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Miljøbil Grenland: A midget flexes its muscles
December 2011
Miljøbil Grenland made no secret of its change of direction during the first quarter of 2011. Bernt Ausland, the company’s CEO, clasps his hands and pretends he is shaking a dice: “New deal.”
What he means is that the company has completely changed its strategy. The change attracted a lot of attention when it was announced, much of it negative. The industry and the media focused on failed electric car ambitions, executives forced out and job cuts. However, the board and the new CEO kept faith in the business. Now, at the end of the new strategy’s first year, the results are already starting to show.
Headed for profitability
Can we expect Miljøbil Grenland to be in the black this year?
“Yes, our budgets for the current financial year show an operating profit, and at the halfway point in the year we’re ahead of budget. But it’s an exciting and demanding job.
“As you know, back in 2008 Tata Motors acquired a 72 per cent stake in the company. However, what mattered wasn’t the size of the stake, but rather the importance that the new owners attached to the acquisition. From Day 1 of Tata’s ownership right up to the most recent change of course, Tata Motors CEO Ravi Kant served as chairman of our board. Even now that he has stepped down, there are still close links between senior management at Tata Motors and Miljøbil Grenland. We have a close strategic relationship, enjoy excellent dialogue and are top of mind.
“The change of strategy took effect in the last quarter of 2010. As part of the process, Tata Motors undertook a detailed survey of the world’s battery suppliers and found that we lead the world with the battery technology we are currently developing.
“These findings reinforced our belief that we are doing the right thing by refining our cutting-edge expertise in battery technology and focusing on engineering and test production. It’s an acknowledged fact that the battery is the core component of all transport systems powered by electrical energy. We’re confident that we’re now well on our way to figuring out the right solution.”
In the first phase, Tata will use Miljøbil Grenland’s newly developed lithium-ion battery to power the electric version of its Indica Vista subcompact car, to be unveiled in 2013.
Like a jet aircraft
What can you tell us about the cutting-edge expertise Miljøbil Grenland has built up in this field?
“I like to compare the lithium-ion battery to a jet aircraft. If a lead-acid battery is a fighter plane from the interwar years, our battery is a modern interceptor. Where the interwar model has easy-to-manage, intuitive instruments and controls, the modern jet fighter is physically unstable and requires a lot of skill to operate.
“On the other hand, it’s way more efficient. The same goes for the Li-ion battery. The challenging part is monitoring and controlling the performance, environmental impact and safety of the battery cells that provide power. This is the area in which we have world-class expertise.”
Our most important innovations lie behind these thin walls, Sverre Wik Østberg is demonstrating. He is part of the very important engineering team at Miljøbil Genland. Here also represented by (left to right) Jamie Saunders, Michael Walach and Lars I. Brisendal.
The company’s 30-strong staff includes representatives of nine nationalities, and if a planned new hire goes ahead, the number of nationalities will increase to 10. Two thirds of the staff members have master’s or higher degrees, and half of them have been with the company for more than two years.
What are your ambitions as a company?
“To maintain our position as the world leader in the development and early-stage production of batteries and battery control systems. We’re not aiming to produce large volumes of batteries here at Herøya, but we have the capacity to handle pilot series.”
Does that mean you’ve put your growth ambitions on hold?
“No, we want to grow, but we’ll be sticking to designing, developing and prototyping batteries. For now, anyway, we’ll let other companies take care of volume production, integration into cars and sales of end products.”
Cutting-edge technology
It’s said that the real challenge lies in finding new solutions for transporting people and goods, rather than simply devising more sustainable versions of established means of transport. Are you involved in global solutions of this kind?
“Since we’ve chosen to concentrate on one area of cutting-edge technology, our main focus is not on global solutions. However, we are involved in the Norwegian E-car development program, which is examining the challenges of future transport technology. We’re supplying batteries and battery technology to eFuture, a project funded by the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme that aims at developing a carbon-neutral electric car. I recognize, too, that current electric cars have been shaped by our history of vehicles built around the internal combustion engine. If we had been unencumbered by existing car design, we would have seen a very different type of electric car.”
As far as commercial production is concerned, Miljøbil Grenland currently has its hands full supplying Tata’s own projects. However, the company remains open to new challenges, of which it is offered plenty, including requests from Jaguar Land Rover and a European electric scooter manufacturer. In the latter case, the “envelopes” used to package the battery cells are particularly important.
Entering new areas
The new strategy also paves the way for the company to explore exciting new areas of business outside the automotive sector. One such field is the marine sector, where Miljøbil Grenland is already involved in discussions and preliminary projects.
Bernt Ausland names three examples from this sector:
- We’re in touch with the patent holder for a new type of outboard engine – a revolutionary solution. They want to use our battery technology in the project.
- The same company is developing an electrically powered day cruiser and again wants to use our technology as the power source.
- We also have two parallel projects looking at electric speedboats and electric ferries. Here too, external partners want us to supply batteries and battery control systems. In both cases, we’re talking about twin-hulled vessels, which was the usual configuration in previous experiments with electrically powered boats. But when it comes to ferries and speedboats, devising efficient charging arrangements presents an additional challenge. We think we can deliver a solution.
Another promising area for potential new applications of Miljøbil Grenland’s expertise and technological solutions is in power generation – so-called stationary applications. Since neither private households nor industry and businesses consume a constant amount of energy, power companies around the world are very interested in the idea of using large batteries to top up the electricity supply during peak periods.
“This is all about solutions involving very large batteries or energy banks – much larger than those involved in our other projects. We have to respect the size. We’re looking, for example, at a storage capacity of one kilowatt hour per 10 kilograms. When you multiply that by the number of kilowatt hours needed to meet energy needs, it’s not hard to see why these would have to be really big batteries.”
We’re guessing that you’ve come up with a solution?
“Yes, although these are large batteries, we’ve already mastered the necessary technology.”
Despite the company’s focus on supplying Tata and the tight deadlines in its commercial projects, there is still time for innovation and product development. Downplaying this side of the business would directly endanger the company’s future, believes Bernt Ausland. On the way out, he lets us walk through the inner sanctum, the engineering lab, where the various components of battery technology come together. The lab, and the people who work there, are the heart and brains behind Miljøbil Grenland’s muscle flexing and its determination to show the world that its new strategy is bearing fruits.
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