Is the EEStor Saga Finished?

Steve: I share your opinion that EEStor was a scam from the start, and it does appear to be all over with now. However, I do not share the passion with which you view the story. There are scams all the time. Every day of the year little old ladies are conned out of their savings, and every few years a really big scam knocks the legs out from under the national economy and makes a few white-collar criminals rich. EEStor is small potatoes, and mostly only affected a few people who were unable to see the signs. For example, the unrealistic time frame they were claiming between a test for purity of a proposed dielectric and a promised date for delivery of a finished product. Anyone who gave it serious thought would have realized that turning that dielectric into a finished prototype, then testing, and then building a plant for mass production would have to take much longer than the promised time frame. Apparently the biggest loser was Zenn, which was only selling a very few cars anyway, and would probably have been put out of business once full-on EVs hit the market.

In short, EEStor was a small-time scam, and not worth getting excited about. JMHO.

 

Daniel, long time. You still have the same avatar. How's the porsche EV? Did you ever get it fixed?

BTW, Someone at theestory posted this thread in the chat room. I never spend any time at priuschat but I live at theestory.com.

I can assure you EEStor is not a scam.

Seriously.

Let's wait and see before you make up your mind.

PS You are right about Steve - he's insanely passionate - and just wrong.

 

[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EEStor]EEStor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

Reading this on Wikipedia, a lot of money has been invested without any results. Now, the company is requesting more funding.

You have to ask yourself ..... why?

It smells of folks with good intentions (not exactly a scam), but they must have hit a roadblock that they can not hurdle concerning the laws of physics.

My opinion only.

 

Hi All,

I did some more on-line investigation of Barium Titanate materials for another project, and came across an interesting tidbit. The extreme high Er (> 10000) of pure BaTiO3 occurs in a relatively narrow temperature range, up above/near 100 C. Dopants are added in practical capacitor powder compounds to spread this effect out in temperature, but with the effect if reducing the peak Er.

Its seems to me, that any device they come up with is going to be limited to Laboratory usefullness (curiosity?), consequently.

 

The only thing EEstor seems to have actually accomplished is refining a proposed dielectric material to a level they believe to be adequate. I have not read that they have even produced a prototype EESU. When they announced the refining milestone they made an announcement promising to deliver EESUs to ZENN for its City Car less than a year later, a promise they of course failed to fulfill.

They had refined their dielectric, but they had not actually demonstrated that the material would perform as hoped. They had not demonstrated that the EESU could actually be assembled with this dieletric. They had not demonstrated that the material would be stable under the high electric charge it would have to endure, or that it would be stable over time. And they had not demonstrated that they could achieve a level of safety even equivalent to the (rather poor) level of safety of a tank of gasoline.

Note that when a capacitor is breached (e.g. in an accident) the entire load of energy is released in an instant. The capacitors used in electronics, or even in power supplies, do not hold enough energy to melt the device itself, so the result could be catastrophic to the unit, but not to the user. But if, say, 100 kW of energy (a full EESU pack for a 300-mile car) were breached, there would be an explosion of significant proportions. Therefore, a commercial EESU must include safety measures to protect against this. I do not by any means say it is impossible, but it is not trivial, and its development and testing will add to the lead time between building an actual EESU (which EEStor apparently had not done when they promised they'd supply ZENN with enough units to begin building the City Car) and large-scale commercial production.

Now, having failed spectacularly to meet their own promised delivery date, and having failed apparently to make any further promise, they are seeking further funding.

There is a well-known scam wherein you propose a business which appears plausible, collect investment (if you can), pay yourself a cushy executive salary, and then work towards the goal until the money runs out. Then you either get more investment (if you can) and continue, or you say "We tried, but we failed," and you declare bankruptcy and walk away with your personal savings from your salary. It is my opinion that this is what EEStor was up to all along.

The sad thing is that they seem to have scammed so much money out of ZENN that ZENN has had to shut down, though the mitigating factor is that the Leaf may have put ZENN out of business anyway.

 

First person EVER to have a cat avatar on Prius Chat. Why change?

The Porsche is still in the shop but approaching completion. It has been necessary to pretty much start over again from scratch. The motor has been rebuilt, new motor mounts had to be built, new battery boxes, etc. The guy is hoping to finish it this month. He has made no promises. But he has plans of his own which make it desirable to finish as soon as he can. I will post in a new thread when I have the car again.

 

After reading this Daniel... I just had to go and use a picture of my new puppy for my avatar

 

What proof do we have to the contrary?

 

I would not ask for "proof," since the only way to prove that it's not a scam is if it were selling working EESUs. Rather, I would ask what special knowledge does someone have to make him believe it's not a scam. But since scamming is a matter of intention (it's the intent to defraud that constitutes a scam) it's really not possible to know. I have my opinion, as stated above, but I give it as an opinion, with my reasons.

It would be interesting to hear Fibb's reasons for believing the contrary.

As for waiting before making up my mind, how long are we supposed to wait? It's been a year since EEStor's promised delivery date, and we've heard nothing from them since then, other than that they want more funding.

They promised ZENN that if ZENN invested its millions, they'd deliver EESUs a year ago. The best you can say about them is that they broke their promise and ruined ZENN. That does not prove intent, and so does not prove they are a scam. But the extremely unrealistic promises they made, which any intelligent person should have seen through, are what makes me think they knew they were peddling snake oil.

EESUs are possible. Other companies are working on them. And I have hopes that some day they will be a reality. I just don't think that EEStor is on the level.

 

Years ago, EESTOR might have been allowed more leeway, but only the most stupid of investors would sink more money in based just on claims at this late stage.

Many undertakings fail because the originator did not bother to prove to themselves that they had a viable idea. That does not mean that they had evil intent, but a good investor performs due diligence. It's clear that something is bad wrong, so proof now is quite essential.

 

The foundation of the success of a scam is the charisma of the scammer. A wise investor performs due diligence, but "there's a sucker born every minute," and a con artist does not need wise investors; he just needs suckers. He does not need an idea that can work, he just needs an idea that sounds plausible. EEStor had that: Capacitors are real, and in theory higher capacitance is always possible with a better dielectric. The obstacles are technological, and some poorly-educated people imagine, after decades of watching Star Trek, that technology can do anything. You may not be able to fool all of the people some of the time, and you may not be able to fool some of the people all of the time, but you can definitely fool some of the people some of the time, and that's all a con artist needs: Charisma and an idea that sounds plausible to people who did not learn how to think critically. (Of course I blame religion for teaching people to reject critical thinking, but sleeping through math and science classes can also leave one susceptible to the charms of a skilled con man.)

Any technological pursuit is risky. Even a legitimate project to develop EESUs may fail if the researchers miss the right path. What convinced me that EEStor was a scam was not the goal itself (which I think could be actually possible) or the competence of the researchers (who I know nothing about) but the unrealistic promises being made by the management. They could not possibly know that they'd succeed merely because they had refined a proposed dielectric, and without considerable more capitalization they could not possibly meet their promised time line. Thus, their promises made it clear to me that they were being dishonest. I said this at the time.

It would not surprise me if they found more suckers and kept going.

A bit off topic: When I was living in Mexico a chess pal tried to get me to invest in a shoe factory. He spoke convincingly about his c.v. as a shoe maker, and he was clearly intelligent and competent. (He was a better chess player than me, and I'm an okay player.) But the city was full of shoe stores and none of them seemed ever to have any customers. There was no market for shoes, so his bona fides as a shoe manufacturer were irrelevant. I lied and told him I had no money to invest.

 

Well, in addition to EESTOR there is Blacklight Power to provide the power for the capacitors......someday.

Enjoyed the shoe story.

 

Do I get a free Blacklight power plant when I buy the Brooklyn bridge from that guy with the striped pants?

 

No. But if you buy it from me instead, I will add it for free.