TUTTO CARRELLI ELEVATORI | FROM STARTUP TO COMPANY FLASH BATTERY GROWS AND BRINGS ITALY TOWARDS E-MOBILITY

Founded in 2012 by two friends with a common passion, today Flash Battery is a fully-fledged company whose batteries are used in 54 countries, with double-digit growth trends over the last three years and a turnover of 14 million euros.

There is an air of change at Flash Battery. Everyone is ready to start a new adventure!  The trip will be short, just a few kilometres: a short distance that marks major growth. The Reggio Emilia company, an international leader in the production of state-of-the-art lithium batteries, will move to its new headquarters in Sant’Ilario d’Enza, the birthplace of Flash Battery, in early August.

Born in a garage in 2012, Flash Battery and its batteries now have a presence in 54 countries, with double-digit growth trends over the last three years and a turnover of 14 million euros (2019 figure).
Much more than a simple relocation, the upcoming move is the crowning achievement of the efforts made in recent years. Starting on 1 August 2020, the company name under which the company was born, Kaitek S.r.l., will be merged with the brand under which it produces and markets lithium batteries for the industrial sector around the world, becoming Flash Battery S.r.l.

The new headquarters in numbers

The new Flash Battery headquarters is located on 20,000 square metres of space and will be 5 times larger than the current location. Its 52 employees will have 1,500 square metres of offices (research and development, design, innovation, marketing, sales, and administration) and 3,200 of production areas. Another 5,000 square metres are available for future growth projects.
And there is no lack of growth projects. Just think that the new building, an investment of 6 million euros, already has the capacity to accommodate up to 150 employees: a number not as bold as it may seem. Just over the past few years, in fact, Flash Battery has gone from being a two-person start-up to a company with over 50 employees, aimed at growth and committed to the training and development of resources.
Growth, however, also means attention to its employees. That’s how, in 2019, the company adopted a Toyota Lean thinking path in order to simplify processes, involve staff and coordinate departments.
Everything is aimed at encouraging and optimising teamwork. Training programmes and now also new spaces in order to work better, with more motivation, monitoring the progress of one’s own work and achieving results and satisfaction, both in groups and individually.

From a garage start-up to a solid company in 8 years

It sounds like a Silicon Valley fairy tale, but it’s exactly what happened for Flash Battery. Two friends, Marco Righi and Alan Pastorelli, hours of experiments in the garage, evenings and weekends spent with their hands in the batteries and countless electric circuits in their heads… then the flash of inspiration: to design an electronic control that would allow for cells to be balanced even in the biggest and most high-performing battery packs. It was an idea that marked a decisive change of pace for lithium battery technology, as well as the basis for the production of Flash Batteries.

Today, that small start-up from 8 years ago is a solid and fast-growing company that is well known because, since the beginning, it has been characterised by a great drive for innovation and development.
Today, that enthusiasm and passion for experimentation, research and innovation that drove the fervent activities of a garage 8 years ago are aimed at new international markets, are open to new partnerships, and have all the space and resources they deserve, in a large area of the new headquarters dedicated to innovation and technology.

Growth based on technology and product

Flash Battery has blossomed thanks to the value of its product: a genuine brand that today represents the best-selling lithium battery in Italy and a leader in Europe. This is where the motivation to change the company name to Flash Battery S.r.l. came from.
The entrepreneurial vision that was present since the very beginning in the garage brought concreteness to passion and perseverance, allowing them to design not only a product, but also its industrialisation: it was that crucial step that allowed Flash Battery to make the real leap from start-up to company.

The Flash Battery product embodies the company’s mission: to support manufacturers of industrial machinery and electric vehicles in the design and manufacture of the lithium battery that is perfectly suited to their needs. Flash Battery lithium batteries are safe and extremely reliable, able to make industrial machines more flexible and boost the performance of electric vehicles.

In fact, industrial machines using Flash Battery technology are extremely efficient: the Flash Battery’s balancing system, the Flash Balancing System, acts in active and passive mode with a much higher balancing power (20A) and not only during charging, but also in active mode during discharge. This allows for 20 times more balancing power (maximum 30 minutes), ensuring maximum autonomy to the lithium batteries. Lithium cells are maintained equalised and efficient throughout the battery’s lifetime of over 4,500 cycles.
Even electric vehicles, which require ever-increasing levels of autonomy, charging speed and reduced maintenance costs, are more effective with Flash Battery and can guarantee maximum performance.

In short, Flash Battery has managed to make its dream come true: to become a flourishing and solid reality, thanks to the practicality of its cutting-edge technology. That passion for experimentation that was born in that garage lives on today in the research and development department of the company, which employs 40% of its active staff.

In this great laboratory of innovation, jewels of electrical engineering are created. In addition to making Flash Battery more and more efficient, they create new quality standards that raise the bar of excellence in the sector.

These include the FLASH BALANCING SYSTEM and the FLASH DATA CENTER.

FLASH BALANCING SYSTEM

A patent-pending system that is able to homogenise the level of each cell during charging and discharging. This avoids the loss of battery efficiency that would end up compromising the autonomy of the battery and the vehicle. In a traditional lithium battery, the control electronics called the Battery Management System use low-power passive systems to perform the balancing. This phase takes between 8 and 10 hours not counting the time for energy replenishment, which can vary depending on the battery charger, but we can generally estimate 3 hours. Full charging of these traditional batteries can take up to 13 hours.
In contrast, the FLASH BALANCING SYSTEM acts in active and passive mode with a much higher balancing power. The ultra-fast flash balancing time, during both charging and discharging, eliminates this inconvenience and always ensures maximum autonomy to our lithium batteries.

FLASH DATA CENTER

All Flash Batteries are connected to the FLASH DATA CENTER, a remote monitoring system that constantly monitors the batteries and reports (both to the Flash Battery service and to the user) any anomaly 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This system makes it possible to prevent any faults and downtime by carrying out self-diagnostics and predictive maintenance thanks to the continuous availability of values, in real time, on the state of health of each individual lithium battery.

Flash Battery for Italian e-mobility

Today Flash Battery is the best-selling battery in Italy. For this reason it was essential to include it in the project 100 Italian e-mobility stories, organised by the Symbola Foundation and Enel, with the participation of FCA, to accompany the growth of electric mobility in Italy.
Flash Battery has been selected, along with 99 other Italian companies, as one of the main players in the field that is leading our country towards electric and sustainable mobility.
Flash Battery, as an Italian manufacturer of lithium batteries of excellence, also hosted one of the speeches for the presentation of the initiative to the public and the press. Dr Francesco Paolo Ausiello from ART-ER gave his speech on the 100 Italian e-mobility stories in the Flash Battery headquarters.
On the same occasion Marco Righi, CEO of Flash Battery, gave an interesting interview to the national news programme TG3 to talk about electric mobility and the electrification of the industry as an opportunity to relaunch.