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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowHe started out to make an electric car and wound up with a device to blend and regulate power among different types of
electric batteries.
It’s not as exciting as a car, but the gadget developed by Steve Tolen’s Indy
Power Systems wound up the 19th slot in the top 100 stories of 2009 by Discover magazine.
Noblesville-based
Indy Power was lumped in with other transformative battery technologies to power the car of the future, along with work on
a five-minute battery-charging technology by a team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Discover
credited Indy Power’s device for its ability to blend power produced by high-performing-but-expensive lithium-ion
batteries and less-expensive-but-heavy lead-acid batteries and other types of batteries, “offering a transitional technology
until lithium energy storage gets cheaper.”
His company’s gadget may have more lucrative uses in
industrial and military applications, where weight isn’t an issue and various battery types are in use that can be blended.
Indy Power has yet to announce a major customer for its device.
Tolen initially planned for his company
Symphony Motors to produce a vehicle.
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