(thanks, Bruce)
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1999 23:11:40 -0800
BUSINESS COMPANY LEADS CHARGE ON NEW BATTERIES Timothy R. Gaffney
Dayton Daily News 11/09/1999 Dayton Daily News CITY 1E (Copyright
1999) Ovonic Energy Products gives electric cars the power to go
KETTERING - Humming along as quietly as an electric car, Ovonic
EnergyProducts in Kettering has been producing advanced electric-car
batteries formore than a year and preparing for a market it expects to
grow dramatically inthe next five years. Ovonic occupies General
Motors Corp.'s former suspension parts plant at 4991 Hempstead Station
Drive. It started assembling battery packs in May 1998 for GM's EV1
electric car, operations manager Gary D. Absher said Monday.
Ovonic Energy Products is a subsidiary of GM-Ovonic in Troy, Mich.,
whichis a joint venture between GM and the Ovonic Battery Co. Ovonic
Battery is asubsidiary of Energy Conversion Devices, a small company
that has been researching nickel-metal-hydride technology for more than
30 years.
The Kettering plant's 44 employees now build two EV1 battery packs per
day,working in small clusters that assemble thousands of paper- thin
sheets of metal into cells, cells into modules, and modules into
packs.
"Right now it's still a low-volume market, but it's going to be
ramping upvery rapidly in 2002 and 2003," he said. Absher said nickel-
metal-hydride,once seen as an interim technology on the road to better
batteries, arebecoming the standard for use in electric cars and
hybrid vehicles thatcombine electric power with small combustion
engines.
EV1 cars have been using lead-acid batteries, but Absher said GM will
soonsell them with Ovonic battery backs. Ovonic batteries will offer
about twicethe range between rechargings as lead-acid batteries and
will be good forthree or four times as many recharging cycles, he
said.
Ovonic's main customer is the EV1, but Absher said the plant has
suppliedbattery packs to Ford and Chrysler, which are members with GM
of the U.S.Advanced Battery Consortium, a research collaboration of
the Big Three U.S.automakers. The consortium helped fund Ovonic
battery development.
Ovonic has also been in contact with automakers in Europe and
Japan,although Absher declined to name them.
"Basically, we'll work with anybody with a checkbook," he said. The
Kettering plant is strictly a manufacturing site; development work
onmore advanced batteries is done at Ovonic Battery in Michigan. "The
goal of this location is to be a lean manufacturing
organization,"Absher said.
The plant is likely to remain at about the same level of employment
andoutput over the next year, occupying only a small part of the
84,000 squarefoot plant, Absher said. But he said production
facilities inside the plantcan be expanded to handle more than 10
times its current output.
* Contact Timothy R. Gaffney at 225-2390 or e-mail him
attimothy_gaffney@coxohio.com
Ovonic Energy Products
* Business: Electric vehicle batteries.
* Location: 4991 Hempstead Station Drive.
* Manager: Gary D. Absher.
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