Ultracapacitors and Batteries: Mortal Enemies or Best of Friends?

This is what is happening with ultracapacitors and batteries today. Batteries are being designed in where only ultracapacitors are needed. In contrast, ultracapacitors are being used where batteries just won’t do. Fortunately, there are some very progressive thinkers out there who recognize that energy delivery systems usually have more than one job to do and using the combination of the two is the best choice for the job.

Ultracapacitors: What’s so good about ‘em anyway?

Ultracapacitors are not exactly a household word or a household item today but they certainly have gained a significant amount of attention in technical circles, and now are seeing more commercial press coverage and commercial success as the business of ultracapacitors has crested from the imagined to the real over the past five years.

The Chevy Volt Needs an Ultracapacitor

I opened my Wall Street Journal with my morning coffee the other day and there on Page B2 is another story on the electric car. This time it’s the Vice Chairman of GM saying the upcoming Chevy Volt’s battery may not have much range beyond 40 miles, and that he only gets 28 miles in the Michigan cold.

Lithium everywhere but not a drop to… drive? Part II

Picking up where I left off in my previous post, I asked the question: So what is the risk of all this attention being focused on PHEVs coupled with lithium ion batteries?
My main concern is centered on the many potential mild hybrids and other vehicular hybrid solutions that are not being contemplated and not being [...]

Lithium everywhere but not a drop to… drive? Part I

You can hardly pick up a newsworthy publication on any given day without getting a hefty dose of facts, hype, propaganda, and special interest stories about lithium ion batteries. It is all there for the reading. The amount of information flowing on lithium ion batteries and their role in the ultimate salvation of the automotive [...]

Europe Loves Cleantech and Maxwell

I went to Europe last month to have some on one-on-one meetings with managers of different SRI funds (Sustainable Renewable Investments) in Geneva and Zurich, so obviously they were interested in cleantech.  I came away impressed with the extensive amount of homework these managers had done to really understand Maxwell’s ultracapacitor technology and business. 
Face-to-face meetings [...]

Ultracapacitor Technology for the Here and Now!

Whether it’s potential customers, partners or investors, whenever I speak to people outside the company the fact that impresses them most about Maxwell is that the technology is in use all over the world today.
We have literally millions of ultracapacitors out in the field working everyday, in windmills for pitch control, in trains and buses [...]