Tesla Acquires Ultracapacitor Manufacturer For Over $200 Million, Reaches Deal With Electrify America To Deploy Powerpacks At Over 100 Charging Stations (electrek.co)

Thelasko shares a report from Electrek: Tesla hasn't been known for making many acquisitions, but we've now learned that it has reached an agreement to acquire ultracapacitor and battery component manufacturer Maxwell based in California. The all-stock transaction worth over $200 million was announced by Maxwell this morning and we reached out to Tesla to confirm the news. [...] Tesla's acquisition of Maxwell might have little to do with ultracapacitors. The automaker might be more interested with Maxwell's dry electrode technology that they have been hyping recently. Maxwell claims that its electrode enables an energy density of over 300 Wh/kg in current demonstration cells and they see a path to over 500 Wh/kg. This would represent a significant improvement over current battery cells used by Tesla and enable longer range or lighter weight, but that's not even the most attractive benefit of Maxwell's dry electrode. They claim that it should simplify the manufacturing process and result in a "10 to 20% cost reduction versus state-of-the-art wet electrodes" while "extending battery Life up to a factor of 2." Many companies have been making similar claims about batteries. Tesla, specifically Elon and JB, have often complained that they couldn't verify those claims. If Tesla is willing to pay $200 million for Maxwell, I have to assume that they verified the claims and they believe the technology is applicable to their batteries. On a semi-related note, Tesla has also reached a deal with Electrify America to deploy Powerpacks at over 100 charging stations operated by the latter. "Demand charges, a higher rate that an electric utility charges when a user's electricity needs spike, are resulting in incredible costs for charging station operators," reports Electrek. "The use of energy storage at charging stations in order to shave the peak usage is a solution to those demand charges."

"[Electrify America] announced today that they will deploy Tesla Powerpack systems consisting of 'a 210 kW battery system with roughly 350 kWh of capacity' at over 100 charging stations," the report says. "The system will be designed to be modular in order to increase the capacity if needed."

Comments

Re:Queue the experts

[ShanghaiBill]

A better question is if Maxwell's tech is real and as revolutionary as claimed then why sell the entire company and all IP for a measly $200 million?

Because they have good researchers, but nobody with the skills to turn their IP into commercial products and manufacture at scale.

According to their financial statements they are all but bankrupt. Doesn't add up.

There is no magic machine that turns great ideas into piles of money. Plenty of brilliant people go broke. Having a PhD is negatively correlated with business success.

Re: Using overvalued stock while they can

[MachineShedFred]

Move the goalposts a little more.

"Tesla isn't profitable"
"Tesla can't make more than 10,000 cars in a month"
"Tesla hasn't been profitable for more than a quarter at a time"
"Tesla hasn't ever made an annual profit"

They've already given guidance of either a narrow loss or narrow profit for Q1, so depending on Q2 they will have shown a profit over four consecutive quarters when the last big loss (2018Q2) falls off. Where will the goalposts move then?

Re:You don't need to *stay next to the car*

[apoc.famine]

EV: you take your car. It's already charged 100% overnight.

In talking to a couple of my friends with BEVs, that's the one thing that will make them never go back to an ICE car. Range anxiety isn't a thing in their day-to-day life. When going on a longer trip, it becomes something to plan around, but that's not generally that often. And most still have an ICE car available.

Never going to a gas station doesn't seem life-changing, but they all feel it is. One less valueless waste of time, detour, and distraction in life can sometimes really be a positive change.