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

Electrify America

[Rei]

The Electrify America deal is actually rather amusing, as it's Volkswagen behind that ;)

Dry electrode manufacturing isn't important because of some theoretical battery property improvements which may or may not be realized at commercial scale. It's important to reduce manufacturing hardware depreciation costs and operating expenses for battery electrode creation - e.g. greater throughput with less hardware and lower energy consumption.

The ongoing task of reducing cell costs is part capex/opex, and part raw materials costs. Tesla isn't working on the latter themselves, but there's a lot of interesting work going on on that front (for example, producing nickel sulfate from laterite, which historically has only been good for ferronickel and the like - that could tank nickel sulfate prices).

Re:Electrify America

[thegarbz]

The Electrify America deal is actually rather amusing, as it's Volkswagen behind that ;)

It would be amusing if the company did it on its own accord rather than doing it as part of it's "fine" for dieselgate.

0.6C charge/discharge rate? Nice.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Tesla Powerpack systems consisting of 'a 210 kW battery system with roughly 350 kWh of capacity' at over 100 charging stations

So the Powerpack system can be charged/discharged at an average of 0.6 C (Full to empty or vice versa in 1 hour 40 minutes.) Not too shabby.

Also means it's not going to lose much per cycle, either. Losing 10% would have it dissipating 21 kW as waste heat, so expect it to be far better than that.

No - it is unlikely that Tesla will use caps.

[robbak]

There is some use for ultra-capacitors in performance electric vehicles - dump regenerative braking energy into caps instead of the battery for use in the following acceleration. But unless you are decelerating and accelerating lots - think, racing on a track - you'd be better off using the extra mass for more batteries. The shallow charge cycles used in everyday regen don't stress a big battery back, and the heavy duty circuitry to pull charge into and out of big capacitor banks isn't cheap.

What Tesla is most likely interested in is new battery tech that they are in the process of developing. Really, they are paying most of that 200M for their dry electrode know-how and patents. The main thing we need to make electric cars better is more energy per unit volume (and mass) of battery.

Re:No - it is unlikely that Tesla will use caps.

[robbak]

The limit for charging at the moment is getting power into the car, not the batteries ability to store it. There's just a limit to the amount of voltage and amperage you can use with a plug that ordinary people have to connect and disconnect, and that is well within the 'C' rating of those large packs.

Pretty good distribution of U.S. stations

[SuperKendall]

If you look at the Electrify America charging map you can see they have a pretty good spread of stations across the U.S. - just zoom out.

The map may take a little while to get you a correct total, just wait a few seconds or zoom in and out a little at the top level, it'll eventually settle into the right numbers.

Re:Queue the experts

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

Maxwell is real and has been producing interesting products for years. Most of the products have not been cheap enough for consumer use. I'm figuring Musk plans to change that.

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.

Tesla Buys Maxwell, Student surpasses the teacher!

[stooo]

Tesla Buys Maxwell !
Student surpasses the teacher, eh ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

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

[DrYak]

Anything over 15 minutes to recharge is terrible.

Are you aware that you don't need to stay next to an EV while it's charging ?

Get that recharge rate to where it can compete with internal combustion engines

Typical use on long trips :

ICE: pull out to the gaz station, quickly fill the tank, then *after the refill* move the car a few meters further (to free the gaz pump) next to the restaurant/dinner, then have your break there (coffee or lunch depending on the time of the day).
EV: plug in the car to the charging station, and go to the restaurant dinner to have your break (coffee / lunch) *while* the car is charging.

There's NO difference in practical use.
(Ah yeah, I forgot: there's the "I pee in a plastic bottle" that will insist on driving 8 hours straight without a single pause. Just please try not to crash your sleep deprived face into me, thank you.)

Typical use on short trips:

ICE: you take your car, but every now and then you'll need to add an extra detour to the gaz station in your daily plan.
EV: you take your car. It's already charged 100% overnight.

EV are actually better.

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

[AmiMoJo]

350kW chargers are being tested in Europe now. In a decently efficient car that's 1200-1600 MPH. Take the lower end for high speed motorway driving.

If you work it out that means you need to stop for about 12 minutes every 3 hours if cruising at 75 MPH. Maybe I'm just getting old but I don't think I could plug the car in, go take a piss, grab another bottle and get back to unplug in much less time than that.

In fact I doubt you could do it faster in an ICE, given than you need to wait by the car while it is being fuelled.

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.

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

[apoc.famine]

Your car being plugged into your house while you're sleeping is dystopic? Just wait until you find out that the alternate is that you're required to frequently visit the dispensaries of vast oil industry megacorps, and pay them twice as much as it takes to drive an electric, all while destroying the environment.

And you are wrong about electric cars being priced above what most people pay for their primary car. Doubly so if you include TCO and not just sticker price. Electrics are coming in at the same price-point as Accords, Camrys, and F-150s. No, there aren't any budget ones yet, but there will be in time.

An the breaks are necessary.

[DrYak]

350kW chargers are being tested in Europe now {...} If you work it out that means you need to stop for about 12 minutes every 3 hours if cruising at 75 MPH.

(Note: 75MPH =~ 120 km/h)

Speaking of Europe, depending on where you're looking :

  - You are extremely strongly encouraged to make breaks much more frequently than that (as examples : see the campaigns on highway electronic signage in France during each touristic season - strongly encouraging to take a break every 2 hours maximum. Or as another example, the "turbo nap" information campaigns in Switzerland)

  - It might be illegal to go on long stretch without a break (there are laws for professional drivers in lots of European countries)

So yeah, as you point out, EV tech already today on the streets covers the needs of most people (except the US "I pee in a plastic bottle" crowd I mentionned above).

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?