meeting report

BCI 120th Convention & Power Mart Trade Fair

Tampa Marriott Waterside Hotel and Marina
Tampa, FL, April 22-30, 2008

• George Brilmyer, Ph.D.
• Manager of Separator Development
• Daramic, LLC

The 2008 convention of the Battery Council International was again an outstanding example of how an industry can rally together to share information. The event was very well supported with attendance up 10% from last year at more than 550 attendees. This annual event supports the lead-acid battery industry and offers papers directed at the industry's SLI and industrial battery sales projections, regulatory issues and pricing projections for lead and sulfuric acid.

The BCI staff and committee chairs did their best to select another great venue and an even better convention program. The program was kicked-off by a humorous yet inspiring presentation from Ken Schmidt (former director of communications at Harley-Davidson). After the audience stopped laughing, David Weinberg (Wiley Rein LLP) began the more serious portion of the session by giving his annual industry update in terms of the key regulatory and legislative issues that are affecting the industry. Steven Gibbs (Johnson Controls), Pat Steffen (EnerSys) and Christophe Thuet (Daramic) then participated in a panel presentation on the successes and challenges of doing business in China.

The annual Power Mart Trade Fair was also well subscribed with 46 manufacturers and industry suppliers displaying their products and services. The annual BCI Golf Tournament was held at the WestChase Golf Club with about 100 players enjoying the beautiful Florida weather. The golf tournament was followed by a fantastic evening reception cruise on the yacht StarShip in the Tampa harbor. As it is every year, the reception was generously sponsored by the BCI Suppliers Group. On Tuesday evening BCI President's Reception, BCI President Hal Hawk (president, Crown Battery Manufacturing) handed over the reigns of the BCI organization to Dan Langdon (president, East Penn Manufacturing Co.) for his term.

The convention itself is a mixture of technical, marketing and legislation-related presentations. There are also the committee meetings that are open to all members of the BCI and deal with topics ranging from product information, materials, battery testing, product safety, chargers, data-books for battery users and other technical issues. The final morning of the convention featured the annual breakfast meeting of the "BCI Quarter Century Club". This club boasts having more than 300 members, 12 of which are also members of the "BCI One-Half Century Club". Next year's BCI Convention & Power Mart Trade Fair is scheduled to be held at the Red Rock Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada on May 3-6, 2009.

2007 Battery Shipment Review and Three-Year Forecast

This presentation by S. Tucker Roe (Daramic LLC) was full of facts and figures beginning with the Global Light Vehicle Assembly (GLVA) numbers. According to Price Waterhouse Coopers, actual GLVA reached 68.6 million units in 2007 and is estimated to hit 80 million units by 2012. In Europe, actual light vehicle assembly was at 18.7 million units in 2007 and is estimated to reach 20.5 million units by 2012. In Asia-Pacific there were 26.4 million units produced in 2007 and estimated growth to 31.6 million units by 2012. Japan still represents the bulk of these production numbers but China, India and Thailand will have the highest growth over the new four years. In North America we have seen a decline in light vehicle assembly since 2002 (16.3 million units) to 2007 where 15.1 million units were produced. This downward trend is expected to be reversing and by 2012 North America will be producing more than 16.5 million units again.

A larger and more substantial market for automotive batteries is the replacement battery market. In North America there are about 250 million vehicles in use, up from 226 million vehicles in the year 2000.

Roe then went on to discuss automotive battery shipments in North America. In 2007, OEM battery shipments in North America (all vehicles and not just light vehicles) hit 20.6 million units and replacement battery shipments reached 101.3 million units. Light vehicle OEM battery shipments were 14.6 million units which, is down about 12.5% from 2001. Non-automotive battery shipments in North America (heavy duty, general utility, golf car, floor scrubber etc.) remains stable at ~6.0 million units for OEM applications and 34 million units for the replacement applications. Overall demand for lead-acid batteries remains stable with only a modest increase in 2008 before returning to historic levels.

In completing his presentation Roe made a few comments on hybrid electric vehicles. In 2007, we saw a 38% increase in HEV sales or 350,000 vehicles in the US. Worldwide the number is approximately 600,000. It is estimated that by 2010 Global HEV sales are expected to reach 1.5 million units which is approximately 2% of all global vehicle sales.

Industrial Battery Three-Year Forecast

Robert Cullen (Hollingsworth & Vose Co.) began by discussing the changing global economic climate. He presented the 2008 GDP growth in the world's largest economies with China being 10.1%, the U.S. at 1.5%, Germany at 1.0% and Japan at 0.8%. Overall he predicts that the cost of energy will continue to rise over the next few years and the U.S. economy will continue its shift from a manufacturing to a service economy. His data shows the industrial battery market (stationary and motive power) had a good year in 2007 with sales up $190 million to a total of $1.5 billion. These numbers are a bit distorted due to the fact that lead prices are so elevated.

In 2007 the motive power (MP) battery sales were $751 million (50.2%) and up 8% from 2006. These applications include industrial truck batteries, such as forklifts, automatic guided vehicles and airline ground equipment. This market also includes railroad/locomotive batteries and mining vehicle batteries. Cullen believes that MP battery sales were up so dramatically because of a large demand for new forklift trucks mainly in the warehouse industries and not in manufacturing plants.

Stationary power battery sales were $744 million (49.8%) in 2007, up 22% from 2006. This market can be further subdivided into telecommunications (50%), UPS (36%), misc standby (6%) and control & switchgear (8%). Telecom has had several bad years in the recent past due to cut backs but in 2007 sales were up significantly mainly due to the fact that the telecom companies are consolidating. His video clip that showed how AT&T divested itself years ago only to be reformed into a new and better version of at+t was hilarious.

In the end, he said that the North American industrial battery market had another solid year in 2007 with sales up 14% with motive power, telecom and UPS markets all strong. The telecommunication battery market is now up at levels we saw back in 2001. He pointed to the new "Katrina" law that will be forcing the telecoms to install 8-hour power back-up and how this can only strengthen industrial battery sales. Other changes in the world relate to the increasing trend toward cell phones and the elimination of "land-lines". Advertising on your cell-phone has hit Asia and is just around the corner in the US. In 2010, Cullen predicts that North American Industrial battery sales (>25Ah) will exceed $1.7 billion.

Compositional and Crystallographic Changes in Automotive Battery Positive Plates During Formation

Dr. David Boden (consultant, Hammond Lead Products) began by pointing out to the audience (not that he needed to) that the lead-acid battery formation process is very time-consuming and expensive. He noted that sometimes formation may require as much as six times the total energy that is actually contained within the battery. He then got into the subject of his presentation which is the use of tetra-basic lead sulfate and how it can be effectively employed to reduce the formation time while improving battery performance.

Boden described some of the main differences between tri-basic (3BS) and tetra-basic (4BS) lead sulfates as they are found in the cured positive plates of a lead-acid battery. He pointed to earlier research that attempted to compare 3BS and 4BS and said that in these studies the researchers were not able to test materials of the same crystal size because 4BS tends to form very large crystals. In previous battery applications these large 4BS crystals were found to be difficult to "form-out" completely, despite possible advantages in battery performance.

Boden then described "SureCure™", a curing additive recently developed by Hammond Lead Corp. This nucleation additive helps create small crystals of 4BS during the curing process that are comparable in size to normal 3BS crystals. Positive plates produced with this additive were made and comparisons done. The results show more rapid and complete formation when using the additive. Graphical formation data was presented that compared the conversion of 3BS and 4BS into PbSO4 and ultimately into Alpha and Beta PbO2. The use of 1% of the SureCure additive proved to be quite effective in shortening formation times. Electrical test data confirmed that automotive batteries made with 1% SureCure in the positives had better reserve capacity and con cranking performance than batteries made from normal 3BS positive plates.

Advanced Lead-Acid Battery Consortium Activities Update

Since the introduction of the first hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) by Toyota eight years ago, their popularity has grown due to the benefits of increased fuel economy and reduced air pollution. Other auto manufacturers have since introduced their own HEVs and the world continues to embrace them despite their higher sales prices. The point that Dr. Patrick Moseley (Advanced Lead-Acid Battery Consortium) makes is that the cost of these high-tech vehicles is greatly dependant on the cost of the battery, which until now tends to be nickel-metal-hydride (NiMH). One option the industry has for a lower cost battery is the lead-acid battery. Moseley went on to list the Freedom Car Performance Goals which relate to power, weight and cycle life for an HEV. He stated that the lead-acid battery is able to meet many of these goals with the exception of the required power.

ALABC member, CSIRO has taken on the challenge of improving the power capabilities of the conventional lead-acid battery. Their concept involves a combination of battery and capacitor that they aptly name the "Ultra Battery". The Ultra Battery uses the normal lead-acid battery chemistry combined with the capacitive contribution of a carbon plate. Moseley described the Ultra Battery construction which in simple terms has one full-size positive plate, a separator and then two side-by-side half-size negative plates (one lead and one carbon). The performance of this hybrid battery/capacitor has been shown to outlast a conventional NiMH HEV battery in test cycling.

Vehicle tests involving a Honda Insight and the Ultra Battery have just completed 100,000 miles in the U.K. The battery was able to sustain the required performance and fuel economy during the entire test and the test was interrupted even though the battery was still functioning. This 144V battery completed the 100K miles with no failures and without any battery-equalization or conditioning procedures. This performance is remarkable according to Moseley who commented that the matching between Ultra Battery modules was actually closer at the end of the test than in the beginning!

A second vehicle, a Honda Civic has now been outfitted with a ceramic "bipolar" lead-acid battery design from Effpower Co. (Sweden). This design employs high carbon levels in the negative rather than the dual plate concept. These tests have just begun and Moseley believes that these tests will also be successful. Moseley also ventured to say that lead-acid batteries will make their way into commercial vehicles in the near future.