Shares in Toronto-based alternative energy car developer Zenn Motor Company (TSX:V.ZNN, Stock Forum) have lost 49% of their value in trading Tuesday after the company announced an independent testing body had determined the EEStor energy storage layers tested by that company, "did not show any meaningful levels of energy discharge (energy-out)."
In layman's terms, the product, which is supposed to be the core of Zenn's battery system, stores energy but doesn't appear to provide enough to make a car go forward.
Shares in Zenn dropped from $1.14 at Monday's close to $0.58 at noon trading Tuesday.
According to the Zenn news release, "After initial consultation with EEStor, [consulting firm Evans Capacitor] spent several weeks to develop its own testing protocols. Evans' focus was to develop testing protocols that would measure energy that is put into each layer and then the energy that could be taken out of the same layer. […] It has tested the procedures on known capacitors to verify reliability and accuracy of the tests."
EEStor, as it did during the first round of problems, isn't admitting there's a problem, stating "the layers provided by EEStor to Evans were not commercial ready layers and were not expected to demonstrate high energy densityA figure of merit usually expressed in Joules per cubic inch for capacitorsA figure of merit usually expressed in Joules per cubic inch for capacitorsA figure of merit usually expressed in Joules per cubic inch for capacitors and that the layers were provided to Evans solely to assist Evans in developing testing protocols."
This, despite an October 29 news release from Zenn that clearly stated in the opening paragraph, "Evans Capacitor Company of East Providence, Rhode Island ("Evans Capacitor") has agreed to assist both companies in developing testing protocols and to conduct independent testing of the EESU layers manufactured by EEStor and report on its comprehensive testing results."
