GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Electric Car Site

Another chapter on the EEStor story has now unfolded, this time in the world of trademark patents.

In October, the secretive Texas company EEStor was granted a trademark for “EESU”, which stands for Electrical Energy Storage Unit and refers to their unique ceramic battery. The battery is purported to be low cost, lightweight, extremely energy dense, rapidly chargeable, and has a functionally infinite lifecycle. All these attributes are each many times superior to lithium-ion batteries.  Because of these remarkable properties it is hoped to be an ideal solution for electric cars, and is the reason Canadian Zenn Motors has an exclusivity agreement to build them.

Indeed the excitement generated by the potential for these devices is why they are followed here even though they are not directly slated for use in the Chevy Volt nor has GM rendered any opinion on the company. GM promotes an open-door policy for reviewing and testing any new cells companies want to offer. GM executives deny ever receiving an EEStor prototype.

Indeed the public has never seen a working prototype of these batteries yet, and there is debate as to whether one actually exists. EEStor CEO Dick Weir has declined to answer that question when I’ve posed it to him on multiple occasions. Nonetheless, military giant Lockheed Martin has obtained an exclusive agreement to use the technology in military applications.

In fact, earlier this week a patent was awarded to Lockheed Martin for a body armor vest with a built-in EESU compartment although it is also noted that lithium-ion cells could also be used.  A spokesperson from Lockheed Martin told GM-Volt.com “that product is separate from the rights agreement with EEStor… Not associated.”

In any event, the newly discovered EESU trademark patent discloses heretofore unseen preliminary specifications for an apparent EESU model called a 24V-BDHD as follows:

Thanks to EEStor blogger ‘B’ for the tip, his site is here.

Source (US Patent and Trademark Office)

An electric car future is inevitable. Instead of running on gasoline, of course, those cars will be powered by grid-charged lithium-ion batteries, as shall the Volt.

Currently, Asia is already far ahead of the US in lithium-ion battery production, and if that trend continues will assure future US dependence on Asia for batteries to run our cars.

A consortium of 14 US companies want to prevent that outcome and help jump start US lithium-ion battery production. They are called the “National Alliance for Advanced Transportation Battery Cell Manufacture.”

The founding companies include 3M, ActaCell, All Cell Technologies, Altair Nanotechnologies, Dontech Global, EaglePicher Corporation, EnerSys, Envia Systems, FMC, MicroSun Technologies, Mobius Power, SiLyte, Superior Graphite, and Townsend Advanced Energy.

The group is being advised by the Argonne National Lab and is led by a Chicago lawyer named James Greenberger.  The group hopes to establish one or more advanced battery production and development centers in the US, with a price tag of $1 to $2 billion over the next 5 years.  The group is requesting these funds should come from the US government.

Greenberger said “We think this is the most effective way that government can leverage public money to both establish lithium ion battery manufacture in the United States and revitalize the automotive industry in the long term.”

The group has already begun lobbying congress and working to inform the Obama administration.

“I don’t think it’s good enough that the American consumer is going to have a vehicle that’s electrified or have hybrid capabilities,” said Greenberger. “It doesn’t help us if we have no capability in the U.S.”

Indeed it is well known that Asian battery firms have long been highly subsidized by their respective governments to make them what they are today.

In fact both battery companies GM has worked with on the Volt project, Korea-based LG Chem and Massachusetts-based A123 build all of their cells in Asia.

Source (Wall Street Journal) and (New York Times)

GM is confident about being correct in choosing the 40 mile electric-driving range the Volt offers.

They decided upon this range based on a Federal study showing that 78% of US drivers drive less than 40 miles per day.

Since the concept’s announcement in January 2007 we’ve had countless spirited debates about that range. To this day one of the most common criticisms from those new to the concept is that the range too short. The typical comment goes like this “if Tesla can make a car that goes over 200 miles why does the Volt only go 40?” Of course the car can go infinitely further than a 40 mile drive using the gas powered range extender, but that will only take place in less than 20% of all of the US populations’ driving. Furthermore, clearly the goal is to keep cost to a minimum, not quite so with the 100K Tesla.

So one question worth asking is what will the range of future Volt versions be?

The answer per GM’s Volt vehicle line executive Frank Weber is “Forty.”

Weber explains it as follows:

“I don’t want to go higher than 40. Everything I do is to go down with cost, cost, cost. All battery improvements will go into cost reductions for the batteries. Next generation battery will be half the size, and half the cost.”

He also indicates how other components of the Volt will improve, stating “next generation power electronics will be half the size and half the cost. Next generation electric drive unit will be actually not half the size and cost, but you will see improvements in the electric drivetrain.”

He also notes that battery modularization will likely occur in the future, just as you might have V6 and V8 engines now, future E-Flex vehicles may have optional electric ranges for those at the extremes of the daily driving curve. Weber says “when you look at the core of the (E-Flex) program, once you can shrink the battery and make the cost of the battery more reasonable, the next generation will allow you to modularize the battery capacity. Because there are people who who might need 20 miles or 80 miles. Very different people have very different demands and so the next stage is to get different levels of batteries.”

Of course mission one is to just get the car out there as Weber says “at this point this is new technology and I am happy if we get one solution that really works.”

If the Volt and E-Flex vehicles eventually become widespread and popular, it is imaginable that GM could consider pursuing its own internal manufacturing of advanced batteries. This could conceivably be another source of revenue, significant as well since E-Flex vehicles figure so importantly into GMs future plans. Indeed it is well-known that other car companies such as Toyota, Mitsubishi, and Honda have partnership stakes in battery producing companies.

Despite these seeming advantages, it turns out GM doesn’t plan to get into the battery business. Frank Weber who is GM’s E-Flex vehicle line executive answered my question as follows:

Is GM working on their own internally produced batteries/cell lines?
We have said that we will always buy the cells. We want to deeply understand the cells and cell chemistry, but there is no interest on our side to get into cell production. (To do so) is strategically a mistake, because who knows what will turn out to be the most promising battery chemistry. In the end what you want is a certain flexibility to your choice, because whoever has the most promising chemistry is the one who I will partner with. This is the market. Batteries are real the killer application. If someone has the ultimate formula on how to bring down cost and size and still have the 16 kwh, this individual company can change the market overnight.

Cedar Park Texas-based EEStor Inc. is an intriguing though secretive company to those who follow the development of electric cars. Although no known prototypes exist, they claim the ability to make extremely lightweight highly energy dense electric storage units (EESUs) that could revolutionize energy storage in electric vehicles. Indeed they have an exclusivity agreement to build EESU-powered ZENNergy drive electric vehicles with the Canadian company Zenn. Earlier this year it was reported that Zenn would receive production grade prototypes by the end of 2008. I asked Zenn CEO Ian Clifford whether that deadline would be met.

He said “the timeline for the delivery of an EESU is entirely within the purview of EEStor and as such I cannot comment on delivery timelines. I will restate that ZENN remain confident in the launch of an EEStor EESU (electrical energy storage unit) powered cityZENN by the last quarter of 2009.”

In any event,on December 16th EEStor was granted a US patent for their EESU. The patent is a highly information-rich document that give a remarkable insight into these potential devices. EEStor notes “the present invention provides a unique lightweight electric-energy storage unit that has the capability to store ultrahigh amounts of energy”.

The core ingredient is an aluminum-oxide(alumina)-coated barium titanate powder immersed in a polyethylene terephthalate plastic matrix. The EESU is composed of 31,353 of these components arranged in parallel. It is said to have a total capacitance of 30.693 F and can hold 52.220 kWh of energy. The device is said to have a weight of 281.56 pound including the box and all hardware. Unlike lithium-ion cells, the technology is said not to degrade with cycling and thus has a functionally unlimited lifetime.

It is mentioned the device cannot explode when being charge or impacted and is thus safe for vehicles.

The patent describes in explicit and complex detail how these basic ingredients are prepared and combined to create the EESU using screen-printing and layering techniques.

Read Full Patent HERE.

It seems to me this patent is rather elaborate for anything disingenuous, and perhaps they’ve really got a genuine breakthrough after all. Hopefully, we shall soon see. Clifford once told GM-Volt.com he’s met with GM and said “a Volt with a ZENNergy drive is a kind of a sexy product. You never know. It would certainly be something we’d love to explore.”

The most important component in the Chevy Volt is its lithium-ion battery pack.

We have been hearing for some time that an announcement about which supplier GM had chosen to maek those packs would be coming by the end of this year.

Reuters had previously reported that LG Chem/CPI had gotten the contract and noted the official announcement would be coming in November.  Compact Power Inc.’s CEO also told GM-Volt.com previously that he needed to know if he’d gotten the contract by the end of this year in order to tool up for November 2010 production.

Aside from waiting for the redesign unveiling, which we did get in September, learning about the battery pack supplier and all the attendant details was an equally or more important thing.

Recent reports stated that GM had canceled a press conference it was intending to have at the LA Auto Show.  It was not said what the nature of that press conference was actually going to be about, and the reporter indicated to me “he wasn’t sure.”

Pure conjecture, but sadly I imagine it was to have been the Volt battery contract announcement.  Other outside experts also suspect this.  GM sources would not confirm or deny this fact, indicating that the topic of what that conference was going to be wouldn’t be divulged at this point.

December begins tomorrow without an official battery announcement, as GM’s fate now lies in the hands of Congress, and their viability plan which will be submitted on Tuesday.