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General Motor’s Patent Application for Refurbishing Car Batteries

Things are certainly improving for General Motors. With the most successful IPO in US history behind it and the company about to unveil the “all-electric” GM Volt, the company has also been quietly amassing a patent portfolio for electric car and battery technology.

Among the most interesting of the applications that have been published (first noted by GM-Volt.com) is US Patent Application No. 2010/0124691 (Figure 3 reproduced above) entitled Method and Apparatus for Rejuvination of Degraded Pouch-Type Lithium Ion Battery Cells.

Essentially, what this patent application calls for is the ability to refurbish worn-out lithium battery packs.  In other words, the car owner would be able to take the car in and have the electrolyte material in the batteries replaced.  If done right, the process could be much cheaper than replcaing the battery… all the more reason, perhaps, for investors to be excited about GM again.

In the next few days, I will be getting a list of all of GM’s published patent applications and patents relating to electric car / battery technology… which I will post here.