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August 8, 1999 Bolder Technologies Corp.
High-tech batteries revving up.
By Vicky Uhland Special to the Denver Rocky Mountain News
Every year, consumers spend $9 billion on products designed to start engines, and yet, says Bolder Technologies Corp. Chairman and CEO Dan Lankford, market innovations have been virtually nonexistent.
"The battery you have in your car is the same your grandfather had in his car."
Golden-based Bolder Technologies believes that its patented thin metal film (TMF) technology will ensure that the next generation of rechargeable batteries is radically different.
A battery made with TMF technology has a thin layer of lead foil, replacing the traditional battery's thick, heavy plates. The result is a lighter product that has more power than any commercially available rechargeable battery. An electric motorcycle powered by TMF battery cells set a National Drag Racing Association record in June at Bandimere Speedway at Morrison (CO).
And, because lead and lead oxide are the most inexpensive materials available for battery production, TMF batteries are cheaper to manufacture at high volumes than conventional batteries. TMF batteries are also smaller and more easily recycled.
Although Bolder developed TMF technology in the early '90s, it took until late 1998 to actually be able to manufacture the high-tech battery systems.
"Lead foil is very delicate, and it's hard to learn how to manufacture with it," Lankford said. "Production for batteries is extremely complex. About 20 percent of your time, aggravation and energy is in inventing the technology, and 80 percent is in producing it."
Manufacturing high-tech batteries is so difficult that the man who patented TMF and started Bolder Technologies in 1991, astrophysicist/sculptor/astronomer Tris Jurgens, went personally bankrupt trying to bring his technology to market.
And yet, the world market for rechargeable batteries, estimated at $16 billion by industry analysts, is considered so lucrative and wide open that venture capitalists financed Bolder to the tune of $13 million before the company went public in 1994.
Lankford says Bolder manufactures several thousand TMF battery cells a week, for sale to auto, motorcycle, boat, snowmobile, snowblower, lawn mower, power tool and portable generator manufacturers. The company has the capacity to make 40 million cells per year in its 127,000-square-foot leased facility in Golden.
Bolder will debut its own retail product late this year, part of a proposed line of consumer products designed to provide emergency jump starts.
Bolder's SecureStart is a five-pound, 10-by-5-inch battery that can be carried in a car and hooked up to the car battery whenever a jump start is needed. It allows stranded motorists to start stalled batteries by themselves, without relying on car services or strangers with jumper cables.
SecureStart, which Lankford says will retail for about $130, is designed to capitalize on the multmillion-dollar jump-starting market.
"This year, there will be more than 10 million jump starts," Lankford said. Bolder signed an agreement in June to sell its jump-start products at Snap-on-Tools outlets. Next year, it plans to expand its line to include strap-on starters for marine and motor sports batteries.
By 2002, Bolder plans to be producing TMF batteries that will replace the larger, heavier car batteries used now. As autos become smaller and engines more complex, a battery that takes up less room under the hood can "solve a lot of problems for car manufacturers," Lankford said.
Lankford predicts that Bolder's retail and OEM product sales will propel the company to a profitable year in 2000. In eight years, Bolder has never shown a profit and last year had a net loss of $9.9 million, almost quadruple its sales.
Lankford attributes the majority of that loss -- $7.7 million -- to research and development expenses.
"In some ways, battery companies are the opposite of dot-com companies," he said. "There are huge barriers to entry because it's so difficult to set up production."
But that actually works in Bolder's favor, Lankford said. "Nobody can come in any time in the next few years and compete with us." |
