Yes, GoldPeak does indeed have a grandfathered license that permits it to sell large-format NiMH batteries in the US and in fact is the only NiMH battery manufacturer in the world that has that privilege and right.
Yes, unfortunately I am really swamped and have a lot of things on my plate right now. I have not even been able to read this FLEAA discussion list nor any of the other 8 or so EV discussion lists that I am on, much less have time to post anything. I have belatedly been trying to catch up on this list, and this list alone, and have glanced at much of the discussion on NiMH in the last few days, having just perused about 3 weeks worth of FLEAA digests sitting in a folder I created for it, where I just park them until I can get to them. My wife and I own and drive three (large-format) NiMH-powered EVs -- two 2002 Toyota RAV4-EVs and a 2007 Vectrix electric motorcycle. Actually, I am test rider for Vectrix and get sent new Vectrix motorcycles every few months. I just picked up another one on Thursday that the company just sent me. I am quite knowledgeable about the entire history of the whole NiMH issue with the patents and all the companies involved, lawsuits, etc., etc. I researched all of this extensively about 3 years ago and unearthed a lot of unknown, or little known, material, which I then published on various forums and in EV World. Sorry, I no longer have the links to any of that. Too many computer crashes in the last few months have caused me to lose years of work, files, documents, everything. Much of what has been written about NiMH in the last few years by people in the EV community and press, Bill Moore, etc., has been based on my original research of about 3 years ago and what I unearthed. Having just now perused most of the discussion on this subject over the last week or two on this list, much of it mirrors what I wrote 3 years ago, and I agree with most of what has been written by others here. What I don't quite agree with, or at least am not so sanguine about, is the efficacy and likely prospects of success for any sort of public advocacy/petition/lobbying/letter-writing campaign to break Chevron's strangehold on its licensing control of the NiMH patents. This issue has been discussed many times over the last few years on the various EV lists. Any such attempt, while well meaning and good intentioned, simply ignores the realities of our economic/business/legal system and that what Chevron is doing is completely legal. If you could prove *deliberate* suppression, that would be a different story and would indeed provide grounds for a suit asking the government to disgorge/strip the patents from Chevron's control. But you will never be able to prove such *deliberate* suppression on Chevron's part, because the standard of proof and threshold to surmount is pretty high on that, and Chevron is not so stupid to have been so blatant about their suppression. They have made disingenuous, token efforts (completely self-undermined, of course) to make a pretense of making large-format NiMH batteries at least nominally available, albeit on unfavorable, uneconomic terms and with deliberately dumbed-down, degraded quality (in terms of the batteries' thermal properties). By doing so, and with a sizable army of the best lawyers that oil money can buy, Chevron can make a barely, minimally, yet likely legally sufficient, defensible case of plausibility that they have made an "attempt" to make their patented large-format NiMH batteries commercially available, and my personal opinion is that you will never be able to beat them in court and prove otherwise, not to mention that you would need a war-chest of many tens of millions of dollars to even try to do so. It's simple naiviete to think so. I don't want to get too political here, but you also have to look at the composition of the federal judges currently on the bench in this country and their political and economic idealogical philosophies and who has put most of them there, with most of them having been appointed over the last 7 years. Having said all that, the issue is not so cut-and-dry and black-and-white as simple patent suppression, although there is no doubt that that is definitely the dominant causal factor of the overall problem here, despite the fact that you will never be able to prove that in our biased, stacked legal system. The overall subject is actually quite a bit more complex than that, as there are also issues of economics at play here and commercial viability, economies of scale, issues of consumer demand, government regulatory, incentive, and fleet support, or lack thereof, extremely volatile world commodity prices, especially that of nickel, etc. These latter set of economic issues are ones that I am now deeply involved in from a commercial and business standpoint. I have been having very intensive discussions, negotiations, and meetings with the top executives and battery engineers of GoldPeak over the last few weeks, but it would be unwise and inadvisable for me to discuss any of this on a public list like this. I am in the process of signing an NDA with GoldPeak, so I have to be careful what I say, both publicly and privately, and it just wouldn't be wise from a business standpoint for me to do so either. A lot of this is sensitive and proprietary stuff that I just can't discuss. I am able and willing to discuss some of it in very general terms, without violating the NDA, to FLEAA members in person, face-to-face, but that is it. I don't have time to discuss this with individuals by private email and am not inclined to do so anyway. The best way to discuss this with me is to catch me at a FLEAA meeting, as one of our members did today at the end of our meeting to ask me about this. And I have also discussed some of this with Shawn. Although I have not yet made my travel arrangements, I am supposed to be in Tallahassee on March 27 for a meeting with state officials and legislators. So if Fran and/or anyone else in Northern Florida is interested, maybe we could get together for dinner at a restaurant someplace and have an informal FLEAA mini chapter meeting or something, where I could discuss these various NiMH issues plus answer any questions about some of our down-state happenings down here in South Florida. ... Although I think Shawn and Andrew are more knowledgeable in general about all the many various different things going on down here, but I'm not too far behind in that regard and would do my best to give an update and overview on our down-state activities. I'll have to check and see if I am going to be committed for dinner on either or both the 26th and/or 27th in Tallahassee, as I don't know yet, since we haven't yet firmed up the schedule. On the GoldPeak situation, all I really want to say publicly is that there are some possibilities there, but it is still very early and the economics and business issues are complicated and fairly tight and at the margin, and there are a number of economic and business hurdles to get over. This is a situation that will develop over the next year. Success is not certain. I would call it maybe 50-50 at this point. Unfortunately I really don't have time to discuss this on this list beyond what I've said here, and I can't really say much more anyway, at least publicly. Best regards, Charles Whalen Delray Beach, FL ----- Original Message ----- From: Shawn Waggoner (FLEAA) To: 'FLEAA Mailing List' Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2008 10:12 PM Subject: RE: [FLEAA] Larger Format NiMh Batteries I know Charles is swamped but I am hoping he can chime with some info on Gold Peak. Apparently they have been grand-fathered in under the original patents and can produce larger format NiMH batteries. I know he has been talking with Gold Peak on some other business related items; maybe he can chime in on whether or not they might be offering batteries and what the availability and costs might be. Shawn From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2008 9:45 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [FLEAA] listserv Digest, Vol 8, Issue 20 The only issue I have with this patent deal is that they ARE making large format LiIon batteries. We the homebuilders can't get to them, granted. What about, oh, say, Prius batteries? I hear that my Insight's are like C cells, but the Prius is different. Escape? Altima? These may not be of the size to drive my EV down the road for long, but you get my point. Rob It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms and advice on AOL Money & Finance. No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.518 / Virus Database: 269.21.7/1319 - Release Date: 3/8/2008 10:14 AM _______________________________________________ Florida EAA mailing list [email protected] http://www.floridaeaa.org
