Ohio as a hedge against a possible rise in the yuan, Senior Vice President Mark Atkeson said.

Coda of Santa Monica, California, paired with Tianjin Lishen Battery Co., majority owned by Chinese energy producer Cnooc Ltd., to make batteries in Tianjin. Coda also gets auto parts from a plant in northern China, to be assembled in California for sale in the U.S. later this year.

“We feel in the long-run there is a need for a global manufacturing base,” Atkeson told reporters on May 22. One reason is that “the renminbi will go up,” he said, using another name for the Chinese currency. That would increase the costs of goods exported to the U.S., he said

The yuan’s value has been fixed to about 6.83 to one U.S. dollar for almost two years, and China is being pressed by Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner to let the value of the currency appreciate to boost domestic demand and control inflation. Geithner met with Chinese officials in Beijing yesterday as part of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue.


Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=axLd80GXzwz0&pos=7

[gmoney]

1. wonder where in Ohio?

[obliviously]

2. I have heard

that these heavy metal battery manufacturing facilities can be a cancer on the countryside!