DETROIT - Stan Ovshinsky, the self-taught inventor who developed the nickel-metal hydride battery used in the hybrid vehicle industry, has died at his home in suburban Detroit after a fight with cancer. He was 89.
Ovshinsky, who ran Energy Conversion Devices, a car battery development company, also created a machine that produced nine-mile-long sheets of thin solar energy panels intended to bring cheaper, cleaner power to homes and businesses.
His son, Harvey Ovshinsky, said his father was passionate about science and alternative energy, but also about civil rights and other social causes. He said his father died of complications from prostate cancer Wednesday night at his home in Bloomfield Hills.
