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Monday, June 23, 2008

Extending the Battery Life

Lithium Technology Corp., the Plymouth Meeting battery maker, boasted last week that a hybrid muscle car powered by one of its big vehicle batteries had “passed the finish line” at one of Europe’s most popular round-the-clock endurance races.

“Running on electrical energy alone in front of 200,000 spectators,” the company crowed, proved that “hybrid technology does have a future in motor racing.”

Not so fast.

One blogger reported seeing the sleek race car being hauled into the pit at the end of a tow rope.

Turns out the car, a modified Apollo made by German ubercar builder Gumpert Sportwagenmanufaktur GmbH, broke down just minutes into the prestigeous Nurburgring 24-hour race in May.

Repairs took some time — so much of it that the Apollo, owned by ex-Formula One racer Heinz-Harald Frentzen, returned to the track only for the last 90 minutes of the contest.

It was nicht gewertet — not rated — as a finisher.

Fortunately for Lithium Technology, the problem was in the vehicle’s transmission, not in LTC’s 90-cell, 420-pound, 9-kilowatt-per-hour lithium ion battery.

But it is hard to make a case for electric race cars based on an outcome like that.

Still, the time for electric cars, and maybe even for Lithium Technologies, at long last may be at hand, what with crude oil ending last week at about $135 a barrel, and $4 gasoline starting to look like a bargain.

Lithium Technology’s batteries won’t fit in your hearing aid or digital camera. They are large and industrial strength, described by the company as running from “10 times the capacity of a standard laptop computer battery to 100,000 times greater.”

And they’re being designed by the company for running vehicles of all sorts, from motorcycles to trucks, outfitted with electric motors.

In February, the company said it got a $4.7 million order to supply batteries for a demonstration program involving diesel-electric-hybrid transit buses in Flint, Mich.

That was rare good news for a penny stock company that lost $24.4 million last year on $2.6 million in revenue.
And, Lithium Technology in April made a deal with its largest shareholders and agreed to drop three sitting directors to make room on the board for two European investors. Chief executive officer Klaus Brandt said at the time that the company also had raised “in excess of $35 million” from investors in the last 18 months.

Maybe it’ll be enough to stay in the race.
Posted by Reid Kanaley @ 3:05 AM  Permalink | 2 comments
Comments   
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 9:22 PM, 06/24/2008
    I followed the race very carefully and the post about the car driving home on electric power only was correct. The mechanical drive train went down within the first 5 laps. The car drove back to the pits on electric power as stated in the article. The Apollo then went out and ran about 30 laps, running quite impressively when the mechanical drive went out again. This time the car had to be pulled in because the battery had been run down. It took most of the night to fix the mechanical drive the second time. when the car went out for the last 45 minutes of the race, it ran impressively again. It was far from a winning performance, but the vehicle was basically put together 3 months prior to the race. My point is that your article claims that the car did not make it on battery power alone, when in actuality it did.
    — jdhgator
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 9:23 PM, 06/24/2008
    A clarification, the car was actually put together three weeks prior to the race, not three months.
    — jdhgator


2 comments
About Mike Armstrong
Mike Armstrong, a business editor and writer for nearly two decades, is the Inquirer's business columnist and PhillyInc blog editor. Contact Mike via e-mail or at 215-854-2980
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