Next-generation Lead Acid Battery Company Firefly Energy Shuts Down, Files for Chapter 7
16 March 2010
PJStar.com. Seven-year-old Firefly Energy Inc., developer of a portfolio of next-generation lead-acid battery technologies (earlier post), has shut down and is filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy (liquidation rather than reorganization as with Chapter 11).
Firefly co-founder and CEO Ed Williams said that Firefly Energy board decided to cease operations “after 15 months of unsuccessful attempts to raise $20 million in equity capital, in the midst of this worldwide financial crisis, funds that would have enabled the company’s transition to full production and commercial sales.”
Mil Ovan, the company’s other co-founder who left Firefly last month, called Firefly’s closing “a very sad outcome.” “Management tried repeatedly to protect against (closing) - even going without salaries for six months so that we could keep the company afloat and continue to pay employees,” said Ovan from his office in Chicago.
Several military contracts totaling more than $5 million weren’t enough to keep the company afloat. The US Army sought high-tech batteries to perform in desert conditions, said Ovan, adding that the company was disappointed when Firefly failed to get a share of the $2 billion distributed by the federal government - part of the stimulus package - for advanced battery research. Funds were allocated almost exclusively for lithium-ion batteries, he said.
If their PR was true, this product would have served the vacant need for a lighter good quality, low-cost battery in the market where there's a lot of junk lead acid batteries.
Perhaps they can license the product to someone who can put it in production.
Posted by: Lad | 16 March 2010 at 06:47 AM
They claimed 'big rig' battery trials worked fine, even seemed to imply product was available.
Are all significant nano tech/lead acid enhancements doomed?
Posted by: kelly | 16 March 2010 at 07:20 AM
That's a sad news, but it shows that batteries are a tricky business, always been and always will be. There is a huge difference between showing evidence of a promising concept and releasing a reliable and robust product. The natural selection will be merciless, we have seen plenty of promising new concepts reported here, most of them will not make it through.
The very bad point here is that Firefly was using a very well know chemistry and simple material lead and Carbon. But new materials are always a big bet.
Posted by: Treehugger | 16 March 2010 at 11:58 AM
They also was a problem with their marketing. I have spoken with several people who wanted to buy a few for their EV conversions to replace their flooded lead acid batteries. Nobody I know who tried to contact them ever got a reply. Apparently they thought selling batteries a dozen at a time was beneath them. They only wanted huge contracts. So essentially the battery was unavailable to the public.
Posted by: Eletruk | 16 March 2010 at 12:48 PM
hmm, sounds murky to me, I heard they had real technical problems they couldn't really solve. But if the technology really works someone will take over on it. Will see.
Posted by: Treehugger | 16 March 2010 at 01:01 PM
"natural selection"..there is nothing natural about this, it is a lack of investors at a time when there are a lack of investors. The trillion dollar hole blown in the economy from sub prime was not natural, but man made.
Posted by: SJC | 16 March 2010 at 01:23 PM
A sad day, I would have loved to have a set of these in my bike instead of the standard LA. Killed by the expectation that lithium will rule the world?
Posted by: Neil | 16 March 2010 at 06:44 PM
SJC
Do you think that if their technology was working as claim that the lack of money would have killed them? yes maybe but someone would take over then,
Posted by: Treehugger | 16 March 2010 at 07:03 PM
"Apparently they thought selling batteries a dozen at a time was beneath them."
BIG mistake in customer relations and believability.
Posted by: kelly | 17 March 2010 at 07:50 AM
There is no guarantee that anyone will take them over and continue. History is strewn with endeavors that ended and never saw the light of day. People think economies are some "natural" system like the weather, they are not. They are man made like a dam or a building.
Posted by: SJC | 17 March 2010 at 08:07 AM
A long winded article never touching on the obvious. FireFly energy never made its technological paradigm available to the commons, the public. The financers at FireFly know every shade tree mechanic or small garage would start converting to electric cars. FireFly is going out of business to protect the status quo and not the common American.
Posted by: Moon | 24 March 2010 at 06:15 PM
I was not watching the blog when this came through. They were supposed to be making batteries at first for garden tools. Then the military. Then trucks. Where did all the money go. Did the foam technology actually work at least for the negative plates. Did the positive plate corrosion protection work.
AC propulsion proved that lead batteries could run a plug in or a plug in hybrid car. Firefly was trying too hard to keep their technology secret when they could have put single cells in the market by having the existing battery builders build them. The grid corrosion protection on the standard positive plates alone could have kept them in business. The Lead car battery is not going to go away in the world any time soon. ..HG..
Posted by: Henry Gibson | 03 May 2010 at 12:33 AM