[ref http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/EVLN-Canadian-li-ion-market-minnow-Electrovaya-racks-up-orders-gt-We-ve-taken-off-td4682895.html ]
'Li-ion batteries are manufactured with toxic birth defect chemicals” ... “The German Electrovaya plant could not compete with Korea where they have less stringent toxic waste laws. Electrovaya builds battery electrodes without using toxic chemicals' http://business.financialpost.com/news/energy/canadian-lithium-ion-battery-maker-electrovaya-racks-up-orders-cranks-up-german-subsidiary-weve-taken-off?__lsa=8ba2-ea68 Canadian lithium-ion battery maker Electrovaya racks up orders, cranks up German subsidiary: ‘We’ve taken off’ July 7, 2016 Peter Kuitenbrouwer [images / Peter J. Thompson/National Post http://wpmedia.business.financialpost.com/2016/06/0707batteries.jpg The global market for lithium-ion batteries is expected to reach US$33.1 billion by 2019 http://wpmedia.business.financialpost.com/2016/06/0707electrovaya.jpg Electrovaya batteries video flash Electrovaya's new battery module rakes in $400 million in orders ] The sprawling Electrovaya Inc. factory in Mississauga, Ont., looks more like a graveyard for prototype electric cars than the clean, green future of our battery-powered planet. The plant is about 90 per cent empty. A locker room for hundreds of workers lies abandoned. Nearby sit four green “Maya 2000” electric cars. Further along languish more cars, including an SUV that Sankar Das Gupta, the rumpled, effusive electrochemist who is Electrovaya’s chief executive, proudly calls, “the first electric car in North America.” Asked why these cars are parked, Das Gupta blames Canadian investors’ historic aversion to risk and Transport Canada rules that forbid vehicle road tests. In a corner of the quiet shop floor labelled New Product Introduction, two older engineers hunch over laptops connected to a network board plugged into black boxes containing hundreds of interconnected lithium-ion battery cells. It doesn’t look like much ... As the world looks for alternatives to the internal combustion engine, light, safe, powerful batteries to drive electric cars, buses, forklifts and other machinery, as well as store wind and solar power are the holy grails of a low-carbon world. Electrovaya says it has these batteries. “I think we’ve taken off,” Das Gupta said. “The world has to use our technology for everything. Absolutely. In the last few weeks we have won massive contracts. We will be the technology provider.” But when it comes to emissions-free energy, Das Gupta said Canada has for many years bet on the wrong horse, believing the future lay in fuel cells that combined hydrogen with oxygen to create power and water. But making hydrogen requires prodigious energy and many of the companies doing it are losing steam ... Meanwhile, the global market for lithium-ion batteries is expected to reach US$33.1 billion by 2019, a compound annual growth rate of 14.4 per cent over seven years, according to Research and Markets, based in Ireland. A recent Navigant Consulting report predicted worldwide revenue from “li-ion batteries for electric vehicles” will reach more than US$26.1 billion in 2023, up from less than US$6 billion in 2014. “Canada put zero into lithium-ion batteries,” Das Gupta said. “If you look at it now, 99.99 per cent of electric vehicles run on lithium-ion batteries.” Born in New Delhi, Das Gupta, 65, studied in Kolkata and Imperial College in London, where he invented an electrode to extract heavy metals from water. A professor visiting from Toronto suggested he move to Canada. “He said, ‘We have plenty of money,'” Das Gupta recalls. In Toronto, Das Gupta founded and then his investors sold an electrode company. In 1982, he teamed up with James Jacobs, a physicist and son of late urban visionary Jane Jacobs. They founded the Electrofuel Manufacturing Co. The company went public in 2000 ... Two now work for his company, renamed Electrovaya: Raj, a PhD in materials science from Cambridge, is vice-president of business development, and Gitanjali, a graduate of Stanford, Oxford and University of Toronto, is vice-president of operations. “Our batteries are like a Lego set,” said Gitanjali, hefting a black battery pack the size of a small loaf of bread. “This battery management system is proprietary to Electrovaya. There are about 400 patents associated with this product.” On the office walls hang hundreds of framed patents granted to Das Gupta and Jacobs by the U.S., Germany, India, Japan and Korea. The world has to use our technology for everything. Absolutely. In the last few weeks we have won massive contracts. We will be the technology provider. Despite its inventions, Electrovaya remains a market minnow compared to others such as Tesla Motors Inc., Panasonic Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. that make rechargeable batteries ... Much of the buzz around electricity storage centres on electric cars, especially Tesla’s versions, but Das Gupta says the internal combustion engine is too formidable a competitor. “This is heresy, and they are probably going to kill me for this, but gasoline is the world’s most fantastic source of energy,” he said. Out front his Nissan Leaf is charging. “On a summer’s day, the range is 160 km. On a winter day, it’s 30 km. When it was -26C, I wasn’t going very far.” Plenty of other users want to buy his batteries. Electrovaya in recent weeks has signed a letter of intent to supply $288-million worth of batteries for residential energy storage in Europe, on top of deals to supply electric buses and a 0.8 megawatt, tractor-trailer-mounted battery that Consolidated Edison Inc., the New York utility, can use in lieu of a generator to supply electricity during a power outage. This week Electrovaya announced a $53-million memorandum of understanding with an “e-mobility” manufacturer ... The key to Electrovaya’s current success lies across the Atlantic in Germany, near Dresden, at Litarion GmbH, Europe’s largest lithium-ion battery factory. Electrovaya in 2015 swallowed Litarion and 160 workers in a fairy tale deal that even the Canadian firm’s boosters cannot grasp. “Ask them how they got the plant,” advises Carter Driscoll, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets & Co., a New York investment bank, who has a buy rating on Electrovaya shares. “It almost seems too good to be true.” Chemical giant Evonik Industries AG opened the German plant in 2012 with Daimler AG and the German government to make batteries for electric smart cars. But there was a problem. “The dirty little secret of lithium-ion batteries is that they are manufactured with toxic chemicals suspected of causing birth defects,” Das Gupta said. “The German plant was in distress because they could not compete with Korea where they have less stringent toxic waste laws.” We believe that we have the technology that Bill Gates and his billionaire friends were talking about in Paris. Das Gupta said Electrovaya can make the plant profitable because it can build superior battery electrodes without using toxic chemicals. But his skills in getting people to work together will also be key, said Jacobs, who retired from Electrovaya in 2006. During Electrovaya’s infancy, Jacobs recalls, Das Gupta convinced 50 squabbling startup companies to sell him, inexpensively, an old factory building in Toronto. “He’s an amazing listener,” Jacobs said. “He puts people together in ways that they could not imagine.” Das Gupta now spends half of his time in Germany, to consummate the marriage. “We paid nothing,” said Das Gupta, who owns 56 per cent of Electrovaya’s shares. “They have taken a writeoff. We said, ‘We will try to save the plant for you. We will keep jobs, allow you to save face, and it’s good for Europe, because it’s strategic technology. We can move your plant to non-toxic, costs will go down and you’ll be able to compete.'” Later on, while eating a seafood platter at Marché restaurant in Toronto’s Brookfield Place, he amps up the self-confidence. “We believe that we have the technology that Bill Gates and his billionaire friends were talking about in Paris.” [© 2016 National Post] For EVLN EV-newswire posts use: http://evdl.org/evln/ {brucedp.150m.com} -- View this message in context: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/EVLN-Canadian-li-ion-market-minnow-Electrovaya-racking-up-orders-We-ve-taken-off-tp4682897.html Sent from the Electric Vehicle Discussion List mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Read EVAngel's EV News at http://evdl.org/evln/ Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
