Bob, Dick, re: licensing
My guess would be that it would be 2-3 years before a potential licensee would be able to produce qualified product, if they bought the laminate from Valence and only assumed responsibility for the back-end processing.
There was a one-year lead time for Valence and Hanil, for the equipment ordered last fall. On the call, Lev said Valence would take delivery of the first line 'soon', and Hanil the second line early next year. This same company also makes associated high-speed packaging equipment, etc., that both V and H will be receiving.
Given a minimum one-year lag to get the equipment built, and more time to set it up, test run each piece, etc. ... and solve the inevitable engineering hurdles... for a number of complicated independent manufacturing steps... not to mention being 100% confident of the output during normal operations... and noting how long it takes to perform all the requisite iterations until the final product is obtained which has been statistically tested over a period of many months (*after* the final iteration) ...well, assuming anything less than 2-3 years would be way too aggressive.
Yes, a small upfront fee would be paid to Valence. The real licensing revenue won't appear for a few years, nor will the 'second source' for production.
I agree with Ram, that the first laptop PO will necessarily involve someone taking a risk on Valence; hence the demand that Valence be able to assure the customer, with 100% confidence, of their ability to deliver all the customer needs, and in consistent high quality.
All the more impressive when they receive such an order, then, knowing the hurdles that exist. And I only listed the technological ones.
All IMHO.
Regards~
PS Consider, too, that I'm only addressing a licensee who buys the laminate from Valence, similar to the setup Hanil has. Getting 'the recipe' right is a whole other story, something I see few others than Valence having had success with; certainly true for manganese-based cells, as well as large-format cells of any type.
Quality control is the key. |
