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Altair Nanotechnologies Quarterly Revenue up 28%; More Details on EV Battery Packs for Phoenix Motorcars
8 November 2006
Altair Nanotechnologies, makers of an advanced lithium-ion battery, reported third-quarter revenues of $750,000, a 28% increase from $585,000 in the prior year quarter. Net loss for the quarter was $4.05 million, compared to a net loss of $2.17 million in the prior year.
For the nine-month period, revenues increased 11% to $2.35 million from $2.12 million in the same period of the prior year. The net loss for the nine months was $12.4 million compared to a net loss of $6.3 million during the year ago period.
Operating expenses of $4.91 million for the third quarter of 2006 were $1.97 million greater than operating expenses of $2.94 million for the third quarter of 2005. Increased operating expenses were due to increased research and development efforts (increased approximately $1.47 million) largely for staffing and other expenditures related to battery development, sales and marketing expenses ($186,000) primarily relating to increased marketing efforts in the AMPS division, and general and administrative expenses ($142,000).
The 2006 third quarter represented a milestone quarter of achievement for Altair Nanotechnologies. We successfully demonstrated, along with our vehicle partners Phoenix Motorcars and Boshart Engineering, a freeway-ready, all-electric SUV at the California Air Resources Board Zero Emission Symposium, the Southern California Clean Vehicle Technology Expo and the SEMA show. We believe these public demonstrations represent a major step forward in realizing the commercial promise of all-electric zero emission vehicles.
We continue to invest in our Advanced Materials and Power Systems (AMPS) business unit, which accounted for a significant portion of our increased expenses during the quarter. These strategic investments in research and development, product application labs and marketing in our battery materials, batteries and battery systems will, we believe, produce strong returns and are the major driver for our business.
—Alan Gotcher, President and CEO
Altairnano offers two nano-Titanate battery pack configurations for application in the Phoenix Motorcars electric sport utility truck (SUT) and sport utility vehicle (SUV): a 35 KWh and a 70 KWh NanoSafe pack.
The 35 KWh NanoSafe pack can be recharged in less than 10 minutes with the appropriate battery charger and provides sufficient power and energy for a fleet vehicle to travel up to 130 miles. The 70 KWh NanoSafe pack can also be recharged in less than 10 minutes with the appropriate battery charger and provides sufficient power and energy for a full sized SUV to travel up to 250 miles.
Altairnano is on track to deliver ten 35 KWh NanoSafe battery packs in the fourth quarter to Phoenix Motorcars and is prepared to supply additional 35 KWh NanoSafe battery packs to support Phoenix upcoming SUT market introduction build in early 2007 and SUV 35 KWh and 70 KWh battery packs in the later part 2007.
In October, the company announced that, in ongoing testing, it has completed 15,000 deep charge/discharge cycles of its NanoSafe battery cells. The cells still retained over 85% of their original charge capacity after the 15,000 cycles.
This represents a significant improvement over conventional, commercially available rechargeable battery technologies that typically retain that level of charge capacity only through approximately 1,000 deep charge/discharge cycles.
Altairnano said that it tested the battery cells at 10C (6 minute) charge and discharge rates. They were deep charged and discharged—i.e. they were taken to 100% charge and 0% charge respectively during the 6-minute cycles. Although tests involved full charges and discharges, partial charging and discharging of the battery does not appear to impact the life or the holding charge capacity of the batteries—i.e. they exhibit no memory loss.
In theory, a 15,000 charge cycle life could translate into a battery that would last greater than 40 years if it was charged daily, as would be the case in an electric vehicle or plug-in hybrid electric vehicle environment. However, in practice, other wear and tear factors would realistically limit the actual life of the batteries to probably 20 years, according to the company.
Altairnano replaces the graphite in lithium-ion battery electrodes with a patented nano-titanate material—Lithium Titanate Spinel (Li4Ti5O12)—in its NanoSafe lithium-ion batteries.
By removing the reactive graphite from the battery design, and instead using nano-titanate materials as the negative electrode material, no interaction takes place with the electrolyte in the Altairnano batteries—resulting in a high-power, thermally stable battery, according to the company. (Earlier post.)
November 8, 2006 in Batteries, Electric (Battery) | Permalink | Comments (33) | TrackBack (0)
Comments
Posted by: Andrey | November 08, 2006 at 09:50 PM
Allen Z - "A huge bank of this (when economical) could also let a massive power plant run at optimum efficiency (usually near full power) 24hrs a day, and store some of the power generated at night for peak use."
Totally agree however the genius of V2G is that you do not have whole bunch of batteries sitting around just storing energy. With V2G the batteries do double duty providing transport and when they are not needed for this, when they are parked 80% of the time, they provide this storage.
We get the huge benefits of reduced or no dependance on oil, the utility companies do not have to spend huge amount of capital buying batteries and we as drivers can make money out of our EV cars.
Posted by: Ender | November 08, 2006 at 11:23 PM
The future looks bright!
Most houses in Sweden has possibilities to install 3 phase outlets. Imagine in the future you can stop by any place and recharge - buy some electricity and a cup of coffe. If you are in a hurry special recharging places, preferbly gas stations, can offer the 10 minute recharge for a full fillup. This sounds so nice to me!
As promising as this sounds perhaps the PHEV is not needed any more? Well we haven't heard the price of a 70kwh pack yet...
Posted by: The Swede | November 08, 2006 at 11:28 PM
Altair's big problem is A123.
This final, flustered rush to get a product to market is all because A123 have already got a nano-tech battery with long cycle/calender life and great power density being mass manufactured in China. A123 batts are already on sale and are being trialed in vehicles as we speak.
If A123 weren't ahead in the nanobatt race right now, Altair would still be going slow.
It's good to see a bit of competition!
Posted by: clett | November 09, 2006 at 06:21 AM
kjd:
Phoenix vehicles are not for retail sale at this time. Fleet only :(
Posted by: Bill Young | November 09, 2006 at 02:54 PM
A123 isn't a huge threat because they're making profit hand over fist in the small battery business with tools and hobby packs.
I don't see A123 suddenly reducing their price by 1/10th which is about what we'd need to be competitive with ICE autos.
The company hasn't even been around 5 years, which means that for a research company it's a baby. They're all in the red, it's impressive that they even have sales at this point.
The only red flag I see financially is that their CEO or something left recently. You never know why he left, it could be personal, or it could have been substantial.
I don't even mind so much not knowing the price, but I do wish they'd give a weight.
Posted by: Greg Woulf | November 10, 2006 at 09:21 AM
Altair needs to negotiate an entry level contract with a major manufacturer - Toyota, GM, Ford, Chrysler, etc. If they can ramp manufacturing at their Georgia facility and deliver to a small production build from a major (looking for an early PHEV foothold) - they'll be fine.
Another good option is to shop for investment from non-VC private capital (foundation or green fund). There are so many investors looking for green opportunities - Altair should have a reasonable choice.
If the technology does as claimed - Altair and partners have a very bright future.
Posted by: gr | November 11, 2006 at 11:58 AM
Just a thought, but if you were to recharge 60Kwh worth of batteries in 10 minutes, it might be a good idea to sync up that power surge. 100 recharge stations drawing that kind of power at the same time could dim the lights a bit.
Posted by: SJC | November 11, 2006 at 01:02 PM
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Altair Nano (ALTI) has rough history. It was developing current battery for many years, and the product came out only this summer. Hopefully they finally hit the gold mine. Most revenue company is making by selling of nano materials. It is wild, but potentially very profitable guess.
As it was indicated, their battery has incredible long life, fast charge capability, and is inherently safe. In addition it has:
Low internal resistance and self-discharge rate;
Incredible specific power of 4 kW/kg;
Ability to deep charge/discharge cycling;
Ability to operate at very low temperatures – down to -40C (Alaskan winter).
This features makes the battery by far superior to anything else in production HEV, performance HEV, and PHEV with limited only-electric capability..
LiTi spinel cathode (theory of spinel materials was developed by Stan Ovshinsky in early 60s) develops only about 2.2 V, and specific energy of the battery is not great – between 70-100 Wh/kg (two months ago estimations, subject to verification). It is the major draw back of current model, but R&D to increase it is in progress.
Make no mistake, USEFUL real-life specific energy of ALTI battery in vehicular applications is way higher then any Li battery currently on the market, NiMh not even comes close.
Example:
Advertised Ni-Mh 10 kWh battery capacity is limited to only shallow discharge of 35% to prolong battery life. To slow-charge 3.5 kWh capacity one has to spend 5kWh of electricity. Due to high discharge rate, especially elevated at higher operation temperatures during driving, energy delivered to the wheels is no more then 2 kWh. This leaves us with 20% useful capacity. Regular Li batteries have about 50% useful capacity, and Alti’s about 80%.
Alti has development agreement with Electro Energy Inc. for joint development and manufacturing of vehicular batteries, using EEEI proprietary bi-polar battery packaging and Alti’s chemistry. EEEI is small R&D company supplying specialty batteries and electrode materials to US AF and space programs. Currently it is in process of re-vamping of formerly Energizer battery factory (which never went into production) with huge production capacity in Gainesville, FLA.