Battery Technologies: No Secret Sauce

By John Petersen:Last week, the stock of A123 Systems (AONE) soared 52% in a day after it announced that an enhanced chemistry would improve the cold and hot weather performance of its LiFePO4 batteries, reduce the need for ancillary temperature control systems and make them more competiti

By John Petersen:Despite billions of dollars in private investments and public subsidies, lithium-ion battery technology has progressed at a snail's pace for years and battery developers have recently started to emphasize the importance of baby steps. For the first time in memory, anti-hype is becoming a dominant theme in stories about lithium-ion batteries. Examples from this month include:

By Dana Blankenhorn: Venture capitalists know that new technologies are risky. They know things can go wrong. They sort of expect it.Public investors don't understand this. We expect that if we're to put our hard-earned dollars and dimes into an investment, things will work out.

ETF Database submits: Monday was a solid start to the week for equity markets, as reaction to the new “Basel Rules” regarding capital requirement levels, which gave banks a generous amount of time to meet the new requirements, sent shares surging. While this news remained in the spotlight for much of the day, one small sector of the economy also produced a banner day for shareholders but for a completely different reason.

John Petersen submits:On Wednesday a reader sent me a new Goldman Sachs research report on the advanced battery sector titled "Advanced Batteries: Light, but the tunnel is long; Buy ENS, HEV Neutral, AONE Neutral." If the essence of legal argument is "the plausible boldly asserted," then I'd suggest that the essence of sell-side analysis must be "the implausible accepted without question." While I agree with Goldman's conclusions that

John Petersen submits:In one of my first articles, "Battery Technology: A Different Set of Rules," a commenter suggested that I was a bit of a Captain Buzzkill. Eighteen months later it's clear that a lot of readers share that uncharitable view.

John Petersen submits:Before moving to Switzerland in 1998 I lived and worked in Houston, Texas, a place that teaches you the importance of keeping an eye on long-term weather forecasts, particularly during hurricane season. Most of the time it turns out to be wasted effort because Mother Nature is fickle and highly unpredictable, but when it's important it's really important. The same logic holds for investments in energy storage and electric vehicle technologies.

By John Petersen:I've recently learned that lithium-ion batteries might be a triple threat - Borgia batteries - cherished by eco-royalty, poisonous in the extreme, and explosive enough to wreak havoc in a $25 million laboratory that was built to safely manage battery explosions.Is it a battery or a WMD?