TR35 - A123 Systems  

The latest installment of Tech Review's "TR35 2008 Young Innovator" series looks at the founder of battery manufacturer A123 Systems - Ric Fulop, 33.

In 2001, a professor of materials science and engineering at MIT, Yet-Ming ­Chiang, announced some promising results concerning new battery materials. But those materials might still be in the lab today were it not for Ric Fulop, then an enterprising 26-year-old from Vene­zuela. Today, the materials are being used to make high-performance batteries that General Motors is testing for use in its new electric car, the Volt. ...

Fulop dropped out of college to found one of his companies, only to return for an MBA after starting A123. But despite a lack of academic training in materials science, he is quick to grasp technical details. He spent months scouring scientific journals, attending conferences, and picking the brains of university technology licensing officers before his search led him to Yet-Ming Chiang. And thanks to this preparation, it took just one meeting to convince the MIT professor that Fulop's idea for a battery company was sound.

Commercializing battery technology, especially for new cars, is a capital-intensiv­e and risky business. To help jump-start the company, Fulop helped negotiate a deal with Black and Decker to supply batteries for the power-tool market. Not only did the agreement give A123 an early and much-needed source of revenue from an industrial customer, but it was an ideal way to start testing its production technology for the much larger automotive market. In 2006, partly on the strength of the com­pany's success in reliably producing millions of battery cells a year for power tools, Fulop and his partners persuaded GM to give A123 a chance. The automaker is testing two different battery technologies for its Volt, with a decision expected by the end of the year. If GM does select A123's technology, Fulop will have played a key role in making possible the United States' first mass-produced electric car.