Maxwell Technologies, Inc., a leading developer and manufacturer of energy storage and power delivery technology, has simultaneously signed and closed a definitive agreement to sell its High Voltage (HV) product line to Renaissance Investment Foundation.

Under terms of the agreement, Maxwell sold all shares of its Swiss subsidiary, Maxwell Technologies SA, and its CONDIS line of high voltage capacitors for $55.1 million in cash and up to $15 million in potential future milestone payments to a special purpose holding entity and affiliate of Renaissance Investment Foundation.

CONDIS provides high quality and highly reliable capacitors for circuit breakers, capacitive voltage transformers and laboratory use.

During the nine-month period ended 30 September 2018, the high voltage product line generated revenue of approximately $19.4 million for Maxwell—approximately 21% of the total revenue reported.

This action was taken to put the necessary resources in place so Maxwell can better focus on and pursue the tremendous growth opportunities presented by the markets of auto, wind, rail and grid served by our Ultracapacitor technology as well as to properly support research and development efforts to advance our Dry Battery Electrode (DBE) technology.

It is becoming increasingly clear that our DBE technology holds significant advantages over currently available energy systems for electric vehicles (EV) and positions us for significant long-term value creation as a result. We felt the time was right to shift our focus to further develop disruptive technologies and energy systems that address burgeoning global markets, notably the dramatically expanding EV market.

—Dr. Franz Fink, Maxwell’s CEO

DBE is a truly solventless dry battery electrode coating technology that is be scalable for both classical and advanced battery chemistry. The DBE process has three main steps, all executed in a solventless fashion:

1. Dry powder mixing;

2. Powder to film formation; and

3. Film to current collector lamination.

Compared to a conventional slurry cast wet coated electrode, Maxwell’s DBE offers significantly high loading and produces a thick electrode that allows for high energy density cells without compromising physical properties and electrochemical performance.

Maxwell says that its DBE technology exhibits better discharge rate capability than those of wet coated electrode. Maxwell has demonstrated scalability by producing self-supporting dry coated electrode film in roll form with excellent long-term electrochemical cycle performance, and established large pouch cell prototypes in greater than 10Ah format.

The International Energy Agency forecasts the number of EVs on the road will grow from 3 million in 2017 to 125 million by 2030, a nearly 42X increase.