in the early 1980s obc produced ovonic nimh batteries for the consumer market. until that time, nickel cadmium (nicad) batteries dominated the consumer rechargeable battery market, but nimh batteries were safer, and stored more energy in an equivalent size. it also began work with hyundai motor company and an unnamed japanese automaker on batteries for electric vehicles (evs). in 1992, ocb was awarded a contract by the united states advanced battery consortium (usabc), a consortium of us automakers, to develop ev batteries, and in 1993, their first ev nimh battery pack was used in the chrysler te van, which previously used li-alloy/fes batteries.