second-largest maker of lithium-ion batteries for notebooks
These plug-in hybrids “will cut gasoline demand over 70 percent for most drivers, and carbon emissions by 50 percent, which will have a significant effect on the environment,” Mr. Vieau said. Driving a plug-in hybrid powered by Business Notebook NX9100 Battery from A123, most drivers would seldom use their gasoline engines. And while the electricity that charged the batteries would derive mostly from carbon dioxide-producing power plants, burning gasoline is the most polluting transportation energy of all, according to a 2005 study by the Argonne National Laboratory.
Sony technicians, who took part in the examination at the Exponent lab, looked at additional data on all its Acer Aspire 9800 Battery , not just those sold to Dell, that suggested a problem in the manufacturing process. “As events trickled in, they seemed to reinforce a conclusion that these Sony cells had an issue,” Mr. Gruzen said. “They don’t show a predictable pattern, which is why we wanted to get them out of the marketplace.” Sony is the second-largest maker of lithium-ion Laptop Batteries for notebooks, after Sanyo.
Shifting to the new technology seems to have been a wise, if hard, decision. Today, A123Systems, a privately held venture, has raised more than $102 million in funding from a variety of investors including Sequoia Capital, Motorola and General Electric. It has 250 employees in China, Taiwan, South Korea and the United States. Apart from its developmental work with G.M., it manufactures the Laptop Batteries that drive Black & Decker and DeWalt professional power tools.
The unit worked when it was plugged in to the power cord, despite the fire, which told the investigators that the problem was not with any circuitry or microchips. An X-ray of the Laptop Batteries pack told them the fire was not caused by an overcharged battery, because a safety device was still intact.
How to Subscribe This Week’s Podcast (mp3)By late 2003, the company had abandoned self-assembly for another, less alchemical but still dramatic technology. In place of cobalt oxide, it used a commonplace substance, iron phosphate, but assembled it in a novel, nano-structure — the particles used were 100 times smaller than conventional oxides and eight orders of magnitude more conductive than conventional phosphates. The new combination offers high power, stability and longevity.
The history of A123Systems offers a lesson in entrepreneurial adaptability. When Professor Chiang and two others founded the company in 2002, it was devoted to a radical business proposition: it hoped to develop a technique where component materials would “self assemble” into a practical lithium battery. “Imagine sprayable Laptop Batteries , conforming to the shape of a device or an appliance,” Professor Chiang said. “They could also be deposited in very small volumes to power micro and nano devices.”
Dell officials refused to say how many computers had been returned because of heat or fire damage, but said the company had acted on the problem as soon as it realized there might be a pattern. Mr. Gruzen said the publicity surrounding the notebook fire at the Osaka hotel did not prompt Dell to look into the problem, because the company was already having conversations with Sony.
G.M. selected A123Systems (along with its partner Cobasys) to develop batteries that might be used for the Saturn Vue, he said, and it is considering awarding A123Systems a similar contract for the Volt concept car, to take advantage of the company’s remarkable new rechargeable lithium batteries.
The current recall also leaves many questions unanswered on how Dell, as well as the product safety commission, deals with information about fire-damaged notebooks. Although Dell told the agency that only six incidents had occurred, a reporter viewed almost 100 photos of melted notebooks that were returned to the company between 2002 and 2004.
To date, all-electric vehicles have failed because their batteries were inadequate. General Motors’ futuristic EV1 car of the late 1990s was doted upon by environmentally conscious drivers who admired its innovative engineering, but because the car used large, primitive nickel metal hydride batteries, its range was limited, its acceleration degraded as the batteries weakened with age, and its two-seat layout was not very comfortable for big, corn-fed North Americans.