Irvine, Calif. — March 10, 2020
(Sub. required) Irvine-based Enevate Corp. plans to start marketing its lithium-ion battery technology to makers of power tools such as drills and hedge trimmers in the short term, as it might take a few years before the company’s fast-charging battery process is incorporated into electric vehicles.
While the first electric cars and other vehicles using batteries with the company’s technology won’t be ready until about the 2024-2025 model year cars, the company can start with power tools within a year or two, co-founder and Chief Technical Officer Benjamin Park said.
Power tools form a “very good market” for Enevate’s batteries, according to Park. Along with drills, related products that could use its batteries include grinders, saws, paint sprayers, wood routers, vacuums, chainsaws, leaf blowers and even lawn mowers.
“It is valuable to get some revenue beforehand for various reasons, whether it’s for investors, company valuation perspective or even just experience,” Park told the Business Journal.
The company, founded in 2005, has raised some $110 million in funding to date.
“We think that experience is probably the most important point. We want to make sure that we take our technology to some markets first, and test the waters there.”
Park emphasized that it “was always the plan” to supply a gateway market before the electric vehicle market, which remains the company’s main focus.
$2B Market
The market for current power-tool lithium-ion batteries is $2 billion for this year and growing, according to Park.
“We’re not going to be the manufacturer. We have licensees that are going to work with our ultimate end customers to supply these cells,” he said. He declined to name potential licensees but said that could come soon.
He said the batteries may be heavier than current models, but the actual weight for the user “depends on the design of the power tools, and we’re working with multiple different designs.”
He said the total size of the cells will be “slightly smaller” than a standard-size C batteries now on the market.
New Technology
Costs for the Enevate-powered tools could be the same or lower than existing products on the market, he said.
“But the customer may decide to ask for a premium for them in the beginning, because it would be a new technology, and there would be definite advantages to the technology such as the high energy density, cold temperature operation, the high power and the light weight.”
They can also be fast charging, but it “really depends on the customer [and] how much they want to utilize that fast charge capability. It depends on the product line, whether they need it or not,” he said.
Enevate’s XFC-Energy battery technology can charge 75% of the total cell capacity in five minutes. Current power cells can take six times longer. He said Enevate’s cells can fit roughly 50% more energy into standard size battery formats.
Temperature Resistant
To date, most electric car batteries and similar products have seen diminished performance in very cold temperatures. That’s not the case with Enevate’s offerings, Park said.
Enevate’s power-tool cell is able to operate down to -4 degrees Fahrenheit.
“Power tool users, especially in areas such as the home, industrial, and business construction, need portable power tools with longer battery runtimes and the ability to work in cold temperatures,” according to Park.
The company’s technology is “especially well-suited for high discharge rates and longer runtimes with increased energy density, enabling power tool users more and longer productive work time between charges.”
$110M Raised
The company has raised more than $110 million. Investors include Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi, LG Chem, Samsung, Mission Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Tsing Capital, Infinite Potential Technologies, Presidio Ventures–a Sumitomo Corp. company, Lenovo, CEC Capital and Bangchak.
Enevate was co-founded in 2005 by UCI Professor Marc Madou and current CTO Park, who has a Ph.D. in mechanical and aerospace engineering from UCI.
The company’s initial focus was aimed at fast-charging batteries for cellphones and related products; it later pivoted to the EV market.
Chief Executive Robert Rango was previously executive vice president at Broadcom’s mobile and wireless group.