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Latest | Highest ratedIs Berkshire’s Burlington Move All About Coal? [View article]
A123 vs. BYD and Other Irrational Battery Investments [View article]
Get back to me when EV sales in the U.S. top 100,000 units per year. Washington may not understand the difference between $20,000 and $40,000, but I'll guarantee that budget stressed consumers do.
A123 vs. BYD and Other Irrational Battery Investments [View article]
"Lithium-Ion Batteries Could be Too Expensive, MIT Team Says"
industry.bnet.com/auto.../
On EESAT and Energy Storage Opportunities on the Smart Grid [View article]
It looks like last Friday was a pretty good decision day. For the last few days I've had a clear sense that ZBB and Axion are both seeing sales from somebody who needs to raise cash but doesn't know the first thing about illiquid markets.
The biggest problem with morons is that we seem to have an unlimited supply in both the government and private sector.
On EESAT and Energy Storage Opportunities on the Smart Grid [View article]
A123 vs. BYD and Other Irrational Battery Investments [View article]
tireman63, I'm with you 100% on the time-to-profitability issues. I still buy green bananas, but I don't want to start from scratch and clear a new plantation from the jungle. As a result, I generally use a very high discount factor for markets that are subject to substantial uncertainty and won't be profitable for another decade. The investor in me is far more interested in markets that will experience outsized growth and profitability over the next three to five years.
A123 vs. BYD and Other Irrational Battery Investments [View article]
"Our products provide standby reserve capacity, by delivering power quickly in order to offset supply shortages caused by generator or transmission outages, and frequency regulation, by regulating the minute-to-minute frequency fluctuations in the grid that are caused by changes in supply and demand. The first of the AES systems, a two megawatt system housed in a 53-foot trailer, is installed at an AES facility, and we have shipped additional units for AES, totaling 16 megawatts."
So it certainly appears that A123 and Altair are competing head-to-head for the same customers and A123 has the lead in shipments by a pretty wide margin.
A123 vs. BYD and Other Irrational Battery Investments [View article]
MRTTF, while translating SAFT's financial statements is a major pain because everything is stated in Euros, it trades at 3.8x book value, 1.1x sales, and 14.6x net income.
A123 vs. BYD and Other Irrational Battery Investments [View article]
A123 vs. BYD and Other Irrational Battery Investments [View article]
While there isn't any one technology that will get a definitive nod from any administration, bureaucrats are as subject to PR hype as the rest of us. The fact that many of them are ideologues that have never worked for companies that had to produce something and make a profit in the process can complicate the issue. When you add a presumption that resources will be as available in the future as they have been in the past, you can get some pretty unreasonable policy initiatives (think fuel cells and ethanol). I also can't discount the importance of having an ear in high places, although I can think of any number of places where the ear listened politely and still said no.
A123 vs. BYD and Other Irrational Battery Investments [View article]
A123 vs. BYD and Other Irrational Battery Investments [View article]
MRTTF, on June 30, 2009, before the big push for the IPO really got up and rolling, A123 was carrying $4.85 million on it's balance sheet for "deferred offering costs," which is what you call the amount you've spent on an in-process IPO. Their last amendment prior to the effective date estimated the total IPO costs at $6.8 million, including $3.4 million in accounting and $1.9 million in legal. It's neither good nor bad, but it is dreadful expensive.
Advill, the funds and technical companies invested in A123 over the last couple of years and they paid something less than $9 per share. The IPO which was priced at $13.50 put the rest of the money on A123's balance sheet. Now that the offering is done, the company has nothing to do with the daily trading activity and it's all a new investor buying stock from an old investor.
Whenever a company like Ener1, Valence or for that matter Axion goes to the market for additional capital, the new investors take a very hard look at what the current values are and then negotiate a price based on their perception of those values. In a market like the one we have right now, those negotiations are bare knuckle affairs where the company that needs money is at a distinct disadvantage to the investor who has money. That disadvantage is particularly acute when the spread between financial statement values and market capitalization is measured in hundreds of millions of dollars.
On EESAT and Energy Storage Opportunities on the Smart Grid [View article]
envisionsolar.com/vide...
I've previously written on the solar tree concept and think it's a wonderful dual use that provides a valuable customer service in hot and sunny climates where getting into a car that's been parked in the sun for a couple hours is always an adventure.
seekingalpha.com/artic...
I don't expect to see Axion's PbC used in new micro-class plug in's because of size and weight limitations. There is, however, significant potential in using the PbC to convert existing pickups, vans and SUVs to dual mode, something that can be done today to slash oil consumption.
seekingalpha.com/artic...
It also looks like the PbC may be an ideal solution for the new stop-start micro-hybrid technology that is expected to become standard equipment over the next three to five years.
seekingalpha.com/artic...
JLBR, the technical presentations at EESAT dealt with performance rather than pricing so I don't have a lot of insight about who the low bidder will likely be. That being said it should be a good deal easier to improve the performance of a flywheel than it will be to improve the performance of a battery.
On EESAT and Energy Storage Opportunities on the Smart Grid [View article]
I don't for a minute believe cars with plugs will fly with consumers, but with 100 million cars on the road, it doesn't take much market penetration to get to 1 million vehicles in five years.
The more intriguing question is "If you have 4,000 MW of potential frequency regulation capacity in 180,000 plug-ins but only need 1,000 MW of frequency regulation, how much are you going to be willing to pay the plug-in owners." The law of supply and demand tells me not much!
A123 vs. BYD and Other Irrational Battery Investments [View article]