creativforce

Zenn Motors: Speculative Battery Startup

The biggest danger for EESTOR investors , if it is real, is in the company being engulfed and devoured by an oil company. They don't like threats to their product. The only reason we have hybrid cars today is because Toyota bought a license to produce NIMH batteries before Texaco/Chevron saw what was happening and devoured the Ovonic battery patents.

One reason to remain in stealth mode is to accept a king's ransom from oil companies to NOT introduce the product for a decade or so. Is their oil money behind the Kleiner Perkins investments? Or more likely oil money behind the Lockheed Martin agreement?

Read all about it: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Main article: Patent encumbrance of large automotive NiMH batteries

Critics claim that large-format NiMH batteries were commercially viable and ready for mass production, but Chevron and other oil-related interests suppressed the technology to forestall the introduction of plug-in hybrids.[40]

In her book, Plug-in Hybrids: The Cars that Will Recharge America, published in February 2007, Sherry Boschert argues that large-format NiMH batteries are commercially viable but that Cobasys refuses to sell or license them to small companies or individuals.Boschert concludes that "it's possible that Cobasys (Chevron) is squelching all access to large NiMH batteries through its control of patent licenses in order to remove a competitor to gasoline. Or it's possible that Cobasys simply wants the market for itself and is waiting for a major automaker to start producing plug-in hybrids or electric vehicles." [41]

In an interview with the Economist, Stan Ovshinsky stated, "I think we at ECD we made a mistake of having a joint venture with an oil company, frankly speaking. And I think it’s not a good idea to go into business with somebody whose strategies would put you out of business, rather than building the business.[42]" In a later interview, however, when asked, "So it’s your opinion that Cobasys is preventing other people from making it for that reason?", he responded "Cobasys is not preventing anybody. Cobasys just needs an infusion of cash.".[43]

In October 2007, International Acquisitions Services, Inc., Innovative Transportation Systems AG and Neville Chamberlain filed suit against Cobasys and its parents for refusing to fill a large, previously agreed-upon order for large-format NiMH batteries to be used in the electric Innovan. [44]

Battery Wars

Texaco is right.

Battery Wars

Thank you for one of the most interesting articles I have read on the subject. Everyone who has followed the plight of the electric car since the late nineties has wondered "Who Stole the Electric Car?" As an investor in ENER during those heady days of the electric revolution with the EV1 in California, I thought I would soon be rich as ENER ramped up production of the NIMH battery. When Shell (who later sold to Chevron) initially bought into the company, I assumed the huge infusion of cash ENER needed would soon be on the way. As we know this was the beginning of the end. CA mysteriously repealed their zero emissions requirement, and the stock price at ENER went to hell for a decade. Cobasys has been a joke and their leaky batteries have seemed like intentional screw ups. Last year Mercedes had to sue them for failure to deliver and GM who built one of the most remarkable cars of the 20th century (EV1) can't get access to the batteries they helped test and develop.

So now we learn that the NIMH battery revolution failed, not because of oil company interference, and a deep, abiding faith in the profit power of planned obsolescence at GM ... but because Toyota cornered the market on lanthanum? The story just keeps getting weirder and weirder.

It would make more sense if oil money paid everyone involved to keep the technology on ice for a decade...just think of the billion$ the lack of an electric alternative has saved Big Oil until now!!

Lockheed Martin also makes most of their money on war in the middle east, providing the funds to keep EESTOR locked up for another decade or two seems like money well spent to me.

It's not that I want to believe in conspiracies, but any detective will tell you to follow the money. So rather than all these back room dealings we suspect, we now must believe that it all comes down to profound stupidity at GM. Well, I guess that's not too hard to believe either.