Gas 2.0 has an update on the rather pitiful tale of ZENN motors and ultracapacitor company EEStor - ZENN Motors and Mystery of EEStor Ultracapacitor Gets Deeper. More at TreeHugger.

The whole EEStor/ZENN saga is getting so ridiculous that I often find myself debating whether or not I should even cover it anymore. The (so far) mythical EESU energy storage unit that’s supposed to revolutionize personal mobility by providing instantaneous charge times in a lightweight “battery” that can take a car 700 miles on a charge has yet to see the light of day.

EEStor missed its deadline of introducing a working EESU to the world by the end of last year. When that happened I couldn’t even bring myself to write about it. It just seemed, well, pathetic.

Now ZENN Motors, the company with a huge stake in EEStor, has said they have “successfully” ceased actually building cars and laid off 15 people so that they can stop bleeding cash. All of their eggs are now in the EEStor basket.

ZENN Motors’ new plan revolves around the EESU actually working. Their self-stated goal is to be the sole provider of EESUs to manufacturers — akin to intel supplying chips for computers. But as time goes on and we hear nothing, not a peep, from EEStor, the chances of ZENN actually surviving this change seem slim.

TreeHugger has a post in last week's bout of publicity for EEstor - Super Secretive Supercapacitor CEO Tells All in Leaked Phone Call.

In what appears to be a huge leak, the notoriously secretive Dick Weir of Eestor did a phone call with someone that got out, copied, transcribed and put up on TheEEStory.com.

We have been losing hope that the eeStor ultracap would ever arrive, but it appears that a car that charges in minutes and runs for hours, a wind turbine that stores its own energy, notebook computers and cellphones that charge in seconds and run for days could be months, not years, away.

Tyler Hamilton of Clean Break, who has spoken to Weir a few times, confirms that it is his voice. He also does a great summary of the conversation.

This is deep stuff, and probably very embarrassing for the secretive Weir. There are even allusions to its military uses, who knows, supercapacitor-powered weapons. All our years of coverage of eeStor tells us that this release is just a huge mistake. The aud.io of the interview is being sucked off the net everywhere, but the transcription is still out there.

W: So I said let's do something better than that. Let's get in bed with Lockheed Martin and when I went and gave presentation? to CIA and they suggested that. And so I did. And that 's worked out exceptionally well. We now have a contract with them where they handle all of our contracts with ... government contracts ... with Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security. And writes? rides? rights? other worldwide contracts. So now I don't have to be a military contractor. I went and got the world's best.

I: Umhh

W: And they can be between me and the Federal Government to handle all this stuff. Then they write a commercial contract with me to supply parts to Lockheed and or for military contracts for other groups. So that they can build these mission critical systems.

I: OK. Since you're no longer a VC ... Does that mean you guys are seeing revenue come in from Lockheed, at this point? ... Significant?

W: We had a con ... government contract and we received money off from it, but not revenue. But just, uhh ... they wanted to do some technical studies. We did that for 'em. And they paid us some good money for it.

I: All right.

W: It was a DARPA contract.

I: K

W: Which will lead to a bigger contract.

Notwithstanding the embarrassment, I am thrilled to hear that this thing works, that it is already at the Underwriters Laboratory approval stage, and that Zenn cars may be rolling off the line soon. A few of the key claims as summarized by Tyler at Clean Break:

* On storage for PCs and handhelds. “We can take a battery for a cellphone and give you three to five times more energy storage that would never degrade on you and you can charge in seconds.”
* Electric vehicles: “It’s going to take time to emerge, but I think with ZENN Motors it’s going to be very interesting to see them grow dramatically to capture that market.”

* On portable tools: “I’m already in knee-deep with the people in the portable tool business. They’re waiting for me to emerge and they’ll come on strong.”

Read the whole transcript at The Eestory

The Oil Drum has a look at enigmatic ultracapacitor company EEStor and goes into some depth in taking a look at the science behind the (claimed) technology - Who Killed the Electric Gas Tank?.

A few months from now, or perhaps 5-10 years from now, we will know whether or not EEStor can make good on its promise to sell a electrical storage device capable of propelling a reasonably-sized automobile down a freeway for a couple hundred miles before needing a recharge. There are some indications that they are making progress and that this could happen, but there are many reasons to remain skeptical. In this post, I will wade into these waters -- and then get out quickly. Will EEStor revolutionize motor transportation and more? Will it even work?

The human quest for energy is an interesting topic. Mostly by burning things, we have transformed our relationship with the planet and each other. It has been said that we are addicted to oil, but it is more the case that we are addicted to what harnessed energy can do. As it is learned that some utilization of energy is not sustainable for environmental reasons, or for lack of supply, the natural response is to search for other ways of doing the same activity but with another energy supply. And conventional economics promises us that something will come along.

In modern times, one of our sacred rights (or rites?) is the ability to drive a 1-2 ton vehicle up to a fuel station, fill it up without spending a fortune or more than a few minutes of time, and then drive around at 70 miles per hour without worrying about needing more fuel for awhile. A car with a battery and an electric motor, for whatever reason, didn't bring us to this present state of mind. But take away the gasoline (or diesel), and the dream lives on -- even better, because maybe we can skip the trip to the gas station and refuel the car at home. Zenn Motor Company makes and sells electric cars, and they are clearly appealing to those with this dream:

Imagine a car that was whisper quiet at highway speeds, could go for hundreds of miles and left no trail of emissions behind. This car would never need to visit a gas station, and would top off its ‘tank’ within a few minutes.

The car is electric…and it’s powered by a revolutionary energy storage system: EEStor’s EESU (Electrical Energy Storage Unit). To put this into perspective, imagine a car that enabled guilt-free driving, eliminated dependency on foreign oil and that completely changed transportation as we know it. ...

Cleantech.com has a report that there has been some successful testing of Eestor's ultracapacitor technology (I'll remain somewhat skeptical until this stuff finally makes it into a commercial product) - Zenn to increase stake in EEStor after test verifies ultracapacitor technology.

Toronto-based electric vehicle maker Zenn Motor (TSX:ZNN) said late today there’s truth to stealth ultracapacitor developer EEStor’s claims of high energy density across a broad range of operating temperatures.

And Zenn is putting its money where its mouth is: The company said it plans to increase its investment in EEStor to between 6.2 percent and 10.5 percent, depending on the actions of other shareholders.

EEStor first announced the technological milestones in late April. Zenn had the equipment verified by a third party, and then conducted the tests again.

As a result, Zenn said it plans to give EEStor a $700,000 milestone payment associated with the technological progress. Zenn previously made three milestone payments to EEStor totaling $1.3 million. A final $500,000 is due when EEStor ships its ultracapacitors. ...

In April, EEStor said its permittivity tests of the manufacturing grade chemicals showed that its composition modified barium titanate (CMBT) powders, the main material in the ultracapacitor technology, achieved relative permittivity of at least 22,500 over an operating range of -20 to +65 degrees Celsius. Permittivity is a measurement of how much energy can be stored in a material.

The results were a reflection of the ability to achieve higher energy density at the same voltage—an important step in commercializing electric vehicles.

EEStor said the claims were verified by Edward Golla, the laboratory director of Texas Research International in Austin, Texas. Golla was also the scientist hired by EEStor for third-party verification of the technology in August 2008 (see EEStor claims third party verification).

Zenn said today it commissioned Professional Testing of Round Rock, Texas, to test the equipment used in Golla’s test for EEStor. Professional Testing also tested the equipment after Golla performed the tests again on Zenn’s behalf.

The tests were conducted on hot-pressed dielectric layers manufactured on EEStor’s production line.

In August, EEStor announced it was able to attain very narrow particle size—another factor determining permittivity (see EEStor's Weir on ultracapacitor milestone). The company has also achieved high purification of its chemicals to allow working voltage without voltage breakdown. EEStor also said it can tune the constituents of its CMBT powders to operate within the paraelectric phase, meeting high working voltages.

Cleantech.com has another report, this one claiming Zenn will include ultracapacitors in their electric vehicles from 2010 - Zenn CEO reveals details of EEStor's progress.

Toronto-based Zenn Motor (TSX:ZNN) plans to incorporate ultracapacitors from stealthy EEStor into full-speed electric vehicles starting in 2010.

The news comes a day after EEStor received third-party verification that it passed its final technology milestone, leaving the company with the sole challenge of bringing its state-of-the-art energy storage system to commercial production (see Zenn to increase stake in EEStor after test verifies ultracapacitor technology).

Zenn CEO Ian Clifford told the Cleantech Group today that the announcement affirms that EEStor will be able to meet its promise to begin commercial production before the end of the year. That clears the path for highway-speed vehicles to incorporate the ultracapacitors in 2010—a slight delay from the fall 2009 target the companies established last year.

The Toronto Globe and Mail has a report on Eestor's prime customer, Zenn Motor Co - Zenn and the art of electric car maintenance.

The first thing you notice about a Zenn car is its silence. "You can hear the birds singing driving down an urban street," Ian Clifford, founder of Toronto's Zenn Motor Co., boasted to Rick Mercer, bringing a mock tear to the comedian's eye when he visited the company's assembly plant for a segment of his show last year.

Zenn (for "zero emissions, no noise") is a low-speed electric car, conceived and assembled in Canada. It can go 80 kilometres on one charge, maxing out at 40 km/h, which pretty much limits it to neighbourhood excursions. Some 350 have been sold, mainly to U.S. buyers, as only one Canadian province - Quebec -permits it on its roads. It is, Mr. Clifford admits, a niche technology.

But the 46-year-old entrepreneur has much bigger plans. In 2004, Mr. Clifford signed a licence with Eestor, a Texas battery developer, that gives Zenn exclusive rights to use its technology in small and mid-size cars. Because Eestor's battery promises to propel a car up to 400 kilometres at highway speeds after just a five-minute charge, the deal could have a massive upside: Mr. Clifford envisions "Zennergy" electric propulsion systems powering millions of new and old vehicles. "We want Zennergy drives to be ubiquitous with electric-drive cars," he says. "We want to be the standard."

The downside? If Eestor's technology, still in development, proves unviable, Zenn could join Bricklin and Magna's Torrero in the annals of failed Canadian car brands.

Mr. Clifford is well aware of the gamble, but he's driven as much by ecological passion as business opportunity. In the mid-'90s, frustrated at being unable to buy an electric car in Canada, he bought a 1959 French electric car. "You'd park it and there'd be 20 people around it, staring and asking questions," he recalls.

Then, in 2000, two things happened: Mr. Clifford sold his Internet marketing business, and his beloved car broke down. He called the guy from whom he'd bought it to ask how to get it fixed, and was told, "Look in the Yellow Pages under 'lift trucks.' " As in forklifts. "That was the 'Aha!' moment," Mr. Clifford says. "There are millions of electric cars being driven behind closed doors in warehouses. This is proven, commercialized technology."

In 2002, Mr. Clifford ventured forth on two parallel streams. One was assembling a commercial, low-speed electric vehicle for neighbourhood driving, using the chassis of French Microcars. "I saw it as a low-capital-risk way to get a product to market" while establishing a brand and industry credibility, he says.

The second, more important stream was to develop a long-range, high-speed electric drive system that could power any car. "Consumers will not accept electric vehicles until they do exactly, or close to, what their gas-powered vehicles do," Mr. Clifford says. That means a charging time roughly equivalent to what it takes to fill up at the pump, the ability to operate in any climate, and near price parity.

The challenge turns primarily on battery technology, and the Zenn team investigated numerous options until it came across Eestor, an Austin-based startup whose prototype ceramic "ultracapacitor" promised to provide 10 times the energy of existing batteries at one-tenth the weight.

"It was a completely disruptive, breakthrough technology," Mr. Clifford says. "It replaces petroleum - it has that capacity." But the tech was still untried. To raise development funding, Eestor offered licences covering rights for various applications, from automotive to industrial to military. Zenn paid $2.5-million for rights covering small to mid-size cars, then in April invested another $2.5-million in the company.

The Guardian has an interesting article on available lithium supplies that could be used in electric car batteries - What is going to power our cars ?.

It wasn't the sound of his car engine that was distracting Ian Clifford. The chief executive of Canadian business Zenn Motors makes electric vehicles that give off no noise. He was worried that the obvious choice to power his next car - the same stuff that goes into laptops and cellphone batteries - was going to be in short supply.

"If you look at the increase in lithium prices over the past seven to 10 years, it's been dramatic," says Clifford. Zenn's short-range urban cars traditionally used nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries, but his next vehicle - an 80mph model with a 250-mile range - needed more efficiency. "There are very limited global reserves, and they're in potentially very unstable parts of the world," adds Clifford.

Supplies under strain

The US moved the previously obscure chemical element to centre stage in the 1950s when its lithium-hungry H-bomb programme kickstarted world production. The rising popularity of lithium-ion (Li-Ion) in batteries has sent demand soaring again, and pundits now worry that electric cars will strain our supplies.

Your laptop might use six finger-sized Li-Ion cells in its battery, but US-based Tesla Motors bolts together 6,000 cells to power one of its high-end electric sports cars. Now others, drawn to Li-Ion's light weight and high capacity, are joining in. Toyota's Prius hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) runs on a small battery powered by braking energy that switches to petrol when it runs out. The group will switch its Nickel Metal Hydrid (NiMH) chemistry to Li-Ion in 2010. GM will be putting Li-Ion batteries in the Volt, its plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) due out the same year. Other vendors also promise PHEVs, which are similar to HEVs, but with a larger, plug-in battery. Many will take the Li-Ion approach.

So how much lithium do we have? 1m tonnes of lithium metal is used to produce 5.3m tonnes of lithium carbonate, says Brian Jaskula, an analyst at the US Geological Survey (USGS), which goes into Li-Ion batteries.

Data from USGS puts total world resources of lithium metal at around 14m tonnes. The total world resource includes all the lithium metal we know about, whether it is commercially viable to extract it or not. But the USGS data is based on a 1976 National Research Council report.

A lot has changed in 32 years. Back then, most lithium came from a mineral called spodumene. But in 2001 SQM, a large mining group, began producing it in huge volumes by extracting it from salars - salt flats through which water has leached. The cheaper process sent prices plummeting and put many spodumene mines out of business.

"That was the last time that an organisation got together to do that type of research," Jaskula notes. But now two independent researchers are hoping to update the facts. In the pessimist corner is William Tahil, research director at Meridian International Research, who predicted two years ago that demand for lithium in cars would outpace supply. "There is no surplus lithium carbonate available for the automotive market. It's all being used by existing industrial applications," he says.

His report provoked a rebuttal from retired industry veteran Keith Evans, who worked on the original 1976 report. In March, he released An Abundance of Lithium, claiming a world resource of 28m tonnes, almost half of which he says could be extracted commercially (worldlithium.com). This would produce nearly 74m tonnes of lithium carbonate. "Tahil's argument that the world is short of lithium carbonate is wrong," Evans says. Two months later, Tahil released an even more pessimistic report, claiming that economically viable lithium metal reserves were just 4m tonnes. Evans is due to respond with a further rebuttal soon. Who is correct?

"Tahil considers that the total world lithium reserves are 4m tonnes," says an insider at SQM, which produces 37% of the world's lithium carbonate. "However, SQM's proven and probable in situ reserves alone total 5m tonnes."

Tahil, who still stands behind another report he wrote in 2006 claiming that the World Trade Center was felled by underground nuclear explosions, also dismisses the potential extraction of lithium from hectorite, a type of clay. But Western Uranium Corporation, a Canadian group, is testing recovery methods that it says could be worth 2m tonnes of lithium. Tahil has also largely dismissed the option of recycling lithium carbonate from Li-Ion batteries.

Disagreements over lithium reserves aside, the other debate is about how much lithium we can produce from our reserves, and whether it can match the growth of the car industry. ...

Peak oil advocates will worry that in spite of Kumar's analysis, we'll be forced to embrace Li-Ion in the coming years because oil will simply run out. But Bill van Amburg of research organisation Weststart-Calstart says that lithium won't have to support the auto industry on its own. "You'll have more efficient cars, alternative fuel, blended fuel, then the hybrids and electric drives, and all of them will have their piece of the wedge," he says.

Zenn and EEstor continue to get much of the press for electric cars lately - Tyler Hamilton has another article on them up at Technology Review - Better Batteries Charge Up.

A Texas startup says that it has taken a big step toward high-volume production of an ultracapacitor-based energy-storage system that, if claims hold true, would far outperform the best lithium-ion batteries on the market.

Dick Weir, founder and chief executive of EEStor, a startup based in Cedar Park, TX, says that the company has manufactured materials that have met all certification milestones for crystallization, chemical purity, and particle-size consistency. The results suggest that the materials can be made at a high-enough grade to meet the company's performance goals, as well as withstand the extreme voltages needed for high energy storage, the company said in a press release last week.

"These advancements provide the pathway to meeting our present requirements," Weir says. "This data says we hit the home run."

EEStor claims that its system, called an electrical energy storage unit (EESU), will have more than three times the energy density of the top lithium-ion batteries today. The company also says that the solid-state device will be safer and longer lasting, and will have the ability to recharge in less than five minutes. Toronto-based ZENN Motor, an EEStor investor and customer, says that it's developing an EESU-powered car with a top speed of 80 miles per hour and a 250-mile range. It hopes to launch the vehicle, which the company says will be inexpensive, in the fall of 2009.

But skepticism in the research community is high. At the EESU's core is a ceramic material consisting of a barium titanate powder that is coated with aluminum oxide and a type of glass material. At a materials-research conference earlier this year in San Francisco, it was asked whether such an energy-storage device was possible. "The response was not very positive," said one engineering professor who attended the conference. ...

Weir says that EEStor's latest production milestones lay the foundation for what follows. It has taken longer than originally expected, he says, but the company is now in a position to deploy more-advanced technologies for the production of military-grade applications, alluding to EEStor's partnership with Lockheed Martin.

Weir says that momentum is building and that he'll start coming out with information about the company's progress on a "more rapid basis." Plans are also under way for a major expansion of EEStor's production lines. "There's nothing complex in this," he says, pointing to his past engineering days at IBM. "It's nowhere near the complexity of disk-drive fabrication."

Despite its critics, EEStor has won support from some significant corners. In addition to Lockheed Martin, venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is an investor, and former Dell Computer chairman Morton Topfer sits on EEStor's board.

The company is also in serious talks with potential partners in the solar and wind industry, where EEStor's technology can, according to Weir, help put 45 percent more energy into the grid. He says that the company is working toward commercial production "as soon as possible in 2009," although when asked, he gave no specific date. "I'm not going to make claims on when we're going to get product out there. That's between me and the customer. I don't want to tell the industry."

Dahn says that he hopes EEStor will succeed. "I hope it works like a charm, because it will be a lot easier than fuel cells and batteries if it comes to pass."

Another high profile ultracapacitor manufacturer is Maxwell technologies, who Cleantech.com reports have landed a contract with a Chinese hybrid bus company - Golden Dragon Bus to use Maxwell ultracapacitors

Golden Dragon is producing diesel-electric hybrid buses for the Hangzhou, China, Public Transport Group. San Diego-based Maxwell Technologies made a deal to supply its Boostcap ultracapacitors to Xiamen, China's Golden Dragon Bus. Golden Dragon is producing diesel-electric hybrid buses for the Hangzhou, China, Public Transport Group.

Maxwell said today that it has completed delivery of 720 of its 48-volt multi-cell ultracapacitor modules to Golden Dragon for installation into 45 hybrid buses. Financial terms of the supply contract were not disclosed.

Green Car Congress reports the Th!nk City electric car has appeared at a show in London - TH!NK city Debuts in UK.

The TH!NK city electric vehicle made its debut at the 2008 British International Motor Show in London. The two-seater urban car has a top speed of 65 mph and a range of 126 miles in city driving on a single charge. Charging the batteries from 20% capacity to 80% takes four hours.

The TH!NK city accelerates from zero to 30 mph in 6.5 seconds and to 50 mph in 16 seconds. It requires just an overnight top-up of electricity and can travel for 126 miles in city driving on a fully charged battery.

Production started this year in Norway, and the first batch of right-hand drive cars will be delivered to UK customers in summer 2009. Prices of the TH!NK city will be announced closer to the on-sale date.

The TH!NK city is the sixth-generation electric vehicle that has been produced in Norway. Series production of the newly designed TH!NK city car recently started and the first cars have been delivered to Norwegian customers. Currently, cars are being produced at a rate of three to five a day, rising to 20 a day in the next six months.

The capacity of Think’s first assembly plant in Aurskog, outside Oslo, is presently being increased to 10,000 cars per year. Think plans to increase its production capacity with new assembly plants in the USA, Continental Europe and Asia in the next two years.

Joel Makower has a look at some of the adjustments that need to be made to support large scale rollouts of plugin hybrids - GM and the New Plug-In Infrastructure.

This week's announcement by General Motors that it has joined with more than 30 utility companies across the U.S. to work on issues related to electric vehicles got a great deal of media play. But the coverage only began to scratch the surface of the complexity of bringing plug-in electric vehicles to market in mass quantities.

In reality, the GM-utility conversation isn't entirely new. It began in January, at a Vehicle Electrification Workshop held at GM's research center in Warren, Michigan. I had the privilege of attending the meeting, which was facilitated by my colleagues at the sustainability strategy firm GreenOrder. The meeting included more than two dozen utility executives, including a team from the Electric Power Research Institute, the industry-funded consortium that served as the co-convener of the meeting.

It was an eye-opener, to say the least. It turns out that building the infrastructure for the plug-in electric vehicle isn't simply a matter of, "Here's a plug, here's a socket. End of story."

First of all, not everyone has a socket — a secure place to park their car and recharge it. Those living in apartment buildings, for example, lack this ability. Even where a plug exists, it may not have sufficient amperage to handle the load. (I'm a good example: I have a socket in my garage, but it's on the same circuit as my bedroom. If you plug in a power-hungry appliance in the garage, TiVo gets grumpy.)

But that's the least of it. Building the plug-in infrastructure involves a mind-numbing array of technical challenges. Among them ...

The Boston Herald reports that rising fuel costs are forcing police departments to increase the use of foot and bike patrols and to shift to electric vehicles - Police: rising fuel costs are ‘major public safety issue’. Coming soon - the Tesla Patrol Car.

Municipal police departments, which must run 24-hour fleets on $4-a-gallon gas, are charging extra for cruisers at traffic details, increasing bicycle and motorcycle patrols, and putting electric-powered vehicles into commission, a Herald review has found.

A Herald survey of the state’s largest police forces found that cops are being asked to morph into fuel-efficient crime fighters while gas costs gobble tens of thousands of dollars in law enforcement cash.

“The whole fuel thing is a major public safety issue. It’s a major economic issue,” said Framingham police Chief Steven B. Carl. “We put cops in very specific areas to keep them from driving around a lot and to be more efficient. You just can’t get away from answering calls. Most people don’t have accidents or commit crimes in areas that are convenient to police.”

And finally, EcoGeek reports that the Tata Nano may be going electric too - The Tata Nano: World's Cheapest (Electric) Car? . It sounds like they are talking about the (very) long awaited air car.

So it looks like the world's cheapest car (the Tata Nano) could soon be the world's cheapest electric car as well.

The price of the Nano is just above $2,500 and Tata's chairman Ratan Tata says he expects demand to exceed supply. Tata's plant in the city of Singur in the state of West Bengal will eventually have the capacity to make 350,000 Nanos a year.

Tata Motors plans to make a second generation of its four-passenger Nano with a diesel engine. But initially, it will have a gasoline engine capable of 50 miles to the gallon.

But the interesting news out of Mr. Tata's talk to shareholders at the annual general meeting last week was that the company is competing for an Eco car in Thailand and looking at other ways to make even more fuel-efficient versions of the Nano.

Tata is working with a French firm in developing an electric Nano. The electric car will use compressed air. Tata Motors also announced earlier this year it is in talks with Chrysler on developing electric vehicles.

EEstor's ultracapacitor technology seems to have been on the verge of being released for years now. The Calgary Herald reports that we may not have to wait too much longer to see if it is real - Zenn and the art of electric batteries.

Like other companies selling alternative transportation in an oil-dependent world, Toronto-based Zenn has suddenly become a sexy stock. Its shares have gained 81 per cent over the past three months on the Toronto Venture Exchange despite the fact the company has yet to post a profit.

Thing is, Zenn could soon be much more than sexy. It could be downright disruptive, turning the automotive industry on its head.

Sometime over the next several weeks, a privately held and ultra-secretive company named EEStor Inc., based in Cedar Park, Texas, is expected to release the results of independent third-party testing of its electrical-energy storage unit, which aims to replace the electrochemical batteries we now use in everything from hybrid cars to laptop computers. EEStor says its system, combining battery and ultra-capacitor technology and based on modified barium titanate ceramic powder, could power a car for 400 kilometres with regular performance. It claims the unit would charge in a few minutes and weigh less than 10 per cent of current lead-acid batteries for the same cost.

If it is proven to work, EEStor, and its equity and business partners, including Zenn and U.S. defence contractor Lockheed Martin Corp., will have a technology that could change the transportation industry, with implications for renewable energy and any sector that needs electrical energy storage technology. ...

EEStor has said it expects its technology to be commercially ready within six months. "This is not small potatoes here. If this works, it really changes the transportation sector," says Massimo Fiore, an analyst with Versant Partners in Montreal.