Stan Ovshinsky in 1960 founded Energy Conversion Laboratory, who later founded Energy Conversion Devices and Ovonics Battery Company. His distinct goal was to make fossil fuel obsolete.
Some years later, Chevron owns the patents and keeps them under tight wraps.
In 1994 GM, under the disingenuous EV1 program invested in Ovonic and gained a controlling interest.
By 1996, the EV1 project at GM was underway.
By 1999, GM dismantled the EV1 project, despite the cries of the car’s many fans which included many celebrities like Jay Leno, Jamie Lee Curtis and others.
In 2001, GM sold the patent for the NiMH battery to Texaco. Texaco was acquired by Chevron only a few days later.
Today, we do not have affordable electric cars because an oil company bought the patent that threatened its dominance.
Some of this history may be new to you unless you have seen Who Killed the Electric Car.
Well, as fate would have it, the patent on the NiMH battery runs out in 2014. What do you think will happen next in order to keep you dependent on oil for energy?
The culture of the systems that are in place is a culture of fostering dependence. Our goal at The Local Voluntary is to free people from dependence.
In October of 2012, Stan left this Earth at the age of 89, not having seen his invention change the world, but only because of cowards who squelched real innovation because they had something to lose: their stranglehold on the business of fuel for the transportation industry.
Well, they have certainly lost one thing: Our Trust!
We are Local. We are Voluntary. And WE are fixing this broken world, NOW!
(sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Conversion_Devices
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Ovshinsky
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nADup5XjkEA
)
additional links:
[…] that Chevron has kept buried for almost 20 years. Learn more about Ovshinsky and his battery here. This has been done because of something called “fiduciary […]