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Stanford Ovshinsky, Hybrid Car Battery Inventor, Has Died

Posted by timothy on from the sainthood-nomination-time dept.

another random user writes "Stanford Ovshinsky, a self-taught American physicist who designed the battery now used in hybrid cars, has died aged 89 from prostate cancer . The electronics field of ovonics was named after Mr Ovshinsky, who owned over 200 patents and has been described as a '[Thomas] Edison of our age.' He introduced the idea of 'glass transistors' in 1968, which paved the way for modern flat-screen monitors."

38 comments

  1. He will be missed. by Animats · · Score: 2

    One of the great inventors. "Ovonics", amorphous-siliicon solar cells, batteries...

    1. Re:He will be missed. by FirephoxRising · · Score: 1

      I didn't realise that he invented amorphous cells, history will show whether he is remembered more for those or if his batteries sparked (sorry, couldn't resist (sorry)) a transport revolution (OK I'll stop now).

    2. Re:He will be missed. by Squirmy+McPhee · · Score: 1

      You can argue that he commercialized amorphous silicon solar cells, but he most certainly did not invent them. That distinction goes to Chris Wronski and David Carlson at RCA.

  2. This is dumb, but I remember Ovshinsky... by KrazyDave · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...my dad was a physicist at ECD (when Ovshinsky owned it) in Troy, MI back in ca. '70 and I was about 8 years old at the time. We used to go to his house for dinner and BBQs a lot and he would stock my favorite pop (strawberry Faygo) for me at his house. He was a very nice guy.

    --
    www.chihuahuarescue.com- Help to end dog abuse, abandonment and cruelty
    1. Re:This is dumb, but I remember Ovshinsky... by dunelin · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I show the "Hydrogen Hopes" episode of Alan Alda's Scientific American Fronteirs (PBS) every year in my high school Chemistry class. Mr. Ovshinsky is a prominent figure in the program, showing off his solar cells, hydrogen storage media, and other inventions. The guy was truly remarkable and seemingly always thinking. We need more like him, people who are thinking of ways to improve the world (not just make money).

    2. Re:This is dumb, but I remember Ovshinsky... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Not dumb! When I was just beginning to commence to start building my first EV..I called Mr Ovshinsky..and got him! Explaining I wanted to use his batteries,H e patiently explained to me why he couldn't help me.. Personally, I think the news about A123 killed him, not cancer. HE always was among the great in my mind Franlin,Edison,Tesla...A real renaissance genius.

  3. Please stop insulting the dead by ikaruga · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Mr. Ovshinsky is man much greater than Edison could ever dream.

    1. Re:Please stop insulting the dead by Grey+Ninja · · Score: 2

      I came here (and actually signed in for the first time in years) to say exactly that. Thank you.

    2. Re:Please stop insulting the dead by bzipitidoo · · Score: 0

      I'm sorry to say, I had never even heard of the man until this story.

      --
      Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
    3. Re:Please stop insulting the dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think he wasn't as great an asshole like Edison was.

  4. Reminds me that... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    News stories like these remind me that I've wasted my life.

    Rest in peace, Mr. Ovshinsky.

    1. Re:Reminds me that... by Teun · · Score: 2

      Why not make a /. account and attempt to catch up?

      --
      "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
    2. Re:Reminds me that... by Ginger+Unicorn · · Score: 2

      You still have some of it left - you can choose to not waste that.

      --
      (1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
  5. Btw A123 is bancrupt. by citizenr · · Score: 1

    Electric car is looking gloomier and gloomier :/

    --
    Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
    1. Re:Btw A123 is bancrupt. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Ah, the reporting on the conservative right-wing.

      Let me ask you this, why do you hate America?

      Do you want the US to be beholden to battery production in Asia? Oil extraction in the Middle East? Why don't you love America and want to protect it from overseas foreign powers with malicious intent?

      Tell the truth, are you a communist, or have you ever been a communist, or seen one on TV?

    2. Re:Btw A123 is bancrupt. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nuclear Power Invented IN American and TESTED IN Asia. Truly all Americans Should only use the POWER of the ATOM. I have built my own nuclear powered car. Direct Steam Drive, no commy electric motors for me in the whole car. Steam powers everything. Wide-shield wipers STEAM Engine, Even the power windows use Steam engines. As do the power door look actuators And where the fuck does that Steam come from??? NUCLEAR baby, it's America's power supply. THE ATOM is gods gift to his choosen People..... Why do you THink we don't have melts down???? It's gods will baby..... NUCLEAR DUmp the waist on the enemies of god and AMERICA!!!!!!!!!

  6. Physical Review Letter that Started it All by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Stanford R. Ovshinsky, "Reversible Electrical Switching Phenomena in Disordered Structures," Physical Review Letters, vol. 21, no. 20 (1968), pp. 1450-1453.

  7. Wellll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe he should have studied medical science. *sigh*

    1. Re:Wellll by Dunbal · · Score: 2

      Doctors live 5 years less than the general population, on average. Except for dermatologists, for some reason. So no, studying medicine would not help and in fact would hinder :)

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  8. Hybrid car battery by Jack+Malmostoso · · Score: 3, Informative

    Just to be pedantic, he invented Nickel-Metal Hydride batteries which happen to be used in most hybrids, but of course are used in a million other places as well.
    RIP.

    1. Re:Hybrid car battery by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      They're not even used in most hybrids now, because the world has moved on to Lithium. They were used in the original Honda Insight, but the technology was sold to Chevron who placed it under onerous licensing terms. Even R/C cars and rechargeable flashlights have moved on from NiMH to LiPo or LiFePo.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:Hybrid car battery by HuguesT · · Score: 2

      No he didn't. His company holds a number of patents regarding the use of NIMH batteries, particularly in automobiles, but he cannot be regarded as the sole inventor of the NIMH chemistry used in related batteries. R&D into this domain started in the 1960s. In the mid 1980s working but expensive NIMH batteries existed for specialized applications like powering satellites. However he contributed to find a way to replace expensive rare earth materials by something cheaper, paving the way to mass market availability of the technology. However most NIMH batteries bought at some store today are not necessarily based on his design.

      Modern science very rarely involves a single scientist inventing something amazing by themselves.

    3. Re:Hybrid car battery by hazydave · · Score: 1

      Most hybrid cars still use NiMh. Look at Toyota, the most popular maker of hybrids. All of the 2012-2013 Prius models use NiMh except for the plug-in Prius. The big problem with any rechargeable has been battery life. NiMh cells last pretty much forever as long as you run only part of their capacity. The first two Prius generations (1997-2000, 2001-2003) used only 40% of the battery capacity. From 2004 on, they boosted this to 60%.

      The full electric cars have largely jumped to Lithium for energy density. But Lithium charging is more complex than NiMh -- cells can't deliver or take as much instantaneous power. So they make much more sense in large packs, but not as much for smaller pack, yet. Much of the work on new Lithium formulations (including the work the now-defunct A123 was doing) is improving the anode and cathode materials, which will increase their peak power/charging capacity, and increase the useful life.

      For R/C cars, yeah, Lithium cells exist, but the majority are still using NiMh. It's much the same issue -- serious racers need peak power output, which is fairly small from Lithium cells vs. NiMh (in fact, some even prefer NiCAD, despite the evil memory effects, as they can deliver a higher current peak than a similar NiMh cell). Some of this is addressed in the LiFePO4 cells, which are starting to gain traction.

      Another issue with Lithium cells is that it's critical to monitor power levels. Over-discharging can cause a parasitic reaction in the negative terminal, production of LiO in an irreversible reaction. Even without that, there are a number of parasitic effects in most classic Li-ion cells that limit their lifetime, often to about 3 years or less, independent of the battery cycling. That's been a biggie for use in hybrids, and one reason NiMh still dominates -- all of the hybrid or BEV cars out commercially now, with Lithium based cells, are using very new battery designs.

      --
      -Dave Haynie
    4. Re:Hybrid car battery by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      NiMh cells last pretty much forever as long as you run only part of their capacity.

      That's actually true of many lithium battery chemistries too. Most types of battery have longer life when you never fully charge or discharge.

      The full electric cars have largely jumped to Lithium for energy density. But Lithium charging is more complex than NiMh -- cells can't deliver or take as much instantaneous power.

      Uh, no.

      Maximum safe discharge rate is usually limited by cell heating. There is always parasitic internal resistance. P = I^2 * R, so the power lost to heating the cell goes up as the square of the current.

      Compared to NiMH, lithium ion chemistries have similar or less internal resistance (scroll all the way to the end):

      http://www.electrochemsolutions.com/battery/comparisons.aspx

      But also take note of the cell voltage -- well over 2x NiMH, ~3.7V versus ~1.25V. For any desired power output, you'll get by with less than half the current when using Li-Ion. Halving the current while keeping parasitic resistance roughly constant results in 1/4 as much parasitic power lost, and correspondingly less cell heating.

      Yes, lithium chemistries are more complex to charge. Generally speaking, this is not because it's impossible to charge them quickly, it's because the charger must have significantly more accurate knowledge of the cell's state-of-charge than is necessary with NiCd and NiMH chemistries. Lithium ion chemistries are both much less tolerant of overcharge and give fewer easily-sensed signs that they're beginning to be overcharged.

      This is why it's common to see fast charge till ~90%, then slow charge to 100%. At 90%, the charger switches modes from constant-current to constant-voltage, setting the charge voltage to be roughly equal to the desired end state pack voltage. This permits easy detection of when to stop charging by monitoring the drop in charge current as the cell asymptotically approaches 100%, while being mostly inherently safe (so long as the controller actually sets the constant voltage to the proper level). That last is also why it's common for LiIon packs (especially in automotive and computer applications) to be paired with intelligent controllers which know the entire life history of the pack, using mathematical aging models coupled with sensed voltage / temperature / current data to monitor capacity loss over time.

      (In automotive applications I wouldn't be surprised if Li-Ion charge controllers simply avoid fully charging the cells. Not only does this make safe fast charge simpler, it increases lifespan.)

      For R/C cars, yeah, Lithium cells exist, but the majority are still using NiMh. It's much the same issue -- serious racers need peak power output, which is fairly small from Lithium cells vs. NiMh (in fact, some even prefer NiCAD, despite the evil memory effects, as they can deliver a higher current peak than a similar NiMh cell).

      I have no idea whether what you're saying about R/C cars is true, but if it is I'd guess a significant factor is that common R/C car electrical systems aren't well adapted to Li battery chemistries, pack voltages, etc.

  9. RIP Ovshinsky, FU GM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No text

  10. Not dead by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

    Not dead ... just permanently discharged.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    1. Re:Not dead by reboot246 · · Score: 1

      It's a shame he didn't invent a method for humans to be recharged.

  11. Re:Proof video games cause violence! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have to admit, I was expecting your post to turn knto a pitch for a scam pc cleaning service or a cmdr taco coprophilia troll.

    Is it bad that I ended up disappointed because your post was less interesting than those hackneyed trolls?

  12. More than just solar cells and batteries by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I worked for ECD for 3 years just before and just after Stan "left" (corporate code for "was forced out"). It was one incredible place and he was a pretty incredible guy. So many interesting inventions that unfortunately never really got off the ground. That was partly because Stan tried to treat each of his inventions as a thing to be nurtured, even when it was clear that they were either un-economical or ahead of their time and partly because he partnered with a lot of big companies that stole the stuff they wanted and buried the stuff they wanted buried. (Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006) www.imdb.com/title/tt0489037/synopsis) Stan also had a knack for trusting that his employees had his back when they didn't and often went off on their own tangents. And the business was never what it was about for Stan. The money was just a way to keep inventing. Still, Amorphous Silicon for both sunlight to electricity AND electricity to light, dozens of CD/DVD patents (that Sony tied up so tight they could never be monetized), Nickle Metal Hydride batteries (that Chevron locked up), Phase Change Memory that nobody seemed to be able to make money at. Multi-State Phase Change Logic which was late in his career and maybe never got the attention it should have, a way to make buckets of hydrogen from almost anything organic and a way to safely store it in an auto fuel tank as a hydride. (ECD had company cars that were retrofitted Priuses running on pure hydrogen stored a s hydride). Stan was convinced that the Hydrogen economy was just around the corner. That is just scratching the surface. Brilliant, irascible, fun loving, generous, bull headed, curious, a know it all, in short a real human being. RIP Stan.

  13. This is a total travesty! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Only some two dozen posts about this over-hyped wannabe in the field of science and engineering?
    I had thought the readers of slashdot were stupid and easily duped.

    1. Re:This is a total travesty! by EmagGeek · · Score: 1

      I heard it took TheOatmeal all of 5 minutes to post a 47-screen-long comic cutting this guy to shreds because someone compared him to Edison.

    2. Re:This is a total travesty! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I heard it took TheOatmeal all of 5 minutes to post a 47-screen-long comic cutting this guy to shreds because someone compared him to Edison.

      No, no, no. You got your joke all wrong. The Oatmeal's author hates Edison (with a passion) and loves Tesla. He'd either be hurt that Ovshinsky's name was disgraced by comparing him to the (EVIL EVIL EVIL) Edison, or he'd be hating on Ovshinsky because his passing is taking a little bit of attention away from the near-religious veneration of Tesla.

  14. Bypassing academic disbelief by Paul+Fernhout · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And all the professional physicists and engineers denied that amorphous semiconductors were possible for many years, even when confronted with evidence... See for example:
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9621164/Stanford-Ovshinsky.html
    "In 1960, with his second wife Iris, a biochemist, he founded Energy Conversion Laboratories (later renamed Energy Conversion Devices, or ECD) at Rochester Hills, Michigan, to develop his ideas, and in 1968 held a press conference at which he announced that he had succeeded in making a "glass transistor" that relied on a principle which (with understandable immodesty) he called Ovonics. This breakthrough, he predicted, would eventually lead to desktop computers and television sets "hanging like portraits on the wall". The announcement made the front pages and ECDâ(TM)s stock (the company went public in 1967) soared. Within days, however, semiconductor engineers dismissed the idea and ECDâ(TM)s stock price collapsed. Most scientists had never heard of amorphous materials, and some rubbished Ovshinsky as a high school dropout and former machinist with no university qualifications. He was branded a crank. Eventually, though, Ovshinskyâ(TM)s theories proved correct, ushering in a whole new field of solid-state physics."

    I can wonder if we'll see the same with so-called "cold fusion" (LENR)? Example:
    http://pesn.com/2012/10/18/9602209_LENR-to-Market_Weekly_October18/

    See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disciplined_Minds
    "Disciplined Minds is a book by physicist Jeff Schmidt,[1] published in 2000. The book describes how professionals are made; the methods of professional and graduate schools that turn eager entering students into disciplined managerial and intellectual workers that correctly perceive and apply the employer's doctrine and outlook. Schmidt uses the examples of law, medicine, and physics, and describes methods that students and professional workers can use to preserve their personalities and independent thought."

    I've always found the story of Stanford Ovshinsky inspirational. He was like a more-well-grounded Bucky Fuller. Too bad about prostrate cancer; here is some advice on reducing the risk for those of us (males) who carry on:
    http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/prostate-cancer-dr-fuhrmans-diet-advice-for-prostate-health.html

    --
    A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
    1. Re:Bypassing academic disbelief by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can wonder if we'll see the same with so-called "cold fusion" (LENR)? Example:
      http://pesn.com/2012/10/18/9602209_LENR-to-Market_Weekly_October18/

      Well, you're free to "wonder", but no amount of wondering will make pipe dreams real. I opened your link, and splattered all across the page was promotion of some Italian dude's "self sustaining" (aka perpetual motion) machine. Stop being so gullible. That's not the sort of website to go to for information about heroic lone wolf inventors oppressed by The System, it's a place to go to for uncritical promotion of cranks and frauds.

      Also, if you had bothered to read that Telegraph article in depth instead of skimming for material to support the "scientific orthodoxy suppresses geniuses" narrative, you'd have noticed that less than 10 years after Ovshinsky attracted some harsh criticism, Sir Nevill Mott acknowledged Ovshinksy in his Nobel acceptance speech. Because, you see, he won it for work in a field of study which Ovshinksy kicked off. That's actually a relatively short time scale for controversy to acceptance.

      By the way, real scientists like Ovshinsky basically welcome harsh criticism of any bold new claims they happen to be making. You're always going to be your own work's biggest fan -- but if you're honestly pursuing the truth you have to be aware that means you can't be your own work's best critic, so the only way you're going to ever be sure that you've done it right is to put it out there, let it get attacked, and see if you can figure out how to save it. Ovshinsky did figure out how to defend a lot of his key ideas. Guys like Pons & Fleischmann (the "inventors" of cold fusion) couldn't. Because there wasn't anything there.

      Too bad about prostrate cancer; here is some advice on reducing the risk for those of us (males) who carry on:
      http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/prostate-cancer-dr-fuhrmans-diet-advice-for-prostate-health.html

      Hooray, let's hear it for yet another dose of worthless diet advice pseudoscience! (hint: if you read it on a site which, by its very name, implies you can become "disease proof", it's probably a load of crap)