Thanks to the Department Of Energy (DOE) grant, A123 had been performing
research on the nanophosphate cathode technology which, new studies at MIT,
found to have surprisingly high power density results in early tests. These results
took the battery community by surprise and caused other firms to begin to take
an interest in the technology, which put A123 at a crossroads. As a startup,
companies usually want to focus on developing one technology and most investor
advice held true to that belief. However, the new material was highly promising
and seemed like it might lead to a product sooner, but trying to research both the
self-organizing battery and the nanophosphate cathode material would likely
slow down results.