Altair lands batteries contract

After years of supporting itself largely through government grants and research contracts with larger companies, Reno's Altair Nanotechnologies has set the stage to begin generating significant revenues through sales.

The company said last week it won a contract to provide battery pack systems to Phoenix Motorcars, a Southern California company that's developing electric cars.

Battery-pack shipments scheduled for February and March, Altair said, are expected to total $1.04 million.

Additional shipments through the year would total a minimum of $16 million, Altair said, and might total as much as $42 million.

Those are big numbers for a company whose sales totaled all of $33,598 during the first nine months of 2006.

The two companies also struck a deal in which Altair will be the exclusive supplier of batteries to Phoenix Motorcars for three years, and Altair will take a 16.6 percent ownership position in the carmaker.

Value of that stake couldn't be immediately determined because Phoenix is privately held, and Altair didn't provide any financial details.

The exclusive-supplier contract requires Phoenix to purchase a minimum number of battery packs each year. This year, Altair executives said, that requirement would translate into sales of $16 million.

Phoenix Motorcars says its products are the only vehicles on the market that meet California requirements for production of zero-emission vehicles.

Alan Gotcher, the president and chief executive officer of Altair, called the contract "a significant milestone" for his company.

Along with its modest product sales in the first nine months of last year, Altair generated $2.3 million in revenues from government research grants and deals with other companies that want to look at the Reno company's technology.

The company has posted some big losses $12 million in the first three quarters of last year and never has recorded a profitable quarter.

"If we are not successful in significantly expanding our revenues from higher margin products and services, our revenue growth will be slow, and it is unlikely that we will achieve profitability," the company cautioned in a prospectus that accompanied a $25 million offering of stock to the public late last year.