Michael Kanellos
EEStor Comes Out of Its Hidey Hole With Milestone July 30, 2008 at 9:28 AM
Companies like EEStor make it worthwhile for reporters and analysts to come to work.
The Texas-based start-up hopes to bring ultracapacitors to market that some claim will dramatically improve the performance and drop the price of electric cars. Lockheed Martin, which signed a development deal with the company, says EEStor is on track to produce devices that sport an energy density ten times the density found in lead acid batteries at a tenth of the weight and volume. Canada’s Zenn Motors is an investor and plans to bring a sedan out based around EEStor’s parts. The ultracapacitor will recharge in minutes too, compared to hours for a battery.
Critics aren’t buying it. Potential investors and engineers have picked through their patents and dismissed these claims. EEStor also delayed the released of its first products. Venture firm Kleiner, Perkins has put money into the company, but won’t state so publicly on its web site.
EEStor could resolve some of these issues, but it rarely puts out press releases and gives interviews. I had a brief interview with CEO Richard Weir last year, but only because he happened to be near a phone when I called. The conversation lasted about a minute. The lack of public information on the company has spawned flame wars on the Internet. The actual, certifiable facts in these debates are severely limited, but the insults, heated emotions and pseudo-intellectual posturing are top notch.
This week, they went a little more public. It said that it has certified that the crystallization level in its composition modified barium titanate powders comes to 99.92 percent. Remarkable! To be honest, I have no idea what that means. But it is a public statement.
But Dave Erlich at Cleantech.com got Weir on the phone. Weir told him that the chemical numbers mean that, ultimately, devices made around EEStor’s technology have the potential to be charged in three to six minutes, compared to a few hours for a lithium ion battery.
“It’s all certified,” said Weir to Erlich. “No bullshit in this.”
Zenn Motors, which hopes to come out with a car based around EEStor’s parts late next year, said the results bode well.
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As I understand it, what was actually certified was that EEStor had the equipment, procedures and techniques to accurately measure the purity of the ingredients used to build their ultracapacitors. As far as I have gleaned, the 99.92 percent figure was created by EEStor itself, and not by an independent lab. All that has been certified is that EEStor has the CAPABILITY to accurately measure the purity - not that they are being accurate in telling us what that purity is.
I have searched extensively but I cannot find any report that an independent lab has examined any of their products and either tested its purity and/or other properties. Indeed, to the best of my abilities I have not found a single reference which indicates that EEStor has ever provided a prototype for testing by an independent lab. I may be wrong, but to date, I have not seen any independent verification of the purity of the ingredients used by EEStor, or for that matter, the performance of any prototype ultracapcitor. Why?
Erlich said they had an outfit called Texas Research International, whomever that might be, do the test on the procedures and that they also had an unnamed company (who did some testing for them in 07) look at the powder. From the release:
EEStor, Inc. has achieved success on one of its most critical technical milestones and that is the certification of the completeness of the powder crystallization of the constituents utilized in producing its CMBT powders. The percent of the constituents crystallized in the CMBT powders ranged from 99.57% to 100.00% with the average being 99.92%. This level of crystallization provides the path for the possibility of EEStor, Inc. providing the published energy storage for present products and major advancements in energy storage for future products.
The purification of the EEStor, Inc. chemicals has been certified by the same chemical analysis company as EEStor’s press release dated January 17, 2007 and now indicates that EEStor has improved its chemical purity to the parts-per-billion range.
That said, I didn’t delve too deep into it because dealing with these guys is sort of like boxing a ghost. Where do you start? what do you know? I’ve talked to people who have been to the lab and they come away confused. And all that secrecy.
Someday they will have to come clean.
Here’s more. Apparently, the chemical analysis company is southwest research institute. not sure of relation to texas research institute, but this place seems legit.
http://pesn.com/2007/01/17/9500448_EEStor_milestones/