A plea on Twitter for spare camera battery led me to Amtrak Station. There I learn I have not mastered the make/model of my camera. But I run into city transportation program manager Eli Cooper, who’s there to greet the same people with the battery deficiency. [photo 1] [photo 2] [Details in first comment.]
Stories indexed with the term ‘battery’
AATA OKs Hybrid Bus Battery Refreshers
Refresher battery kits for up to 20 buses at a total cost of $675,000 have been approved by the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority. The action came at the board’s June 20, 2013 meeting. The board had discussed the item at a previous meeting, on April 18, 2013.
At the April 18 meeting, the board lamented the fact that no U.S. company, and more specifically no Michigan company, had bid on the AATA’s request for proposals to replace the battery kits for its hybrid electric buses. But board sentiment was that a larger purchasing consortium for such kits might eventually be achieved through the newly-created southeast Michigan regional transit authority (RTA) – which includes the transit agencies in Washtenaw, Wayne, Macomb … [Full Story]
Public Hearing Set for Sakti3 Abatement
At its May 2, 2011 meeting, the Ann Arbor city council voted to set a public hearing on the granting of a tax abatement to Sakti3, a University of Michigan battery technology spinoff from the University of Michigan. Sakti3 is led by UM professor Ann Marie Sastry. The public hearing will be held as a part of the city council’s June 6, 2011 meeting, which starts at 7 p.m.
Sakti3 is requesting an abatement on $200,000 of real property improvements (electrical construction work) and $2.2 million of personal property (battery cycling equipment, thermal chambers, machine shop equipment, server system).
If granted, the abatement would reduce Sakti3′s annual tax bill for the new improvements by about $17,000 for each year of the abatement. According to city staff, the new real and personal property investments would generate about $22,500 in property taxes each year.
Previously, the council voted on March 21 to set a public hearing on the establishment of the industrial development district under which Sakti3 is applying for an abatement. And on April 4, the city council approved the establishment of the district.
This brief was filed from the city council’s chambers on the second floor of city hall, located at 301 E. Huron. A more detailed report will follow: [link] [Full Story]
No Secret: Sakti3 Wants Its Batteries in Cars
University of Michigan engineering professor Ann Marie Sastry – CEO and co-founder of a hot, new automotive battery development company – sits shivering in her overcoat in the cold Cobo basement at the Detroit auto show.
Ann Marie Sastry, CEO and co-founder of Sakti3, at her company's booth at the Detroit auto show. (Photo by the writer.)
But Sastry and her company, Ann Arbor-based Sakti3, is far from “out in the cold.” They are in the auto business for the long haul and do not plan on being relegated to a basement booth forever. Eventually, if all goes well, her company’s battery technology will be powering the cars upstairs on the main show floor’s Electric Avenue.
What is it about the “Eureka moment” in her UM lab that prompted her to help found a company two years ago? What is it that turned the heads and opened the wallets of the Michigan Economic Development Corp. and cleantech venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, who chipped in $2 million out the gate? What exactly is her company’s battery technology? [Full Story]