# ThunderSky in trouble with Chinese authorities?



## Tesseract (Sep 27, 2008)

Saw a post on the Australian EV forum mentioning this... It referred to a Hong Kong article - in Chinese - in which ThunderSky (aka "Ray Days" ) was bought out by another company after failing to comply with some sort of national standards testing... Dunno, my Chinglish is pretty awful... "we glad your enjoyment too much!" etc...

The original article is here: http://hk.gucheng.com/201005/191488.shtml

And a translation, though not much of one, is here: http://www.batteryorg.com/2010/05/20/thunder-sky-battery-jiasheng-not-respond-to-certified/

EDIT: Found a better translation of the article - in PDF format - that explains the situation: http://www.jiasheng.hk/announcements/2010/LTN20100520100.pdf


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## dimitri (May 16, 2008)

Sounds like a powerplay in Chinese LFP market. Perhaps CALB felt threatened by TS and used their government ties to bring down TS business. I wonder where HiPower stands in all this mess?

Kevin, if you are reading this, do you care to comment from local point of view?


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## MN Driver (Sep 29, 2009)

The PDF seems to be a response to shareholders rather than a better translation of the link above it. I'm trying to figure out, based on the information provided what this really means. Thunder Sky still has their site up and posts products. Does this mean that the China's battery program funding will be dropped, or what was the deal with the frozen bank account talk. The response to the shareholders seems to be a statement that those were recommendations and not requirements of the program, the article seems to say that they didn't get the certification. I wonder what the terms are of the certification and if they just haven't done the certification or if they failed at some point or another to one(or more) of their standards. They seem plenty capable with those who are using them. I personally am looking in the direction of CALB, possibly sooner rather than later but if I won't or can't get from Thunder Sky, CALB, or something suitable from HiPower, I'm going to be going in the direction of the quickly dropping price of Lithium Polymer for my non-standard applications. I'm hoping that everything will continue on for these companies as we need the competition for the future of electric cars. I'm not sure how easy it will be to get top quality Chevy Volt or Nissan Leaf pouch cells from salvage cars if all else fails.


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## hipowerkevin (Jan 14, 2010)

Those news are now easily can be getted in China, by google search with Chinese Character, but not English Character. 
Thundersky once been a very large LifePO4 company about 10 years ago, it has goverments investment, so they could selling batteries overseas at some acceptable price, however at this time, due to its battery quality not pass the China national electric vehicle standards, it makes them even harder.
Till as I know, due to have not pass that standards test, so they can not sell to China Domestic car-maker. Also they failed to pass the battery test of FAW(First Automobile Works) Group(China), so FAW ended the cooperation with them. Also goverment are no longer support thundersky because they waste much of money from goverment.


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## hipowerkevin (Jan 14, 2010)

EV battery test is no simplely like single cell test, it need to assembled as an whole battery pack, then test the whole performance.
For single cell, just need to test cell performance. 
For battery pack, need consider cells corresponding, the performance of series configtion and parallel configtion, they test the whole performance.

However Hipower offer customer battery packs as followings. 
1. Selecting cells from hundreds or thousands of cells from the ONE SAME batch by battery IR, Cells from same batch would have most same factors.
2. With the most approximate IR cells, do charge and discharge testing, log the data and curves, using machine to match and find out cells that have most same curve and data.
3. If quality customer have higher requirement, we would did those test in cold and hot environments. IF customers order BMS and Charger from us, We would adjust details as customer required, the latest BMS and Charger would have CAN BUS 2.0b and display necessary information.
While I think those methods keep battery pack have reliable quality and more economic. 
If using Un-matched cells mean they have un-same status. After a period of using, they have different aging, weakness and performance. The weakest cells need to be replaced, but even replaced the battery pack performance is still depends on the second weakest cell. While matched cells have same status: aging, weakness and performance, till end of life cycle they do not need replace, much economic and reliable.
By the way, poor corresponded battery pack would damage cells also. When battery pack are in high C-rate using and performing, battery pack looks well while some weak cells are already in wear and tear. Those some high IR cells could be using for other battery pack which do not need high C-rate discharge.
The Best cells are wasting, nominal cells are running, while weak cells are on risking. Why do not sort cells for different packs, could match kinds of requirements.
For IR 1.8, 2.3, 1.9, 2.2 would not so well for one pack, 
but if selected, IR 1.8,1.9 for one pack and IR 2.3,2.2 for another pack, would be much better.


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## PhaseShift (Oct 12, 2009)

I passed along the links to my wife for translation and asked her to summarize what is going on according to the media. Here is what came back:

_Based on what I have found on the internet, there are 2 things about Thunder-Sky:_

_1) In Jan,2010, Mr. Li Ka-Shing, one of the richest men in Hongkong spent 292M HKD getting 400M shares of a public company named as Jia Sheng Holdings. Later in May,2010, Jia Sheng Holdings purchased Thunder-Sky, which means Thunder-Sky becoming a public listed company in Hong Kong. Right now, they are in the proccess of changing the name from Jia Sheng Holding to Zhong Ju Thunder-Sky Batteries. Winstin becomes the Executive Chairman of the Board, also in charge of the R&D. It's said that he is the biggest share holder. _

_Shortly after the business merging, on 26th, May, some primary share holders have sold 230M shares and got cash over 300M HKD from the stock market. In the report, no name of the seller's was metioned. But it did mention that the shares held by Mr. Li KaShing and Winston could be sold on the market anytime when they wanted to. _

_2) About Thunder-Sky batteries for EV factories, there are some ongoing dispute about whether their products have been qualified by the Chinese national standard to be used on the EVs for sale. Mr. Wang Xue Dong, who is in charge of one third-party battery testing center, says that they have done some tests for Thunder-Sky batteries only based on the ThunderSky standard in past years. ThunderSky batteries have not met the national standard yet. Also, he says that based on the document QCT7432006 issued by Chinese government in 2006, all the batteries are used on the EVs for sale must be qualified by the Chinese national standard,which is enforced by the government without any negotiation. Currently, Thunder-Sky batteries are being used on some buses only for the purpose of the R&D and testing. So, the rule does not apply. But somehow, Thunder-Sky does not think that this document even exists. _

_News reported that SEC Hongkong has frozen a few Winston's bank accounts for the invetigation. I guess that it is based on the 2 things above. _

Living here in China for as long as I have, I can say this is normal, every day stuff. They are probably going to work this out without a lot of problems other than the requisite palm greasing. My wife's initial reaction was that this was actually good news for TS as it represents a public listing in HK which is probably the goal of the company from the start. Frankly, they have never struck me as anything more than marginally interested in making batteries; it is strictly business. This shows in their poor customer service and clanny approach to everything. 
I have asked one of my staff to keep an eye on this and report if anythgin comes of it worth mentioning.


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## octagondd (Jan 27, 2010)

Anyone hear any more about this? Maybe from a TS supplier here in the states? Just curious if TS will still be making batteries and exist as a company if I make an order for them.


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## Tesseract (Sep 27, 2008)

Seems to be business as usual for Thundersky, much as PhaseShift said. I guess this wasn't as big a deal as I thought... sorry, my Engrish is not so good, I guess...


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