ZENN LSV
Ian Clifford is the CEO of Zenn Motors. His company has a 10.7% ownership stake in EEStor, the US based company supposedly secretly building a breakthrough battery that is ultralight, low-cost, and long-lived that doesn't require lithium and can be created using-screen printing techniques.
Zenn Motors has been selling low volumes of low speed neighborhood electric cars. It has been the company's intention to build and sell a highway capable car called the city Zenn that would be powered by the EESU battery when it arrived. And despite years of waiting it still hasn't.
In an apparently radical shift in plans, Clifford has just announced his company will no longer be building the cityZenn, instead focusing on what they are calling the ZENNergy drivetrain. This would be an EESU-powered drivetrain that can be installed in the cars of other automakers.
"The way things have really changed over the last year -- there have been such dramatic shifts and focus on electric vehicles -- it doesn't make a lot of business sense for us to go into the distribution and sale of the vehicle," said. Clifford.
Clifford like the rest of the world is still waiting for EEStor to come through with a pre-production battery.
"We are working on a daily basis with EEStor on this final milestone - this very, very critical milestone - because it takes us to commercial viability," he said.
Clifford is a believer though.
"I have faith," said Clifford. "You'll see, as we announce things and position the launch of our solution, I think our direction will be very clear."
Meanwhile Clifford is in talks with other automakers who might be interested in EESU-powered cars. Zenn also has the exclusive rights to sell the technology for cars up to 3086 pound and retrofit cars more than one year old.
Zenn still plans to build proof of concept cars but won't mass produce them.
Source (Reuters)
