Zenn Motor Co. Announces Positive Test Results on Groundbreaking Battery Technology for Electric Vehicles

Toronto-based Zenn Motor Co announced positive test results on its U.S. partner EEStor Inc’s potentially ground-breaking battery technology for electric vehicles. Zenn Motor pledged to invest up to $5 million in EEStor to further progress on the batteries which Zenn plans to use in its forthcoming highway-capable electric cars and other applications.

Zenn predicts that EEStor's battery will outperform every chemical battery on the market for energy density, charge time, cost, and performance.  In the recent round of testing, Texas-based EEStor's battery system beat specifications by 21 percent, confirming the system’s superior energy storage capabilities.

The companies plan to use this advanced battery technology to improve the performance and operating time on a number of portable consumer electronics and possibly for renewable energy storage on a larger scale. EEStor plans to begin delivering production units of the car battery to Zenn this year, manufactured in the company's state-of-the-art production facility in Austin, Texas.

EEStor's battery differs from current lead acid and lithium-ion battery technology by utilizing a parallel plate ultracapacitor using barium-titanate powders. EEStor says the new technology could reduce the time needed to achieve full charge to minutes rather than hours, and store 10 times more power than lead-acid batteries.  EEStor predicts the batteries will cost half as much as those on the market today, and have the added benefit of avoiding toxic chemical components in their manufacture.

Read a recent interview with Zenn Motor CEO Ian Clifford from the Toronto Globe and Mail for more info on the prospects for EEStor’s battery technology.