Hype maintenance can be hard work. Following the Earth Day announcement that the EEStor ultracapacitor had passed independent tests that showed it had a relative permittivity of 22,500, the automaker most closely tied to the secretive company, ZENN, has come out to say two things. First, the test results have been verified. There are a whole heap of details on the verification process in the release after the jump. Second, ZENN says that the results mean it will pay EEStor another $700,000 U.S. "in accordance with the Technology Agreement between the two companies." Michael Bergeron, VP of Engineering at ZENN, said that the results mean that the EEStor Electrical Energy Storage Units (EESU) will work even better in the upcoming ZENNergy drivetrains. For the full hype (trust me, there's a lot), click past the jump. Wonder why hype maintenance is a good idea? See the stock price jump up.

[Source: ZENN]

Granted, the update and correction that EEStor released yesterday regarding their "huge milestone" Earth Day announcement aren't that major, but we can't ignore it at this point. First, the update is that the "relative permittivity certification" stuff was done at a temperature range of -20 and 65 degrees centigrade. The correction is a bit more information about the third-party verifier, Dr. Edward G. Golla, PhD., originally identified as the laboratory director at Texas Research International. The extra information: he does work at TRI, but performed the tests as an "independent consultant."

So, big news or not, this certainly fits into the hype maintenance category that EEStor is truly known for. Keep everyone talking about your company, let the stock price rise. Thanks to Bret D. for the tip!

[Source: EEStor, Inc.]

Following EEStor's permittivity announcement on Earth Day last week, I wrote a post that ended with a call for our readers to determine if the stated "relative permittivity of 22,500" was a big deal or not. There were some educated responses (thank you), but one refrain that kept appearing was that everyone is waiting for a real and physical demonstration of the company's supposedly amazing ultracapacitor. "Until then," some of you wrote, "stfu EEStor."

Our friend Darryl Siry, who knows a thing or two about massaging the green car press from his time at Tesla Motors (pictured above) and now runs his own blog and works at Peppercom, has a phrase for what EEStor is doing with their steady trickle of mysterious press releases: "Hype Maintenance." Siry recently wrote about two people, including ZENN's Ian Clifford, who should be able to share information about EEStor but either don't or can't. The EV community is poorer for it, but, Siry notes, ZENN's stock shot up 45 percent on the day of EEStor's announcement. That's something we can all understand.

[Source: Darryl Siry]

Delays, hype, and more delays. This is the short history of EEStor, the company that keeps on talking about what is supposed to be an ultracapacitor that reinvents electric drive vehicle energy storage. Whatever is really going on, EEStor did put out a press release for Earth Day that keeps beating the hype drum. The announcement isn't about the ultracaps directly, but about EEStor's Composition Modified Barium-Titanate powders, which have apparently been verified by a third party to meet or exceed a relative permittivity of 22,500. The company says this "is a huge milestone" and that, "The automotive and renewable energy sectors are a few of the key markets that would benefit greatly with the technology."

For the non-technical among us (that would include me), let's ask Wikipedia what that might mean:


I'll leave it to our readers to tell us if that "relative permittivity of 22,500" is a big deal or not.

[Source: EEStor, Inc.]

Ah, fire. One of humanity's oldest ways to generate energy. Technically, you could generate energy by burning brake pads, as seen in the picture above (thanks, Flickr!), but automotive engineers have managed to come up with a way to use brakes to generate energy without going up in flames. The technology is called regenerative braking and it's the subject of this week's Greenlings.

At the most basic level, regenerative braking means re-capturing the kinetic energy of the vehicle's motion and turning it into another type of energy. Commonly, this is done by converting kinetic energy into electricity and recharging the car's battery with it. Click past the jump for more for a look at the way that regen brakes work and the different types of regenerative braking systems. Oh, and we'll discuss why you would want to do this in the first place.

How does this make sense: ZENN recently announced that company officials had selected a manufacturer to produce a highway-speed electric vehicle, called the cityZENN. Following this, ZENN's stock fell three percent. You'd think people would be happy with an announcement like that.

As always, there are problems and questions with ZENN's story. This is the much-hyped EESTOR vehicle, after all. While the announcement could be the big step towards ZENN's promise last year that they'd deliver an EESTOR-powered electric vehicle by Fall 2009 that the company needs to get out from under questions about the technology, investors must be waiting for more show, less tell. Another reason for the less-than-enthusiastic stock response is that ZENN didn't announce the name of the manufacturer, saying it would wait until the agreement is finalized. We recently got a few hints about the technology thanks to the EESTOR patent, but it looks like we'll have to keep waiting for the real deal.

[Source: Reuters]

Once again, the internetz are abuzz with rumors and speculation concerning EEStor. This time the hubbub concerns the exact nature of their relationship with General Motors. If you're the last person on the planet who hasn't heard of them, EEStor is a company headquartered in Austin, Texas that claims to have the Holy Grail technology of the electric car industry. Namely, an ultracapacitor that can hold lots more energy than a lithium battery, doesn't degrade over time and will be relatively inexpensive to manufacture. Since they haven't shown the world any sort of tangible proof of this black box, skepticism abounds.

The latest round of excited whispers involves a conversation held between GM's advanced battery boss, Denise Gray, and GM-Volt.com blogger, Lyle Dennis, in which the association between EEStor and the automaker was discussed. Hank Green from EcoGeek happened to be standing nearby with a camera, happily, and captured the exchange on video, which we have for you after the break. The most provocative part of the brief exchange was Ms. Gray's reply to Lyle's query as to whether she had seen a working prototype. She replied, "... I probably shouldn't say if I've received parts or not, that's kind of confidential." While it may sound in print as though she might possibly know something, the video makes clear to us that it's more likely she doesn't. Hit the jump to watch it for yourselves.

[Source: GM-Volt.com / EcoGeek]

For those "eenthusiasts" who still hold out hope that EEStor will come through on it's game-changing supercalifragilistic-capacitor pledges, a newly-awarded patent may offer some comfort. No, not the patent that EEStor itself was recently granted, but rather one that military application rights holder Lockheed Martin was just given for body armor that contains its own energy storage devices.

While generic lithium ion batteries are mentioned as a potential energy source for the protective vest, the EEStor device, with its calcined composition-modified barium titanate coated with aluminum oxide and calcium magnesium aluminosilicate glass configuration, gets a specifical mentioned as a possible component as well. What may be the "cherry-on-top" for the eemotionaly-invested is the fact that Lockheed patent title, "Garment Including Electrical Energy Storage Unit" uses the same language EEStor uses to describe their device, namely, an electrical energy storage unit (EESU). Of course, patents themselves don't power cars, so until the company actually produces something that does, we'll be keeping our eexpectations in check.

[Source: Clean Break]

Stop the presses! We've finally got some real information regarding EEStor's highly secretive capacitor-based energy storage system, though it's not exactly coming from the company itself. It seems that EEStor recently filed for patents of its new technology, which centers around a core of aluminum coated barium titanate powder immersed in a polyethylene terephthalate plastic matrix, and they've now been granted those patents. The best part for those of us who've been following the company's developments is that the patent office has released detailed information regarding what makes it all tick.

We'll leave it up to you if you want to read through the whole document, but here are a few salient points for your consideration. The EEStor EESU would weigh just 282-pounds, yet would carry as much juice as the lithium ion battery pack that's currently in use by Tesla Motors for its Roadster. Just as much power but nearly four-times lighter? That's impressive. Even better, EEStor claims that its EESU's performance never degrades with use and would potentially last forever. Great. We'll take two, and we're not the only ones excited. Click past the break for more.

[Source: Patent file (.pdf link) via GM-Volt via Treehugger]

The Globe and Mail has published a online question and answer session between readers and Ian Clifford, founder of ZENN Motors. Aside from assembling a neighborhood electric vehicle in Canada, ZENN has garnered attention for its involvement with EEStor. The latter has made some big claims about a new ultra-capacitor it has developed. ZENN has made an equity investment in EEStor and has an exclusive license to use the energy storage system. The EEStor offers a lot of promise for lighter weight electrical storage and fast charging.

Unfortunately, no one outside of EEStor or ZENN (and maybe Lockheed) has ever seen the system in action. Even after the Q&A its not clear if even ZENN has seen the ultracapacitor working. Several people asked about the ultra-cap and Clifford repeatedly responded that the non-disclosure agreement prevents him from commenting. Even though ZENN previously claimed the EEStor system would be ready by the end of this year, Clifford only said that an EEStor powered cityZENN would be in production by late 2009.

Clifford did hedge by saying the cityZENN is not dependent on EEStor, implying that it could be built with a conventional battery instead. We'll just have to keep watching. Thanks to yanquetino for the tip!

[Source: The Globe and Mail]