Altairnano's interim president Terry Copeland has moved up to president and CEO, the company announced today. Copeland has been the battery company's interim leader since March, just after previous CEO Alan Gotcher resigned. Copeland has been with Altair Nanotechnologies since November 2007 (when he was vice president of operations for Altair's Power and Energy Group). He also has a long history with the Duracell battery company. Copeland said that Altairnano, which is still in the game to supply batteries for the Phoenix SUT even after Phoenix Motorcars' recent shift to battery supply competitor Electrovaya, "has the people, technology and business plan to drive the commercialization of the company's power and energy products, as well as those in life sciences and performance materials."

[Source: Altair on CNNMoney]

Several factors hurt Altair Nanotechnologies' fiscal results in FY07: warranty replacement costs and higher research and development expenses have made the company report a wider loss despite higher revenues. $6.78m worth of warranty expenses and inventory impairment were related to the first-generation battery packs that were sold to Phoenix Motor Cars. As for R&D, costs rose to $15.4m compared to $10.1m in 2006.

Altair has lost $31.5 million, which is more than the $17.2 million reported in 2006. On a per share basis, the loss was $0.45, compared to a loss of $0.29 last year.

[Source: RTT News]

Got a need for speed? Strap on a battery pack and his the track. That's the idea behind the Current Eliminator V, which set a new electric dragster world speed record in the National Hot Rod Association's (NHRA) Super Pro class of 153.6 mph at the Speedworld Motorplex drag strip in Tuscon last Saturday. The Current Eliminator V did the quarter-mile in 8.10 seconds at the hands of Dennis "Kilowatt" Berube. The dragster was powered by Altairnano's lithium-titanate battery packs. Berube is a founding competitor of the National Electric Drag Racing Association (NEDRA). As you might guess from the "V" following the vehicle's name, the record-setting zero-emission rocket is the fifth iteration of the Current Eliminator. The fourth version won "more prize money than any other dragster in Arizona" last year, competing "against conventional gasoline and alcohol dragsters," according to Altairnano.

[Source: Altairnano, Current Eliminator website, h/t to Domenick]

Following Altairnano's not-so-good news the other day (the Motley Fool said its stock "missed the mark"), the company must be pleased to announce some good news. To wit, $7 million worth of federal funds as part of the recently-passed Defense Appropriations Bill. The money will be used by Altair not for vehicles but for an advanced lithium battery and separate sensor programs. Five million is headed towards a U.S. Navy project that is intended to reduce the amount of diesel fuel the military branch uses. Altair's press release says that, "Currently, each Navy ship must run two diesel generators in parallel to ensure power is not lost should the primary generator go down. Altairnano's advanced lithium titanate energy storage pack could replace the back-up generator, allowing the Navy to reduce its consumption of fuel by millions of gallons each year." The other $2 million is for nanotech sensors to detect "minute amounts of explosive materials and chemical warfare agents."

While neither of these is directly related to greener vehicles, reducing fuel use is an AutoblogGreen fave, and I think most of us agree that technological advancements in lithium batteries are a good thing. Whether throwing money at Altairnano as part of our country's war money is a good idea is another issue.

[Source: Altair, h/t to Harvest]

The popular Motley Fool investment site today published a list of "3 Stocks That Missed the Mark." One of those is the common AutoblogGreen presence Altair Nanotechnologies. Now, AutoblogGreen doesn't get into investment tips or anything like that, but the Fool is not the only one to dampen the good news that Altair puts out. Part of the problem, writes Anders Bylund of the Fool, is that, "One key customer reportedly delayed a $3.2 million order for Altair battery packs while waiting for the federal standards wheels to grind out a battery interface specification." It's no secret that Phoenix Motorcars is a Altair customer, and is keeping the company's nanotech batteries for the Phoenix SUT, but in smaller versions than previously announced.

Bylund also says that "Altair keeps burning cash at an alarming rate" and that investors looking to fund nanotech companies might want to look elsewhere.

[Source: Motley Fool / Anders Bylund]

Sunday's New York Times has an article about the complete lack of a normal electric car the average person can afford. There are smaller vehicles you can buy and you can search Ebay for a good conversion or a RAV4 but the New York Times is essentially correct. If you are a middle class guy with 2.5 kids and you want a four-door sedan, electric car for about $30,000 you are SOL. Here are some quotes from the article;

"Strip away the promises and the offerings are virtually nonexistent. Not a single purely electric vehicle with four seats and the ability to reach highway speeds is being mass-produced anywhere in the world. ... There is still not a single E.V. or plug-in hybrid available that can approach the driving range, interior room and performance of a typical gas-powered family sedan, at anywhere near the price that an average consumer would pay."

Below the fold is a video of the Exar-1, a failed normal looking electric car. Lots of electric cars have failed not just in the '70s,'80s and '90s as the New York Times mentions, but from the '20s to '60s as well. Will history repeat itself with the new promising batch of fully electric car and/or battery companies like Miles, Tesla, Phoenix, A123, Altair and EEstor? Maybe the fully electric car will never play a large role?

Editor's Update: I think we should point out these ten electric cars, which are perhaps not normal or affordable, but they are (mostly) available.

[Source: New York Times and tipster Phil]

AeroVironment, a company that helps build drones (unpiloted flying machines) for the U.S. military as well as earlier work on vehicles like the Sunraycer and the GM Impact, announced today that its ten-minute recharge demonstration of an Altair Nanotechnologies 35kWh battery pack was successful, and restored enough power to drive the car for two hours at 60 mph. The demo was performed for folks from California Air Resources Board (CARB) at AeroVironment's Monrovia, California Energy Technology Center.

AeroVironment used a 250kW, grid-connected AV advanced battery charger for the demo. AV says that its earlier tests of Altair's batteries demonstrate "that such battery packs can sustain several cycles per day of ten minute charging and two hour discharging. Each cycle is equivalent to an electric vehicle traveling for two hours at 60 miles per hour."

So, how is this news? Altair's CEO, Alan Gotcher, has been telling us and others about the capabilities his batteries have for quite some time. AV calls the demo a "milestone," so that sounds like it means either this is the first time someone other than Altair has been able to verify Altair's claims, or it's the first time a group like CARB was on hand to see the quick charge in action. Either way, it's another step forward for these batteries and the Phoenix vehicles they're destined for.

Related:

• Berko throws cold water on Altair Nanotechnologies as an investment
• Phoenix makes $2.2 million order for Altair's NanoSafe battery packs
• AutoblogGreen Q&A: AltairNano CEO Alan Gotcher

[Source: AeroVironmental]

On Wednesday afternoon, Dr. Alan Gotcher of Altair Nanotechnologies broke down his company's batteries. Not physically, but verbally and with Powerpoint slides. In a room full of battery experts, Gotcher explained why his company's NanoSafe batteries are the top of the line. No one got up to call him a liar when he described these greatly improved batteries, in part because most of this information has been floating about for a while, and in part because he had the data to back up his claims.

Standard li-ion batteries, like those used in laptops and cell phones, charge in about two to six hours, have a power density of less than 1,000 watts per kilogram (W/Kg), and have a lifespan of less than 1,000 cycles (full discharge). NanoSafe batteries, which use li-ion but have the graphite in the anode electrode material replaced with nano-titanate. This change gives them vastly better numbers. We're talking batteries that can be charged in less than 10 minutes, have a power density of 4,000 W/Kg, and can retain 85 percent of their charge 20,000 charge cycles. Combine this with a wider operating temperature range (between -50 to 75 degrees C) than standard li-ion batteries, an expected life of 12-20 years (depending on use) and batteries that have not smoked or caught fire in any of the standard battery tests, and you've got a battery with great potential for automotive use.

At least one car company thinks so. As we've mentioned before, Phoenix motorcar and Altair will be releasing an electric truck in the spring of 2007 that uses a 35,000 Watt-hour NanoSafe battery-pack. The truck is expected to have a range of 136 miles, a top speed of 95 mph, and a recharge time of less than 10 minutes. These numbers are slightly different that what was reported earlier: a 85 mph top speed and 120 mile range.

More battery news, from Tesla and ZENN, in a little bit.

A few months ago, we first heard word of Altair Nanotechnologies because of an innovative new battery cell design they're now calling NanoSafe. They say that the graphite used in standard lithium-ion batteries is replaced with a nano-structured negative electrode material called nano lithium titanium oxide. The result could very well be ground-breaking.

Recently, the company conducted an in-house test on their NanoSafe batteries and found that after 15,000 (not a typo) deep charge and discharge cycles, the product retained over 85 percent of its charge capacity. In theory that would push the life of these batteries beyond 40 years if you recharged everyday, though, the company admits that under real-world wear and tear a battery life of 20 years is more realistic.

Altair also says that even though their test involved full charges and discharges (100 percent to zero and back again), they say that partial charging and discharging does not appear to affect the battery's abilities to hold their charge.

Related:

• High-powered batteries will charge Phoenix's new EV trucks

[Source: Altair Nanotechnologies]