WASHINGTON —Ener1, an electric car battery company to which the Obama administration awarded a $118 million stimulus grant to expand its operations, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Thursday.
The news comes a year after Vice President Joe Biden visited the company’s battery plant in Indiana to highlight its progress.
Ener1 is the third company to seek bankruptcy protection among those the Energy Department backed as part of the president’s signature program to invest in clean energy. Others were Solyndra, a California solar panel maker, and Beacon Power, a Massachusetts energy-storage firm.
One of Ener1’s struggles has been its reliance on one financially troubled customer, Think. The Norwegian carmaker filed for bankruptcy protection in June 2010.
