Bob Stempel and Ovonics

Thread Tools

Search this Thread

02-26-2007, 10:21 PM

bwilson4web

Engineering first

Thread Starter

Join Date: Oct 2005

Location: Huntsville, AL

Posts: 5,613

Bob Stempel and Ovonics

http://www.thecarconnection.com/Auto...96.A11952.html

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gary_Witzenburg

Those who have been around the business a while remember Bob Stempel as Chevrolet chief engineer, Pontiac and then Chevrolet general manager, VP of the Buick-Oldsmobile-Cadillac Group, president of General Motors and eventually chairman. Those who know him know a warm, dynamic, extremely intelligent leader who never forgets your name. Today, Stempel is chairman and CEO of Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. (ECD), a high-tech Rochester Hills, Mich., company known for inventing, developing and manufacturing, among other things, nickel metal hydride batteries for EVs and hybrids and solid hydride storage systems for hydrogen.
. . .

For the longest time, I've heard comments about Ovonics using their NiMH patents to limit the size and quantity of large NiMH batteries as traction batteries. The source had been the plug-in vehicle crowd who are pissed that they can't buy the large capacity NiMH batteries needed for their experiments. There has been an implication that Chevron was the majority stock holder and deliberately sitting on the patents.

NiMH batteries are such an excellent technology, I could never figure out why they hadn't gone main-stream and made a ton of money. They have never made a serious challenge to lead-acid starter batteries and now I know why. The rest of the interview is a synopsis of the technology needed to make electric vehicles practical. But the patent clock is ticking and soon enough, it will run-out and Ovonics will have snatched bankruptcy from the jaws of victory.

Bob Wilson