Flash Battery: a history of passion that looks to the future

Passion: that is the common thread that runs through the entire history and evolution of Flash Battery, the lithium battery-producing company, from its origins right through to now.

To understand the deeper meaning behind this passion, we have to go back in time, to 2009, when two friends, barely older than 20 and united by a passion for electronics, chanced upon the first lithium batteries produced in China. Seeing their vast potential, Marco Righi and Alan Pastorelli, now CEO and CTO of Flash Battery, went down a path that few then thought could represent the future: the electrification of industrial vehicles and machinery.

The two friends soon realised that the main problems to be tackled were related to the performance and reliability of those first lithium batteries, which used an electronic system that was obsolete and harmful to the cells.

Taking that intuition as a starting point, they transformed their garage into a research laboratory. Their first investment? An electric Citroën Saxo that the Milan municipal authorities were selling off for just €2,500, which became the test bed for the new lithium battery management system they were developing, and which turned out to be so revolutionary that it led to the creation of Flash Battery.

Innovate to grow: an evolution guided by electronics

In 2012, Flash Battery arrived on the industrial market with the invention of a complete, secure and reliable cell management system that was far superior to the traditional Battery Management Systems (BMS) on the market, designed to perform constant and comprehensive checks on every battery pack, ensuring stability over time, a long operating life, short charging times, self-diagnostics and predictive maintenance.

The Flash Battery BMS: a turning point in the battery industry

Named Flash Balancing System, Flash Battery’s BMS is unique in that it keeps the lithium cells balanced and efficient, even in high-performance battery packs, delivering high stability and excellent performance over time. The system uses combined active-passive high-power balancing (20A), and in 2022 was awarded Italian patent protection in the field of technological innovation .

Once the Flash Balancing System had been launched on the market, orders began to grow with remarkable speed, and 2012 saw the official birth of Flash Battery S.r.l. (then known as Kaitek S.r.l.), which initially had just one full-time employee, Marco Righi. Now, 11 years on, we have 108 employees at our headquarters in Sant’Ilario d’Enza, and Flash Battery, born as a small start-up, is today one of the major European players in the production of lithium batteries for industrial machinery and electric vehicles.

Passion, focus and business vision: the three pillars of our growth

Our passion, together with a clear business vision and a strong focus on the industrial segment, is the secret that enabled the newly founded Flash Battery of 2012 to overcome the many challenges it faced and continue evolving over time, ultimately becoming a market leader in the production of lithium batteries.

Even in a challenging period like that of the pandemic in 2020, bucking the prevailing trend at the time, Flash Battery continued to grow, laying the groundwork for electrification in an industry that was now ready to evolve, not only through increased awareness of sustainability, but also thanks to increasingly strict zero-emissions policies at the local level.

The increasing demand for electrification, which has seen a corresponding growth in our team, led us in 2020 to open our new company headquarters, a symbol of our ongoing commitment to sustainable innovation, as well as being a concrete representation of the transition from young start-up to international company.

Today Flash Battery continues to invest with passion in the three pillars that underpin its development: commercial strength, a focus on research and development, and a young, enthusiastic team.

Strategic commercial decisions and a focus on the industrial sector to stand out in the world of electrification

Through the advantages offered by Flash Battery’s proprietary technology, which guarantees reliability over time and a high level of intrinsic safety of the battery pack, over time the company has managed to take industrial machinery up a gear and to convert ever more applications to zero emissions.

From day one, alongside producers, discovering the advantages of the transition from lead to lithium

The decision to focus on the industrial sector was motivated by a desire not to waste energy and to bring concrete added value to the world of industrial machinery and vehicles, which – even 11 years ago – was more receptive to the transition to electric, and already had several electric vehicles that used lead-acid batteries.

The efficiency of our electronics, our capacity for customisation and the decision to use LFP chemistry, which best meets the specific needs of the industrial sector, immediately allowed us to support producers that were using traditional lead-acid batteries, and were ready for a change of technology, in the transition to lithium.

Electrification: a journey of growth shared by ever more applications

Subsequently, with the increased awareness of the concrete advantages of electrification, a growing number of endothermic applications, from the most disparate sectors, have been successfully guided through the transition to electric by Flash Battery: from earth-moving equipment such as excavators, cranes and mini cranes active in the construction sector, to the most diverse applications in the fields of lifting, boats, airport vehicles, intralogistics, rail, and even the military sector.

In recent years, in particular, we have seen an increasing number of producers willing to take the decisive step towards the electrification of vehicles and machinery. We are committed to the development of new lithium battery prototypes for the electrification of increasingly energy-intensive vehicles and ever more diverse sectors, combining the market’s two main demands: high performance and reduced environmental impact.

Creating partnerships of excellence

Another pillar of Flash Battery’s commercial strategy, which has allowed us to expand our presence on international markets, is our desire to forge relationships with highly skilled and prepared players in the field of powertrain systems. For several years now, Flash Battery has had a series of strategic partnerships active in the major European countries that are most sensitive to the electrification of industrial vehicles, such as Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Spain and the Benelux countries .

Research, experimentation and interconnection: when prediction becomes an ally for the production of ever smarter batteries

The electrification market is one that requires constant, renewed commitment in the field of research, in order to anticipate the market’s demands with innovations that guide not only industrial change, but social and cultural change too.

It is in this spirit that, every day, we make significant investments in research to develop ever smarter technologies, giving OEMs and manufacturers of electric industrial vehicles and machinery the chance to access efficient, advanced electrification.

Flash Data Center and the role of artificial intelligence

While it’s true that to get ahead in technology you need to think outside the box, our Flash Data Center battery remote monitoring system, the jewel in the crown of Flash Battery’s technology since 2013, merits a special mention.

This battery monitoring system, which is virtually integrated with containerised architecture, uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to provide constant, automatic, comprehensive monitoring of all the parameters of  Flash Battery’s batteries active in 54 countries worldwide, enabling us to monitor their health in real time and with extreme precision, providing self-diagnostics and predictive maintenance.

There are those who worry about the rapid spread of artificial intelligence, believing it to be a double-edged sword that will eventually replace humans in a number of activities and could lead to various ethical problems, but, as with any great revolution, it is important to learn to weigh up the potential benefits and threats it poses. While, on the one hand, there are plausible fears, on the other, artificial intelligence offers a world of possibilities, enhancing vehicles’ performance whilst also improving the experience of users, who will be able to access personalised content and use it as a tool to generate new concepts and ideas.

Investing in people to continue improving day by day

We were born out of a passion for electronics and the conviction that research and development applied to the sustainability of products and processes would take us far, but we would not be what we are today without an enterprising, motivated team that is growing alongside us in competence, experience and professionalism day by day.

We strongly believe that the workplace should facilitate the personal and professional development of every individual and we are committed, every day, to collaborating to create an authentic environment, promoting opportunities to be together and share, making the most of the potential and skills of each and every person.

For that reason, there are many opportunities for growth and training at Flash Battery, tailored to the individual characteristics of each employee: from on-boarding processes for new hires to the more than 39 training courses provided each year, not to mention various Team Building initiatives and corporate welfare activities. In our own small way we seek to build and add significant aspects to consolidate and renew our commitment to our current and future employees, guaranteeing flexibility, supporting the development of a sense of belonging and investing in people by focusing on the ongoing development of their skills.

To continue growing in harmony as a team, our main challenge is to always find new ways of communicating and promoting opportunities to meet new talent, young graduates who are motivated to grow within our company and share our key values.

Looking to the future, without ever losing sight of our roots

Between 2012 and 2023 Flash Battery has travelled a long and winding road, full of challenges and goals achieved, which have enabled us to make the big leap from start-up to company, refining our technologies and growing as a team.

There will be just as many challenges to face in the coming years in the field of battery production: from the need to make the European Union ever more competitive on the electrification front to the important question of component recycling and the second life of batteries, to which a growing number of actors will be required to give concrete answers.

Looking to the future, we have big, increasingly international dreams, but we don’t want to lose sight of our main objective: satisfying OEMs and manufacturers who rely on our lithium technology, meeting their electrification needs in ever smarter and more effective ways.

As lithium battery manufacturers we will continue to invest in our proprietary technology and in our people, because we believe that it is only thanks to research and constant experimentation that we will obtain concrete, lasting results.

And while we cannot know what awaits us in the more distant future, we won’t forget where we came from, continuing to improve with the same passion we had on day one, which took us from our beginnings in a garage to proudly becoming – to all intents and purposes – a benchmark in the manufacture of lithium batteries, not only in Italy but also on the world stage.