# California Company Developing Lower Cost GEN3 Lithium Battery



## EVDL Archive (Jul 26, 2007)

CalBattery believes that it will be able manufacture this GEN3 lithium-ion battery in the US at a comparable cost reduction up to 70%.

More...


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## ubersmart (Jan 3, 2012)

Hmm... not a lot of info out there beyond the press release. From their single page website...



> The Company is a joint venture between California based CALiB Power and Ionex Energy Storage Systems. The JV owns exclusive and non-exclusive rights from Argonne National Laboratory for all applications to a newly patented “Game Changing” silicon embedded in graphene vapor deposition process. Preliminary tests indicate that this new material will substantially improve the performance of lithium battery anodes by a factor of 3X.


and



> This new “GEN3” composite battery technology could become a disruptive technology by effectively lowering Li-ion battery life cycle cost up to 70%.
> Current plans are to have this GEN3 battery in limited production in the US in 2014.


If I read this correctly (possibly not), then the batteries won't be 70% cheaper to make / purchase, they'll just be 70% cheaper over the long run because they'll last 3x as long. Personally, I think the real game changer would be if they lowered the upfront cost 70%.


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## PTCruisin (Nov 19, 2009)

ubersmart said:


> Hmm... not a lot of info out there beyond the press release. From their single page website...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Did you look here?

http://www.clbattery.com/

There's more than one page of information.


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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

> This new transformational battery will offer the highest energy density and longest cycle life of any lithium battery made today. CalBattery believes that it will be able manufacture this GEN3 lithium-ion battery in the US at a comparable cost reduction up to 70%.


I think that is pretty clear from this that what they are saying is that there will be a cost reduction per Kwh based on greater energy density (the same size battery costs the same, but holds more juice). They are pretty much just changing out the anode for a better material that increases energy-density, so the production cost per kilogram of battery seem like it would simply remain "about the same."



PTCruisin said:


> Did you look here?
> 
> http://www.clbattery.com/
> 
> There's more than one page of information.


It's hard to tell from that if their new VLF Battery Form Factor will further reduce costs or simply be more convenient for building packs. It will certainly do the latter (fewer connections, etc.). But the big news is the successful incorporation of silicon into the anode without the normal rapid degradation in performance.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Looks like a drop in replacement for our CALB batteries, which would be awesome.


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