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Intelligent, Large-Format Lithium-Ion Battery

December 03, 2007
Valence Technology Premieres First Intelligent, Large-Format Lithium-Ion Battery System at EVS-23

Valence Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: VLNC) unveiled its third generation of lithium-ion battery technology, EpochTM, at The International Electric Vehicle Symposium and Exposition (EVS-23), which started Sunday at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, Calif.

From their press release and website:

Valence believes its new generation of phosphate-based lithium-ion battery systems will move the electric vehicle industry one step closer to the Holy Grail -- finding a battery solution that is safe, intelligent, lasts longer and weighs less than outdated technologies being used today. Epoch batteries are equipped with an advanced management system that will monitor and adjust cell performance so battery packs will always operate at their optimum performance capacity. Epoch batteries present a safe, powerful and reliable energy solution designed to be low maintenance, cost competitive and environmentally friendly.

Epoch represents significant electronic, mechanical and thermal improvements over their second generation U-Charge(TM) product. Some of the main advantages are fail soft capability, improved balancing for optimized energy delivery, enhanced SOC calculation, higher system voltage capability, field serviceability, remote access capability and higher continuous discharge capability.

Exxon: Film May Lead to Car Battery that is Lighter and Safer

November 29, 2007
Exxon: Film May Lead to Car Battery that is Lighter and Safer

It seems that everyone is getting into the battery business, one of them will succeed in making a smaller, lighter and less expensive battery. This development by Exxon-Mobil sound very promising.

Exxon-Mobil Chemical and Exxon-Mobil's Japanese affiliate, Tonen Chemical have developed a thin film separator for use in lithium-ion batteries, that would enable production of batteries like those found in cell phones and laptops, to power cars and trucks. These new film technologies are expected to significantly enhance the power, safety and reliability of lithium-ion batteries, thereby helping speed the adoption of these smaller and lighter batteries into the next wave of lower-emission vehicles.
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Combining Ultracacitors and Li-ion Batteries

November 24, 2007

Maxwell Technologies, Tianjin Lishen Battery to Develop "Hybrid" Products" Combining Ultracacitors and Li-ion Batteries

Maxwell Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: MXWL) and Tianjin Lishen Battery Joint-Stock Co., Ltd. , (Lishen), China`s leading producer of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, have announced an alliance to manufacture and market novel "hybrid" energy storage products combining the companies` respective ultracapacitor and li-ion battery technologies.

David Schramm, Maxwell`s president and chief executive officer, said that the companies see a large market opportunity for products that leverage the complementary strengths of double layer capacitor and li-ion battery technologies.

"We believe that the products we envision will give end-users the best of both worlds in terms of the long cycle life, rapid charge/discharge characteristics and low temperature performance of ultracapacitors and the large energy storage capacity of lithium-ion batteries," Schramm said. "We also plan to move some of our BOOSTCAP product assembly to Lishen in order to leverage our joint process engineering capabilities, and Lishen will conduct development and qualification testing on battery electrode material produced through Maxwell`s proprietary dry process, so we see this as a deep and strategically important alliance for both companies."

The companies have identified a number of initial target applications for the new products, ranging from quick-charge cordless tools to electric vehicles, and anticipate production and delivery of initial product samples in early 2008.

This is not the first announcement of such a poroduct, but it brings together two very large companies who can pull off this feat.

Printable Batteries with “Nanotube Ink” from UCLA

UCLA team creates printable batteries
November 16 2007, Tom Simonite
NewScientist.com news service

The batteries were created by George Gruner and colleagues at the University of California in Los Angeles, US, and use the same zinc-carbon chemistry as ordinary non-rechargeable batteries.

Being able to print flexible batteries onto different surfaces should prove handy for powering disposable devices, such as long-range RFID tags or small displays, the researchers say.

The batteries are made from two layers containing carbon nanotubes and a third layer of zinc foil, and are less than a millimeter thick. A great many carbon nanotubes can be packed into these layers. They form randomly aligned nanotube networks that conduct charge more efficiently than the metals normally used - connecting many points in the battery simultaneously, without hampering the electrochemical process that generates power.
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Supercapacitor “battery” – EEstor & ZENN

Supercapacitor "battery" could lead to instant charging, long charge life
Zenn Motor Co. and EEStor
By John Timmer September 04, 2007

News is filtering out that a small startup company in Texas has made a breakthrough in charge storage that relies on a completely different technology: capacitors. Details are scarce, but a company that has licensed the technology suggests that it's ready for large-scale production.

For those of you who don`t remember high school physics, a capacitor stores charge by arranging two metal plates in parallel. Placing a negative charge in one of the plates will repel electrons from its opposite; this charge difference will be maintained as long as the two plates remain electrically isolated and can be harnessed to produce a useful electric current. A key advantage of capacitors is that they can store charge just as quickly as it's supplied-the long charge times needed by chemical batteries are simply unnecessary. With no chemical reactions involved, capacitors should also have an indefinite life span.

These features may lead you to wonder why everything isn`t running on capacitors. The primary limit to the amount of electrical charge that can be stored in a capacitor is the amount of insulation between the plates, which prevents a current from jumping directly between them. Existing insulators simply aren`t good enough to support a charge density comparable to chemical batteries. In short, capacitors with a sufficient charge capacity take up far too much space. (more...)

batteries/supercapacitors made out of paper

13 August 2007 Nature News, Katharine Sanderson

Nanotubes plus paper make for flexible batteries.

The device, made by Pulickel Ajayan and colleagues at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, is made with cellulose - the stuff of ordinary paper - impregnated with carbon nanotubes, which act as electrodes in the battery.

Batteries and supercapacitors each have their advantages. Batteries can store more electricity. But they also require a chemical reaction to transfer electrons, whereas supercapacitors don`t - they use electrostatic interactions instead, and so can charge and discharge very quickly.

Ajayan thinks that his paper could be the basis for something halfway between the two, simply by leaving some ionic liquid in the paper. "There seems to be the possibility of an ideal compromise," he says. His paper can combine some of the storage capabilities of batteries and some of the power discharge characteristics of capacitors: "a device capable of storing useful quantities of electricity which can be discharged very quickly," he says.

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High Voltage Solar Power Controversy

July 18, 2007

A solar power plant that would supply green energy to hundreds of thousands of Southern Californian homes has come under attack - from environmentalists. Stirling Energy Systems has a contract to provide up to 900 megawatts of renewable energy to San Diego Gas & Electric from a 36,000 solar dish array to be built in the Imperial Valley desert. The first phase, a 300-megawatt, 12,000 dish array is to be completed by 2010. The rub: SDG&E (SRE) needs to build a $1.3 billion, 150-mile transmission line through a state park and other environmentally sensitive lands to get the renewable energy to its customers. Green groups are fighting the proposed Sunrise Powerlink, and in public hearings under way in San Diego they have cast the Stirling project as a technological Trojan horse being used by the utility to justify an environmentally damaging big power grab that could ultimately be used to deliver fossil-fueled electricity.
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improved high-energy-density capacitors

High-performance Energy Storage, American Physical Society

Science Daily, July 4, 2007

North Carolina State University physicists have recently deduced a way to improve high-energy-density capacitors so that they can store up to seven times as much energy per unit volume than the common capacitor. High performance capacitors would enable hybrid and electric cars with much greater acceleration, better and faster steering of rockets and spacecraft, better regeneration of electricity when using brakes in electric cars, and improved lasers, among many other electrical applications.
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The Lithium Car Battery Market Heats Up

July 2, 2007

Posted by Michael Kanellos

Competition is getting warm in the lithium ion battery market. Both A123 Systems and Tesla Motors are marketing their batteries to car makers. A123 can count General Motors as an investor and customer.

Valence's biggest 'name' customer, by contrast, is Segway. Nonetheless, Kanode says a number of organizations are tinkering with its batteries and batteries from other companies. The market thus should be big enough for more than one manufacturer, he speculated.

"There are 80 different companies out there testing batteries. This isn`t just benchmark testing," he said. "The testing can take one to two years."

GM awards a co-development battery system contract

June 21 2007

Continental Automotive Systems announced on Thursday 21 June that General Motors has awarded it a co-development contract to design and build prototype battery systems for the Chevrolet Volt "E-Flex" electric vehicle propulsion system. In an effort to speed time-to-market the companies will jointly explore various aspects of lithium ion battery technology.

Continental has more than 10 years experience developing automotive-grade batteries and is scheduled to deploy the lithium technology in a production vehicle next year. In 2003 it pioneered with GM the first production hybrid drive-train for the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra Hybrids. The company has a hybrid development center in Berlin.

Building the Chevy GM-Volt`s Battery Pack

June 21st, 2007
Original GM-Volt.com Interview by Dr. Lyle Dennis

Today I had the opportunity to interview Dr. Bart Riley, co-founder, VP of R&D and CTO of A123 Systems. We discussed A123`s battery system and how they are going about making the Volt`s battery pack system.

This interview is important in that is reveals the first details available about A123`s plans since the June 5th announcement by GM, that battery contracts had been awarded.

He indicated that A123 has over the past five years developed a battery system that has "unprecedented safety, power, and life."

Specifically, they developed a nanophosphate cathode that differs from the cobalt-based system currently used widely in laptop and cell phone batteries. Those lithium cobalt dioxide cathode batteries can become unstable when charged or overcharged or abused and are subject to explosion. A123`s new safer cathode material nanophosphate, uses no cobalt, is not an oxide, and thus has no stability or safety issues. The cells can heat because they are high-power but cannot explode. Indeed the cells are already on the market in power tools. [see A123 batteries in DeWalt Tools]

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New Li-Ion batteries in DeWalt power tools

Super Charged

A new lithium-ion battery fills up fast and outlasts most gadgets

July 2007 PopSci, page 36; 6-11-2007
Popular Science, Christopher Null
THE SHARPEST PART of DeWalt's DC300K cordless circular Saw isn`t the blade; it's the new M1 Nanophosphate Battery inside. It recharges in minutes (rather than Hours) and lasts a decade (instead of a couple years) [and has twice the charge].

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EPOD also working on vehicle ultracapacitor

May 11th 2007

by Sebastian Blanco
Filed under: EV/Plug-in, ZENN

There's been lots of speculation about the EESTOR ultracapacitor and just what kind of impact - if any - it will have on the hybrid and all-electric vehicle market. Just look below at the list of stories we've run in the past on the EESTOR and ZENN, which is the vehicle company the EESTORs are destined for. With so much already unknown, why don`t we introduce another ultracapacitor into the mix, this one made by the Canadian company EPOD. EPOD's ultracapacitor "can be manufactured for small scale applications like cellular phones or larger scale applications such as batteries for Hybrid Motor Vehicles and Wind Mills," according to EV World.

Recently, EPOD "received approval for a $300,000 grant from the government of Canada for further development on the revolutionary new battery that it has been developing for the last two years in conjunction with the Molecular Mechatronics Lab in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of British Columbia," EV World writes. The predicted capabilities are astounding: charge it in less than a minutes and a lifetime of full cycles in excess of 100,000 times. We'll see how much of this is real sometime down the road.

More powerful, Smaller batteries!

Watertown, Mass. - January 4, 2007

A123Systems batteries will be evaluated in prototype Saturn Green Line Vue plug-in hybrid SUVs later this year. GM recently announced its intention to produce a Vue Green Line plug-in hybrid SUV that has the potential to achieve double the fuel efficiency of any current SUV.

There are a few paragraphs about the A123 on the Tesla Roadster blog
Martin Eberhard CEO of Tesla Motors mentions the $15 million grant given to A123 Systems (more...)