From Pacemaker to Powerplant: Part 1 Interview of Ian Clifford

What do you get when you combine gadget lust with an energy crisis?  For Ian Clifford, CEO of Zenn Motor Company, the answer is quite simple: an opportunity to save the planet.  

Not save

 Toronto or Texas or any other part of the world but the whole shebang; everything and everybody.  You'll forgive Mr. Clifford if he occasionally uses that two word phrase--the planet---a bit too often.  It's just that, when you are about to enter phase 1 of a revolution that could end the use of fossil fuel powered cars, that phrase keeps popping up unexpectedly.  Then again, that's the sort of phrase we heard often back in the early Internet boom, of which, Mr. Clifford was  a successful participant, having sold an Internet marketing company at precisely the right time to stay optimistic about almost anything he touches for the rest of his life.  It's going to take nothing less than heroic optimism to pull off what Mr. Clifford is aiming to pull off.  What is he trying to pull off?

For starters, he wants to save each of the 13000 taxi cab drivers in New York City around $17,000 per year in fuel costs which amounts to over $1Bil over 5yrs which does not include the savings associated with no longer needing to change oil, filters or tune up internal combusion engines or even the lion share of savings gained via vehicle life expansion.  He wants to do this with a zero emission alternative based on technology gained from EEstor, the mysterious producers of a technology which may or may not receive 3rd party validation any day now.   For those who have followed news on Zenn Motor Company, you may be scratching your head now as you thought Zenn was focused on producing a tiny but fully electric  car. But how could Zenn get this car to every taxi cab driver in NYC?  Clifford and Zenn Motors is working on a set of ultracap conversion kits which will be available to retrofit the typical NYC cab platform of choice: the Crown Victoria and/or similar large vehicles.  The kit would eliminate the internal combusion engine and replace it with a ZENNergy drive system, a fully electric system based on ultracapacitor technology. 

With a little success under his belt, Clifford could spend a bit of effort on 100 or so other similarly sized fleets out there before moving on to something of more interest to the average consumer.  While Zenn's cityZenn car is targeted to possibly begin chipping away at the 40mil new  car market beginning in late 2009, you may find a bigger dent sooner among the 900 mil existing vehicles around "the planet" today.  Let's elaborate on this a bit.

Perhaps lately your decision to buy the largest SUV available with the worst gas mileage is seeming less funny to you. Picture this. One day you drive to a Jiffy lube or even your local dealer and instead of an oil change, you ask for engine removal. A few hours later, you pull away from the shop and notice your SUV is now quicker out of the gate than your wife's SAAB while reducing your vehicle power costs by what we'll call a motivating amount of money.  What happens next?  If all goes well, over 1Mil others follow your lead each year for the next few years producing what Ian Clifford would have investors believe is a motivating amount of money. 

What else would Ian Clifford have us believe? In the next installment, Clifford will test our faith with thoughts on who will be the new gas station, other applications of ultracap technology as well as where entrepreneurs should focus their attention for the most gain. 

Amazing Fuel Cost Savings

I tried out the Zenn Motor savings calculator on their website today. The calculator points out that my fuel costs for driving an SUV 70 miles per day is $5600/yr. If i were to switch to a fully electric Zenn and recharge via my local Virigina Power at $0.085 per KWH, my fuel costs would reduce by $5321. That is, with a Zenn my fuel costs would be $278/yr. I am paying 20 times more per year to drive an SUV than a Zenn. This is a staggering figure which could have such an enormous benefit in today's environment. It's not difficult to see what kind of demand this is going to generate if all goes well.

Distribution and Licensing

One of the questions I asked Richard Weir recently was if he could describe how EEStor intends to distribute it's technology. His reaction was quick and a little testy that this would not be a question he would answer or comment on. It's interesting to think about how today's alternative energy companies can more or less mirror some of the great software companies of the past. I wrote a quick article with a few thoughts on the topic on my other blog covering algae as a biofuel source. If you happen to be one of those who has invested in Zenn Motors and you are trying to figure out what value is that initial $2.5Mil stake they have in EEStor, you might want to think this through a bit.

Interview with Richard Weir, CEO of EEStor

Last week, I was able to interview Richard Weir, President and CEO of the secretive company from Cedar Park, TX called EEStor which is working on a technology to challenge the various industries that rely on battery power: cars, gadgets, etc utilising advances they claim to have made in the field of ultracapacitors also called ultracaps.

Here is installment 1 and installment 2. Installment 3.

NOTE: I was able to interview Ian Clifford last week for 30minutes. If you are an entrepreneur or investor, I think you're going to be very interested in what he had to say.

Going into production: Part 3 Interview with Richard Weir

Part of the reason that it's difficult to appreciate the magnitude of what EEStor is working on is because everyone tends to think of our current climate being one where we have an energy problem....full stop. High demand + low supply = high energy prices....high food costs, etc etc. But, what if to move forward, we have to set aside that problem definition and start over by recognizing what is extremely apparent to seemingly only a few: our problem isn't energy sources/supplies, but rather energy storage. Think about it for a minute. You could hop in your SUV and drive it from LA to NYC on one tank of gas if only your gas tank were the size of a bus. Very inefficient but very possible. Yet, none of us ever stops to think that what is swishing around in our tanks today was once 8000 miles away buried under 8 miles of sand. Isn't it the same though and is that really what we want powering us around our way?

Enter EEStor. Solar, wind, wave and all of the other ways of acquiring energy may now finally become viable alternatives due to the one thing so many were overlooking for so long: storage is the problem more so than supply. These ideas were introduced and made clearer for me by Ian Clifford in an interview I will post soon. For now, this isn't going to sink in right away so let's come back to this and pick up where we left off with installment 3 of my interview with Richard Weir, CEO and President of EEStor. (an installment that was delayed by nothing less than 3 days of storm induced power outage at my Washington, DC area home---inside the beltway no less--we really need these ultracapacitors, don't we? )

Proof. That's what everyone--skeptics, competitors, would be consumers-- is waiting for from EEStor. Weir says that they anticipate they'll be in production in early 2009 But, when you talk to him, you notice that despite what he is saying which is essentially "be patient, we will release information when it's the proper time to do so," he is anxious to tell you what's going on. He talks quickly and the words run together so that you're sometimes hearing concepts and not sentences all delivered with a measured giddiness that is clearly detectable. At the end of my interview, just as the tones of our voices were signifying that this interview is coming to an end real soon, I asked for one more question and Weir responded, "I already gave you a ton of information!" and then he chuckled a bit. I asked if I could contact him again if I had follow up questions and again laughing, emphatic "Nope!" but then as if not to offend he says, "thanks for the interest, we'll have some information out soon."

What he is referring to is the permitivity testing being performed by a third party lab. It literally could come out any day now. Success here means, among other things, that EEStor will receive additional investment from Ian Clifford at Zenn Motors. Weir is going to need it because his biggest competitor is Maxwell, a firm with offices in San Diego, CA, Switzerland and China. They would appear to already have a big lead on EEStor in terms of commercialization of IP but for Weir, the comparison is bothersome and his response was probably his only unmeasured statement. I asked him if Maxwell was his biggest competitor and he stated, "how can they be a competitor when their cost is $13,000 per kWH?"

"And you guys beat that pretty well," I asked. "We're under lithium ion which is around $350 to $850 depending on where you're buying it from. " You hear that Maxwell? I'm reaching out to you now for a rebuttal.

He ended the interview by saying, "We'll put out another news release here soon. And that will pretty well define the direction and successes we've had to date and what we're happy about."

What we're happy about as followers of this company is that someone is working on something revolutionary and as garnered enough interest to capture the imagination.

EEStor around the Forum World.

For those who love to gab about EEStor in a forum setting, here's a few threads that you can join. 

Early retirement forum

Wind & Sun forum

Tesla Motor Club

Electric Vehicles Forum

Tesla Motor Club again

Aptera Forum

Boaters discuss EEStor

Treehugger

Greenpowertalk

Prius Chat

Agora

Overunity

VIS for Voltage

cleantech

Smallcaps discussion

Electric Vehicle Forum

Aptera again

How Fast Can You Partner?: Part 2 Interview with EEstor's Richard Weir

To understand the mindset of Richard Weir, CEO of EEStor Inc, you have to reflect on how intent he is on not allowing his intellectual property to fall into the chaos of a hype machine prior to it's delivery to the market. Keeping a low profile, as the story goes, will allow his team to complete its scientific work of proving, quite simply, that what they have can do what they say it can. It's very likely that we wouldn't know anything about EEStor if it weren't for Zenn Motor Company, who introduced us to the concept of an electric vehicle that could charge in 5 minutes and drive 400 miles. So, Weir is focused and doing his best to avoid the chaos of hype. Perfectly rational, right?

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But what if that aversion to chaos were really stemming from that most unscientific outlook known as greedy fear? You're not familiar with greedy fear? Let me explain it to you. Let's say you're out scuba diving, maybe visiting an old wreck that's been explored countless times before by many other divers, but this time you see something no else has seen. So, you move in for a closer look and a little bit of dusting off here and there and you find yourself staring at $500 billion in gold and diamonds. After you almost drown due to improper breathing brought on by hysteria, you might feel a different form of fear. After all, you've just become one of the richest people in history. That is, if you can actually get the goods from where they are now to where they need to be so they can be liquidated and entered in to your checking account. I imagine most of us would not walk up on the beach and make a public announcement about what we found, where we found it and how we're going to begin carting it out of the water....much less build a corporate website laying everything out for remote users.

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A more likely outcome is greedy fear and involves having a series of paranoid thoughts ranging from the frustration you might feel if a monied organization dropped anchor right over your find and began rapidly sucking out every last dime of your treasure with a giant vacuum. On the other side of things, you might wonder if anyone out there has surreptitiously learned of your find and are finishing up final walkthroughs of your pending accidental death--perhaps scheduled for next Tuesday when you're out walking your dog at 5:30am.

When Mr. Weir walks his dog, what or who might he be thinking about? "Here's what I'll tell you, this is pretty well known. We fit everything from iPods, cellphones all the way up to batteries for Bradley Tanks." So goes Weir's answer to my innocuous question as to what applications we might gain besides car batteries. Did you hear that Steve Jobs? Weir has a new battery for your iPod. Only, when you connect it to your car, it would also power the car not just the iPod. Finally, something truly insanely great! Along with the gadgets he lists, throw in toys and flashlights, etc. In other words, look for a head-on collision with any of these 330 companies. And let's not even mention the automobile or oil industry here to create real spookiness. It's easy to see how there might be alot of unhappy wealthy and organized groups of people who may not see Mr. Weir's work as a great boon.

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And if you have all these potential enemies out there, who are you going to turn to for a little coverage in case anyone gets trigger happy? Why not team with the world's largest weapons contractor, Lockheed Martin, a company currently supplying the US Dept of Defense and Homeland Security with technology, people, and know-how. Get in real tight so that anyone who takes you on is really taking on a massive organization with connections all over government and beyond. That sounds pretty good. What does security like that cost anyway? In EEStor's case, Lockheed only asked for exclusive rights to the entire defense and homeland security industry. Done!

So, I wasn't surprised when I asked Mr. Weir to please give me something new and interesting that no one has written about, something exciting if possible. His reply? "Go back and read what Lockheed Martin said about this. I think that's very exciting. They said two things. They said it works. And they didn't say it works with this or that caveat.... they just said it works. And second, they said it could ramp up into a high volume production environment. I think that's very exciting. So go read what they said about it." In other words, go ask my big brawny, highly trained, well-armed partners what they say about it. So, I took him at his words and did reread the press release and then called the Lockheed press point of contact. That interview will be posted next week.







In summary, a pattern is emerging which may be becoming clearer to you if you want, for example, to invest in the outcome of EEStor's work. Just my opinion but, I would bet that other business deals are forthcoming that involve inking deals with large players in well established markets. EEStor seems fond of exclusive rights deals, so if you want to do business, better have the means.




So you might wonder how EEstor stacks up with Maxwell Technologies, certainly their most advanced competitor. In my next posting, Weir will comment on just that. Also, without asking, Weir provides an update on production schedule and a few personal observations.

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To Hype or Not to Hype: Part 1 Interview with EEStor's Richard Weir

By every conservative measure if all goes well, 5yrs from now, you will be living in Richard Weir's world. Just don't tell him that because that's hype and Mr. Weir is not in the business of producing hype. Today, Mr. Weir, the CEO of EEStor Inc. and his team are narrowly focused on things that feed the scientific soul: certification testing, validation testing, proving the efficacy of capabilities, proving the scalability of manufacturing processes, the purity of chemicals and a host of other things that ordinary people don't worry about when they are driving down the road in their gas guzzling vehicles. But it's the new worries of vehicle owners pinched by the high price of gasoline that is ripening the conditions Weir finds intolerable to carrying out his self set tasks which include the small goal of producing a new type of "battery" with 10 times the capacity at 1/10th of the footprint.

Hype. Giving something more attention that it deserves. Memories of the Segway hysteria come to mind: the idea that a new invention could radically change the metropolitan landscape by eliminating the need for combustion engine vehicles (little did we know that things like doors, windows and seat belts would go too. ) Hype. A condition where news travels virally as the concept or idea of something so drastically captures the imagination of individuals that they are compelled to share what they've heard. They can't help it and it can't be stopped once it's put into motion. Today, what's on everyone's mind who doesn't shop at Neiman Marcus is the cost of gasoline.

The idea that what today costs us $373/month in fuel to get us to/from work could tommorrow cost us $16/month. (see ZennCars.com savings calculator). Ordinary humans cannot help but let the imagination run wild with "What If!?" Hello 50 inch plasma, hello stainless steel grill. Or better, hello not going into foreclosure on my house, hello feeding my kids, hello end to global economic malaise. Hype hype hype.

Does it keep Mr. Weir up at night that the success of his technology could have such a profound effect on hundreds of millions of people? "We're focused on certification and will continue to do so until we have proven first something we can talk about later" Mr. Weir says in a succinct and matter of fact tone not willing to engage in any hyperbole.

In my 10 minutes with Mr. Weir on the phone, I couldn't tell if his barage of polite "no comments" was a page out of Dean Kamen's playbook or Denny Klein's. Kamen used his organization's silence to create one of the greatest free marketing phenomenon's in history for a product that in the end is really just an interesting 2 wheeled electric skateboard. In the end, Kamen now says "hype is the enemy of innovation" but I'm sure his marketing team is still trying to wipe that strange little smile from their faces several years after the events in question. Or is it Denny Klein's playbook? The guy who received organization

crippling media coverage after he demonstrated a car that runs on water utilising hho gas. In Klein's case, it was a matter of being completely unable to continue producing on his vision due to the nonstop calling, emailing, faxing of his small staff. Some of this lead to Klein releasing a website to handle the frequent similar queries.

OFF GRID LIVING: Wind, Solar, Biodiesel

But what about EEStor, why don't they have a website to navigate around those issues?

"When we're producing batteries and everybody is happy, then we'll get a website. " A strange choice of words for the CEO of a company whose capabilities are geared towards eliminating what we today refer to as a battery with what tommorrow we will refer to as an ultracapacitor or supercapacitor or better, "does that ipod have a battery or an ultracap?" The latter being newer technology designed in large part to function similarly to the former but differing mainly in magnitude. "We just don't want to get into the hype business."

But planning and intentions do not always hold up when you're working on something so incredibly great, even your best efforts cannot prevent you from responding to one or two questions delivered rapid fire. In the next installation, we will examine Mr. Weir's weaknesses in this area which revealed in part his take on the scope of his technology, his competitors (hint: he can't find one) , EEStor's distribution strategy (expect the word proprietary) and finally, his advice on where to find the best current information on his company. Oh, and for good measure, where EEStor stands with regard to production timetables.

Interview with Richard Weir, EEStor President and CEO

I was able to get a few minutes on the phone just now with Dick Weir, CEO of EEstor Inc.  I was able to ask him about EEStor, Zenn Motor and a few interesting things like why they don't have a corporate website and what he thinks of Maxwell Technologies.  He has some interesting things to say about Lockheed Martin as well.    I will be posting excerpts of my conversation with Mr. Weir in the coming days. 

Proving EEStor's Claims

Good article elaborating upon one of EEStor's immediate challenges which is to certify and prove the claims surrounding their intellectual property.  Here's an excerpt from the article on EEStor's 3rd party validation:

An EEStor press release said the company has third-party certification by Southwest Research Institute of San Antonio that “the initial milestone of certifying purification, concentration and stability of its key production chemicals” has been completed.