Feb 19 2008
Valence Technology, Inc. today announced by the end of February, it plans to ship an additional 600 custom modules of Valence's safe, Lithium Phosphate energy storage systems for installation and conversion of Toyota Prius hybrid vehicles into Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles. Valence previously supplied OEMtek with 300 modules which are now being shipped to customers.
OEMtek's plug-in hybrid will average 90 miles per gallon at freeway speeds of 60 miles per hour for an average distance of 47 miles on a single charge. For urban driving the vehicle and will average more than 150 mpg at speeds under 35 mph for 30 miles on a single charge.
"Valence has been a supportive partner in the development and production of our custom modules, providing OEMtek the quality and consistency we mandate from a battery cell manufacturer. We spoke with a number of other battery companies and Valence was responsive and capable to meet our delivery needs," said Cindi Choi, vice president of business development for OEMtek. "We are also very excited about Valence's promising future technology developments that could allow OEMtek to deliver a system to our customers that has increased energy capacity and reduced size and weight."
"We are extremely pleased to see OEMtek starting to perform conversions using the custom modules we have worked together on for the past year," said Robert L. Kanode, president and CEO of Valence Technology. "OEMtek is one of more than 100 companies we have been working with for an extended period of time to increase Valence visibility as a major force in the battery industry."
The OEMtek battery system, called BREEZ (Battery Range Extender EZ) fits over the tire in the trunk of the Prius, but does not use any of the trunk space. The OEMtek BREEZ system is comprised of safe, Lithium Phosphate cells, providing a capacity of 277 volts and 34 amp hours, and a weight of about 209 pounds.
Initially the OEMtek product will only be available in California, where more than 500,000 Toyota Prius vehicles have been sold. OEMtek plans to install about 40 BREEZ systems in Toyota Prius's starting in March and will ramp up to 100 monthly conversions by the end of 2008. OEMtek plans to start Ford Escape Plug-In Hybrid conversions in late 2008.