Trade stocks by day, and at night am writing a historical epic about the ancient Mayan civilization. "Maya: Spirits Of The Jaguar" is a sweeping saga set in the ancient and magical Mayan landscape where a wronged family struggles against prophecy, power, treachery and forbidden love,... More
Axion Power Concentrator 25: Beginning Nov.28, 2011 RE: Viridity and the Power Cube 268 comments
Nov 28, 2011 8:38 PM
It was a dreary day as I drove the rolling hills toward New Castle this morning; low wispy clouds, lingering, the kind cell tower tops disappear into, a fine, intermittent misting rain, weather so typical for a late November western Pennsylvania day. Having lived a solid hunk of my life in Pittsburgh, I found the 54 degree temperature quite satisfactory.
I came armed with an umbrella of which I never used, as the inclement weather abated, if almost magically just in time.
As I entered the white temporary tent thrown up to shield the attendees from the elements, the first bit of news I learned was that the CEO of Viridity was unable to make the ribbon cutting ceremony. Maybe some folks were disappointed, but I was not, because I came to see the Power Cube, up and running, hooked into the grid. And it was.
I would guess there were about 40 or so who made the journey, some from New York City, Florida, the Viridity folks from eastern Pennsylvania. Late arriving stragglers may have taken the number to 50.
I kind of want to scream loudly: Hey world! Do you not realize what happened today!
This is an incredible development that caught all of us Axion Concentrator followers completely by surprise. A classic right out of left field potential bonanza for us first floor level investors. This is much bigger than any of us could have ever expected, or than any of us ever imagined.
We shareholders now share in the ownership of the first of its kind, multi-purpose, battery powered virtual generation device, that can take in power, or discharge power at an ultra fast rate of 250 milliseconds response time. I am not sure what, if any device out there, battery, flywheel, molten salt, or whatever, save capacitors, that can keep up with, or even come close to what the Power Cube can deliver in the electrical demand response market.
I also want to reiterate what I learned when I attended my first Axion Power function, the Shareholders Conference, June 20, 2011. Everyone I talked to was most cordial, informative, and of course, very up beat. Many knew about the Axion Power Concentrator.
Beyond the startling 250 milliseconds fact here are some other fascinating tidbits I learned today:
--I should start off with perhaps the most significant, and that is that testing of the PbC continues, and now has passed, "100s of thousands of light cycle discharges and charges." If only I could age so gracefully.
--CEO, Thomas Granville, stated that the energy storage sector will be a $122B industry by 2022. He joked that he did not think Axion would get all of it.
--The Power Cube is movable, such that electric companies can move Power Cubes to where they are needed most, such as demands that the time of year brings; north in the colder months, and then south in the warmer months.
--The Power Cube can be moved via a tractor trailer (the Cube is 40 feet long), or shipped in an elements protected shipping container. I deduce that this means the Power Cube can now be shipped internationally, safely.
--We should all offer thanks to FERC, for lowering the necessary watts needed to help stabilize the grid. Otherwise, PJM, Viridity, and Axion Power would not have been able to cut today's ribbon. Axion is one of the first to follow the new rule making, implement and deliver a system, from building out the Cube to testing, to large string application that provides rapid response. And rapid response is key, because with the new October 24, 2011 rules, the faster the response, the more owners and users of the Power Cube get paid by PJM. This is a key advantage the Power Cube delivers.
--The PbC can deliver 2500 full discharges with 95% efficiency, and charges significantly faster with partial state charging called, "Duty cycle." (I'm not completely sure what all this means.)
--The half megawatt Power Cube consists of 600 plus PbC batteries (this number is up for debate, as I also heard 500 plus batteries).
--The power Cube is in active and live communication with Viridity and PJM. Today, the Power Cube was following its instructions to, "Do nothing." I'm guessing because the local grid was stable.
--As in the latest conference call, Thomas Granville spoke of other potential PbC applications in hybrid locomotive, hybrid vehicle, solar, wind and military.
--I probed a few questions about the HT30, and was returned that indeed the HT30 is the next generation, more powerful than the PbC, but that was it. It appears the HT30, and what it can do, is under tight wraps,
Speaking of tight wraps...
--I noticed not far from where the ribbon was cut a small mountain of battery cases atop stacked pallets. Doing a very brief and possibly inaccurate count, I believe what I saw was some 54,000 empty battery casings, neatly wrapped in plastic, and hollow sounding when I tapped a couple. Whether they are destined to become PbC or flooded batteries I did not ascertain. If I am off on this number, it's because I chose to error on the side of caution...a lower amount.
My take away from this journey is that Axion has quietly stunned the world with how well the Power Cube can interact with the grid.
It's only a matter of time until large investing houses understand that what Axion Power is doing is unique, in unexplored territory, where the only investment models out there are "start up" investing models that can aid in investment decisions. The only problem is that Axion Power is so unique, there just may be no investing model out there for the big players to use.
When I left Axion Power headquarters, I did not see nary a dreary cloud during my return drive to my hotel, but rather, if almost innately, felt the growing and maturing confidence of all present at the ceremony today about Axion Power's future.
####
I will be "off the Seeking Alpha grid" tomorrow, while I make the return trip to Philadelphia.
Instablogs are blogs which are instantly set up and networked within the Seeking Alpha
community. Instablog posts are not selected, edited or screened by Seeking Alpha editors,
in contrast to contributors' articles.
Last comment in the previous Concentrator from bangwhiz:
We can calculate how long they will be dumping stock all we want, but its like rain - it will stop when it stops. Personally, I am enjoying picking up cheap shares at SS and Quercus's expense and planning my next buy next month..
If the selling plows on into the end of Q1 and start of Q2 (not an impossibility given Quercus's and SS's total holdings) then Axion may have to get creative with its financing. I assume they will compute their options and make the right decision when a decision needs to be made.
I thank you for your time and energy spent exploring for all f us today. Your statement that the power cube appears more valuable than other devices ,due to its speed, is a tantalizing morsel to chew on. A competitive advantage over other devices.
Again thanks for your hard work today and on the concentrator.
There were so many questions I wanted to ask. But they were mostly all non-Viridity, non-grid based--not about what today was about.
Today was a celebration of the Power Cube, and the PbC's grid related abilities. And I decided to leave it at that...which is more than enough for this trip.
I truly had to stifle my curiosities. But I did not stifle my congratulations to all Axion employees.
Maya, Very generous. We are in your debt. I wondered, any inkling from today with respect to how the economics play out with the various Power Cube applications? Many thanks once again
anthlj: It is the economic, or better, the potential revenue implications of today's ribbon cutting ceremony that none of us have even begun to wrap our thoughts around.
I'm rather clumsy in doing such analysis, but I'm SWAGuessing that the grid implications could rival, or even exceed what the automotive or raillroad sectors could eventually generate, at least, especially at first, as Axion eases its way into the new and evolving stop/start generation of hybrid vehicles, and hybrid locomotives.
Thanks for going to the PowerCube ceremony Maya. Grateful to you for making the trip. Looks like the flooded battery sales are continuing which will help the burn rate, plus give some Axion employees on the flooded battery lines some Xmas money!
Maya, Thanks for the information from today's RCC. As many questions as it answers, it brings up just as many questions. Until they start selling these things, and we get a handle on who's buying and in what configuration, we're not going to have a lot of the answers. Obvious ones: 1) When do they plan on active tests of the PowerCube or will all tests be on a strict grid need only? 2) How long will it take them to ramp up from 100 KW to 500 KW? 3) Still have no idea how much a PowerCube will cost? 4) Does PJM have any plans to purchase other PowerCubes for their own, mobile back-up systems or will they only be integrating ones owned by their users into their system? 5) Were there representatives from other possible end users for the PowerCube there? 6) Were there possible financing representatives?
I know...so many questions. Let's just hope all those casing that Maya saw were for PbC batteries and they will all be filled and ready to sell really soon!
LabTech - PJM, is a non-profit RTO. In addition to controlling transmission lines, it also has an energy market. There are over 500 market participants, or MPs. I'm not sure how Viridity's business model works, whether they act as an MP, or sell their solutions to MP's or both.
Great report, Maya, thank you. Hopefully, Axion will follow its model in educating the public by providing a white paper for potential customers and give us another important data point to chew on.
What follows is an addendum to what I wrote above in the header:
I believe what I saw today is second only to the Viridity/PJM/Axion Power Cube announcement, is that inventory of empty battery cases stacked outside the Clover Leaf facility.
I JUST got around to crunching some numbers. And if I am correct (but I know I'm not) about the estimation of 54,000 battery cases...Yikes!
What I saw was 24 batteries per layer with 9 layers per skid (pallet). That gives us 216 battery casings per skid. These per skid numbers are accurate.
What follows is best guess stuff.
The skids were 10 deep and about 15 wide. Again, I want to make sure everyone knows is that the 10 deep and 15 wide was a guess, not an actual count.
However...
So now we get this: 216 casings per skid times 10 deep and 15 wide. That equals 32,400 battery casings. Again, I'm not sure if it was exactly 10 skids deep by 15 skids wide.
But wait a minute! There was a mountain of skids, and I can not recall, nor did I make note of how many skids high the skids were stacked. The pile of skids was higher in some parts of the "mountain" than others, as one can imagine, because empty battery cases don't weigh very much.
Ack!
So let's say the stacks were piled just four high, and all of a sudden what I was looking at was not 54,000 battery cases, but more like about 130,000 empty cases (129,600 to be exact in all my inexactness).
I understand that those familiar with Google Maps can zoom in on those pallets inorder to grasp how many stacks there are.
I'll let you kind folks ponder the potential revenues these empty battery casings represent of which I just calculated. Clue: If true, it's staggering. I can not believe what my I-Phone calculator is saying.
Again, this is not exact. And I feel queazy in even making this comment, knowing how much Axion likes and needs to protect pipsqueak commoners like me from knowing this kind of info.
Maybe Thomas was not kidding today, when he told me to wet my fingers and touch around inside the Power Cube!
"I understand that those familiar with Google Maps can zoom in on those pallets inorder to grasp how many stacks there are."
Maya, Just did it, but unfortunately what you zoom in on isn't a current image, but the one in Google's archive. It's still amazing how detailed an image you can get of the outside of the plant, but it's not current.
LT &SHB: You never know the quality of info received until verified, and re-verified.
Glad you (LT) took time to get into Google Maps. I only was reporting what I had heard, and that was that the stacks of battery casings was visible by using Google satellite technology.
One thing is for sure, I did see that "mountain" of battery casings. I only wish I was not otherwise distracted so that I could have done a better job at gaining a more exact amount.
Believe when I say this...I was so close to asking TG, "So what's with that big stack of stuff piled all high behind this tent?" today, as we talked about other stuff while sharing a bite at the spread full of delicious cookies and sandwiches.
Without a doubt, that was the question today I should have posed.
BTW: There was no Q&A session following today's presentation. I was waiting...for any question to be asked. Think I had to hold down my raising up "questioning hand."
Decorum observed and appreciated, as I likely would have asked questions not relevent to what today was all about.
I had estimated before that prior to this last quarter that they were turning over their inventory of raw materials into finished flood batteries between 1.0 and 1.3 times per quarter.
If we assume that the agreement for the flooded batteries with East Penn is the agreement was 86% of $2.0M sales or $1.72M. If you assume a selling price of $50(?) to East Penn that is only 34k batteries sold. Using inventory turns of 1.0 -1.3 of 34k would mean if it was all for East Penn you are talking about 26-34k flooded batteries.
Therefore your assumption of 50k-100k cases is significant as it would either signal a much higher sales expected in the quarter and/or it ties into John P's comment in a previous concentrator where he compared inventory to payables vs prior periods and came up with the idea that there may be a new inventory build for PbC and not flooded. Add in the fact that Axion reaffirmed their guidance with regards to the flooded battery contract to the high end of the $8.0M annual range which fit with last quarters sales and would be confirmed by a higher inventory amount at Q3 end and that means there are batteries for something else.
"Glad you (LT) took time to get into Google Maps. I only was reporting what I had heard, and that was that the stacks of battery casings was visible by using Google satellite technology."
Maya, from what I understand about Google Earth, the satellite images are only updated about every 1-3 years unless the area is of high interest, then it is updated more often. Also, the really high resolution images aren't from the satellite, but are from aerial photography.
Good to know, LT. I have used Google Maps many times in researching terrains where my characters travel in my ancient Mayan book. I'm amazed about how much more detail exists now than 2 or 3, 5 years ago in Latin America. I've literally zeroed in on some drug czars new compounds, because I knew/guessed where they were. And yes, they were there.
You gotta know that these takes were sattelite, not aerial. Those airplane flying buggers would have been shot down. (Kidding, somewhat, but these drug lords are tough, wildly informed bastards, and I dearly hope none of them are reading this comment)
With a new resource like the PowerCube, it would not be all that unusual to have a 500 kw resource that you start using at a 100 kw rate for a period of time before you ramp it up to 200 kw and then perhaps 300 kw as the performance at each rate is documented. I'm sure there are limits on what the PowerCube can do and a sweet-spot range where it's most efficient. The best way to identify and define all those parameters is to test, document and test some more.
I certainly hope the PowerCube Maya visited was a 500Kw system. BIG difference between 600+ batteries for a 100Kw capacity versus 600+ batteries for 500Kw capacity.
The energy of a battery is calculated by multiplying the amp hours times the voltage. An 80-amp hour battery operating at 12-volts represents 960 watt-hours, or as close to 1 kWh as you'd want to come. If there are 600 batteries in the PowerCube, the total energy has to be in the 500 kWh range.
I'm still a bit confused by the way the PowerCube was described in the press releases because they spoke of a 500 kw / 250 kw device. In most case, one of the two values is expressed in kw and the other is expressed in kWh.
The stationary lithium-ion solutions that A123's been selling for renewables integration are typically configured as 2 MW / 500 kWh containers, which means they pull all the power off the battery in 15 minutes.
Since the PowerCube in New Castle is not a single purpose device designed for power and nothing else, I don't think the power rating matters all that much. I would, however, like to know just for the sake of curiosity.
Holty: What I was once again inside of today, the Power Cube, was comprised of 600 plus batteries, as Charles Trego, Axion's CFO, who gave myself and others the tour, indicated. The working Power Cube today I stood inside of was a indeed half megawatt.
Given that it was Chuck who stated that there are 600 plus PbCs in the Power Cube, I side with that fact rather than 500 plus batts.
I honestly don't know what's in production. How could I? What Viridity is potentially buying or whether or not Viridity is contemplating using 100MW strings, or half meg strings, or "pods" of multiwatt strings of Power Cube batteries, I simply have no idea.
Maya, I think what MrHolty is asking, is not what is in production but what is being used for the test. According to the press releases they are currently testing a 100KW PowerCube, which makes it sound like they are testing a smaller one. If the only PowerCube assembled there is the one you were inside, which is a 500 KW one, it brings one to conclude that this is the PowerCube they are testing and that they are only using 1/5th of it for their initial tests, but that they will have the ability to ramp that up to the full 500KWs eventually.
I think the press release said they were testing a 500 kw Cube at a 100 kw rate that would be ramped up in the future.
One of the biggest reasons to do this kind of gradual ramp testing is to find the optimal performance level for the device. As Maya noted in the introduction, the cycle-life at 100% depth of discharge is in the 2,500 cycle range but the cycle life at shallower depths of discharge can run into the hundreds of thousands. In the simplest example, 2,500 cycles of a 1 kWh battery at 100% DOD is a lifetime throughput of 2,500 kWh, but 100,000 cycles of a 1 kWh battery at 10% DOD is a lifetime throughput of 10,000 kWh. Somewhere between 10% and 100% there will be a sweet-spot maximum and knowing what that number is helps you optimize your economics.
Exactly what they need to do to get the best TCO figure. That gives them an "apples to apples" baseline when they consider other options and also gives them a very long-term handle on degradation rates, time-to-replacement based on usage, etc.
This permits facilities planners, and financial types, to project very long term, which is exactly what you need in that business.
As a side-effect, it may also tell them what happens in extreme scenarios, which must be planned for with mother nature factored into the mix.
LT: Remember that the power testing limit may have been established for the power converter electronics (power inverter). It needs to be slowly brought up to full power levels to evaluate how it performs when integrated into the PowerCube. Without the power converter the PC is mostly worthless. Lots of DC that isn't usable.
I suspect there is lots of thermal sensing instrumentation attached to this particular PC to monitor the inverter system.
LT & MrHolty: You are correct. The Power Cube is fully assembled, a little over 600 batteries in the Cube, according to Chuck Trego. In addition to what John wrote below, and I admit that I am merely guessing, I would think the each string of 100KW's are being tested, then as they all perform, a ramping up to the full half megawatt will occur, adding strings along the way.
What I would like to know is how long this procedure will take, or if this test has already occurred, and all parties concerned are just easing the Cube into full utilization. Yet, when I was standing inside the Cube, I was under the impression that the whole Cube was working. I guess I was mistaken.
One other thing of note. While I was searching the local newspaper's websites in the New Castle-Pittsburgh PA area for any mention of the ribbon cutting ceremony yesterday, I happened upon an article from a couple months ago. One of the items they mentioned in discussing Axion's research was the use of the PbC for the Navy. We noticed during the latest CC and the quarterly filings that there was no mention of the previous funding from the DOD for this Navy project and we assumed it had been lost due to budget cutbacks. The fact that a newspaper article was still mentioning this research, after that would have happened, suggests to me that, like the HEV research that didn't get funded by the DOE, Axion is still doing this research and is just funding it internally under the category of R&D. I maybe wrong about this, but I find it doubtful that the local paper would have contained a reference to this research if it wasn't still ongoing. Just something to think about.
Not sure which local newspapers you were looking (and a link would have been nice,) but as in any profession, newspaper writers vary from very good to very poor. Some cover many beats, and some (for "local" papers especially,) ones they're not really qualified to draw conclusions about.
Some may be good at researching old information to pad a story with a germ of an idea. New or inexperienced ones may draw on previous stories from their paper.
So, I hope you're right, but as with many things with Axion, we may not know until they surprise us with an announcement.
>LT: The Navy has been working toward the "all electric" ship for years. The concept is to use multiple propulsion pods on the outside of the hull and multiple, redundant, gas turbines to drive the pod motors without the need of a "rotating transmission". That is, the "variable speed gear box" is just an electrical inverter/converter. This could greatly increase interior room and reduce weight while reducing vulnerability to damage at one critical mechanical point. Increased survivability is the goal. AMSC designed, built and tested a full combat ship sized superconducting motor (no iron needed for magnetic field "conduction" ) that was much smaller for its output torque than a conventional motor. Also more efficient. The motor was designed to directly drive the prop without any gear box. See their website for details.
Given this concept, the addition of a battery storage system capable of supplying emergency power would seem to make good sense to me. Again, added redundancy and the ability to fight with all turbines dead.
Maya, thank you so much for your efforts and thorough report. Whether you saw 10,000 or 100,000+ casings matters not much to me . Your report tells us enough to let us all know that buying this baby below replacement/book will be an opportunity that likely wont last much longer (maybe not even into 2012). Great job and I'm sure other Axion fans nearby can snap some pics if they truly are extra curious.
This was posted before but I'd speculate that those same backers might be able to "raise" a few bucks for Axion if this relationship continues to progress as it should.
"Pennsylvania-based Viridity raised $14 million in January, and is balancing and storing power at several university campus microgrids, Philadelphia’s SEPTA train system, a wind power storage management project in Pennsylvania," http://bit.ly/sGbVZu
Following the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) decision to require utilities to pay for voltage and frequency regulation services, PJM Interconnection (a division of PJM, the large East-Coast utility) announced it was using two service providers. The first, operated by Enbala Power Networks is a oddly, a wastewater treatment plant that adjusts its water pumps to match PJM’s requirements – a sort of pumped-hydro storage system. The other, operated by Viridity Energy, uses Axion Power’s lead-acid-capacitor technology in a grid-storage configuration it calls the “PowerCube”.
Natureo’s take:
The fact that Axion is working with Viridity, a highly regarded grid-storage operator, is a very good sign for the company. The question now is of profitability; does the configuration make enough money given the energy storage cost and capacity. The wastewater project shows that, under the new FERC rules, anybody, using any technology, can provide “storage” services to the local utility. Water offers large capacity, infinite cycle life and long-term storage; the question here is whether water pumps are sufficiently efficient for this application."
Thanks for the link. Here is a great blog by the founder of Lux Research, Mr. Nordon. He follows the clean sector and the VC players, of which he is one, who back it. Hopefully Axion is reaching out to these types of guys (and just maybe your writings are on their radar too =).
No doubt you are a novelist the way to describe business matters as novel is really unique.
I have been out of reading a lot so perhaps what I´m going to ask is already there somewhere in your previous concentrators.
Perhaps you or JP can comment a little bit about what is happening with the wild oscillations in the stock price (which seems are not market related) of AXPM
Also I received the last e-mail with the last unaudited statements, call my attention the production costs which are growing with volume (when Mr. Henry Ford theory says that bigger volume means a lower unitary cost) in Axion case they went from 65% to 84%, R+D and admin. costs are...well, what they are, but this production cost figure really calls my attention.
Product costs and revenues in 2010 were all AGM and PbC, sales which have relatively high margins. In 2011, over 80% of sales were flooded batteries under a contract with another battery manufacturer. The margins on flooded battery sales are much smaller, particularly when you're selling to another manufacturer that will be putting his own labels on the devices and handling all the downstream distribution and customer service.
I join in wishing Maya thanks for the excellent report and above and beyond efforts to keep us informed. By the way, Maya, sorry we could not get together last week during my visit to Phily. Nice city, my daughter loves it there.
JP, I will quit asking about remaining shares in Quercus and SS. Yes, Bangwhiz, the relentless selling from the market gorillas is like rain, it will stop when it stops. But I am really ready for some sunny weather.
I understand intellectually that the selling pressure and resultant low prices are a gift to allow us to accumulate more shares and average down our cost for all the more profit in the future. But it is disconcerting to have good news day after day and watch the stock fall in the face of it. Emotionally, makes me question my judgement...is there something I am missing in this story? This blog helps reinforce my confidence. Again, my thanks to Maya for filling us in.
Question, could the company be doing what Maya is doing for us? Do they have PR people in house who could be putting news out, answering questions from investors and putting on dog and pony shows on Wall Street? I am ready for more self promotion and sales efforts, not just of batteries, but of the stock, the company and the potential. And is there a way we, as major holders, can assist in that effort?
Brishwain, I think the relevant statement in the document is:
"In June 2011, the FASB issued guidance related to the presentation of comprehensive income in the financial statements. The new accounting guidance eliminates the option to present the components of other comprehensive income as part of the statement of shareholders’ equity. Under the new guidance, the Company must report comprehensive income in either a single continuous statement of comprehensive income which contains two sections, net income and other comprehensive income, or in two separate but consecutive statements. This guidance will be effective during the interim and annual periods beginning after December 15, 2011 with early adoption permitted. The adoption of this standard will not have an impact on the Company’s consolidated financial position, results of operations or cash flows as it only requires a change in the format of the current presentation." Looks like there are new regulations that require them to release the company's financials in a single document without anything else. So that's what they are doing. I don't see anything here that was different than the Q report. IMHO
This is the amount of shares that are referenced that were owned by Quereus Trust back in the April prospectus. I'm not sure what this is referencing at this point though.
When a company files a resale registration statement for outstanding shares, that registration statement has to be updated every quarter to incorporate the new financial information in the Form 10-Q.
Form 424(b) filings do just that, they update pre-existing registration statements for new information.
This particular registration statement dates back to May of 2009 and includes shares owned by Quercus and a Stockholders Trust associated with some old litigation. http://1.usa.gov/tH1FC4 As near as I can tell substantially all the shares included in the filing have already been sold.
Thanks for the color. It seems strange that this update only includes Q2 and not Q3 data in its body. The Q1 was updated at the end of May.
At first I thought it would have to do with your estimate of a build up in inventory at Q3 YE plus Maya's note above and add this was a sign of them selling 3M shares to equal $1.3M in revenue which would be a sign of them selling shares to expand production. Dang.
I think this particular filing fell through the cracks in August when 424(b) filings were made for the other two outstanding registration statements. http://1.usa.gov/sm1gn7
My assumption at the time was that all of the shares included in the registration statement had been sold and further amendments weren't needed. Now my guess is that there are a few shares left, but not many.
I'd expect to see three 424(b) filings within the next few days to update all outstanding registration statements for the Q-3 numbers.
(AXPW): Look s like distressed seller showed up at 10:39:23 with an offer of 35K @ $0.40.
Since we've had a nice upward trend the last few days, lets see if he/she can hold their water a bit - we'll still get good prices (appreciation too) and they'll make a little more $ for their effort.
Looks to be a low volume day as folks see the $0.40/$0.41 line on the radar that has been the ceiling in the recent past.
If the seller is smart, next step will be smaller chunks at higher price.
Up above I re-read where Bangwhiz mentioned that Axion may have to get clever with financing if selling pressure continues into 2nd Q of next year. When I talked with TG after the CC, we discussed that very issue. He said that is almost a non-issue. During 2009 (right after Lehman and crash) Axion needed cash and got it, arguably at a bad price. At the moment TG says the market for money is much better and Axion is much farther along, with PowerCube, Norfolk testing and probable order soon, work with BMW, etc. So he said they are contacted regularly by financial companies offering to help them secure capital. I do not forsee liquidity as a serious obstacle. An issue, of course, but one that can be readily addressed.
The biggest difference between late 2009 and now is that total trading volume for the 12 months ended November 30, 2009 was 6.4 million shares and total trading volume for the 12 months ended tomorrow will be over 71 million shares. Two years ago an investor couldn't buy with any reasonable expectation of market liquidity. Today they can.
After looking at the 2009 prospectus you posted earlier and seeing all of the warning statements, I do admire the risk those investors took. As much as I don't like the current selling, I do feel they can do what they like with those shares with the risk they took.
If you don't mind, I am curious what this language means. It was in the prospectus and I can't figure out what it means, if anything with our current stock price being under $1. Thanks.
"The warrants contain conventional full ratchet anti-dilution provisions for adjustment of the exercise price in the event we issue additional shares of our common stock or securities convertible into common stock (subject to certain specified exclusions) at a price less than $1.00 per share."
I agree that a capital raise should be much easier in 2012 than 2009; however do you expect that any Institution will want a discount to the pps whenever this raise occurs? And is there ever a time when an institution will pay a premium when purchasing a large block of shares (outside of takeover scenarios)?
TG may not be worried about "going concern" issues but I doubt he wants to sell a significant percentage of his/our company at prices that are 50% below his own cost basis.
Offering price negotiations are generally bare knuckle affairs but an investor who's demanding a discount from market generally has to be able to point to facts that show that the market price is too high based on objective standards. Favored arguments of the investor class include a lack of liquidity and a wide gap between market capitalization and the fair value of the underlying assets. Those arguments would be very hard to make in Axion's case.
Liquidity was a major issue in 2009 because the shares were not registered under the Securities Act and the number of shares offered represented several years of trading volume. This time around the stock is registered and the market is far more liquid.
Market capitalization was also an issue in 2009 because the pre-offering market cap was ±$75 million while book value was $2.9 million and cumulative cash invested was $36 million. Today, the market cap is $32 million, book value is $13.3 million and total cash invested is $60.7 million.
By the time you add a reasonable adjustment to book value for the bargain purchase of the New Castle battery plant and the objective value of at the PbC technology and the inherent value of a gold-plated potential customer base, it's hard to make a rational argument that the stock is overvalued.
While I could make a decent argument that the market price is too low because of extraneous circumstances, I've never seen that tactic work with investors that I've negotiated with.
I made a $5 bet awhile back with a few fellow thread members that Axion's financing would be priced at .40 cents a share. There was some math that went into that calculation: 50,000,000 shares x.40 = $20,000,000 - 10% commission ($2,000,000) = $18,000,000.
While the commission is probably overstated (if there even is a transaction commission), there will probably be some sort of discount. TG said he was not going to worry about a couple of pennies, so a reasonable 10% discount on the sales price isn't going to bother him either.
TG planned the financing after a stock sales spike, presumably sometime during the first quarter. NS will be in a strong position to drive a hard bargain on a 10 locomotive order during the first quarter. Other than NS in the first quarter I don't know what else is going to spike the stock.
Thank goodness the Viridity-PJM-Powercube deal came in unexpectedly out of the blue. It gives me encouragement that TG has other clubs in the bag we don't know about also.
I rant about lack of sales, bemoan the battery sector, but I keep buying more Axion. I have slowly come around to accepting that it will be 2013 to 2015 before my Axion stock pays off big. Like Cool Hand Luke, its taken a while to "get my mind right!" Would anyone like to join me in singing "100,000 bottles of beer on the wall"?
Full ratchet anti-dilution would have resulted in a reduction of the exercise price in connection with the 2009 financing, but the problem was avoided solved by an agreement Quercus signed to facilitate the 2009 financing. Axion's Form 10-K for the year ended 12/31/09 (http://1.usa.gov/udCLPf) reported the following:
"The December 2009 Private Placement. On December 18, 2009, we entered into a Securities Purchase Agreement pursuant to which we agreed to issue common stock at a price of $0.57 per share for total gross proceeds of $26,081,816 and net cash proceeds of $24,928,323 after “breakup” fees and cash offering costs. The transaction was consummated on December 22, 2009.
In connection with the execution of the Securities Purchase Agreement, The Quercus Trust entered into a Lock Up Agreement with regard to all of its shares of our common stock held by The Quercus Trust and any warrants to purchase shares of our common stock for a period of one year, and an Amendment No. 2 to the Securities Purchase Agreement with The Quercus Trust pursuant to which it agreed (i) to waive further registration rights on shares owned by The Quercus Trust that have not yet been registered; (ii) to waive further anti-dilution rights on its warrants to purchase our common stock below an exercise price of $0.75 per share; and (iii) to pay the Company $500,000 in lieu of acquiring an additional $2,000,000 of our common stock under the Securities Purchase Agreement with the Quercus Trust."
since we are talking nitty gritty stuff. As lead council can you shed some light on to the reasons why Axion went public via a reverse merger. I understand that it may be cheaper, I've heard $250k vs $500k for AMEX but it seems that in the long term financing via further equity would be more difficult. Watching all these mining companies go public in Canada also makes me wonder why not there.
Any thoughts into this process? Just thinking that the share price would be higher on larger exchange.
I started out as the control stockholder of the shell that Axion Ontario merged into. I expected to work as lawyer for the public company for about nine months, but that nine month engagement morphed into four and a half years as legal counsel and three years as board chairman.
Axion was created as a lifeboat to rescue a valuable technology from a Canadian securities scam that was perpetrated in 2001 through early 2003 and provide a mechanism for the innocent investors who'd gotten burned to recover at least a portion of their investment. We spent the first four years in litigation with the Canadian promoters, clearing title to the PbC technology and doing the R&D that needed to be done to turn a cool science fair project into a product. The entire story would take a book.
In other words Axion was a problem deal that could never have made it through the IPO process with a mainstream underwriter. Until Quercus came along, substantially all of Axion's financing came from it's founders and their families who invested more than $15 million of their own cash before seeking outside financing.
Axion's 10 founders were investors in Mega-C's last finning round and they collectively invested about $4 million within a few months before the OSC stepped in and shut things down. To say they were angry would be a grave understatement. They created Axion Ontario to protect their interests and the interests of all the other innocent investors. It got very ugly for a while, but the founders were rock solid and put their money where their mouths were, again and again and again. Without a very strong founders group that was willing to write some very big checks on very short notice, Axion would not have survived.
I will be glad when a $72 order ( 72 shares at a dollar) raises the stock price 177%.
But I totally feel your pain Cory. As I am sure we all do. Nothing but good news to tell and somebody actually decided to dump 72 shares of the next big battery bang for your buck. Makes one wonder doesn't it?
I was answering one of the perpetual lithium supporters today and noticed a couple of things.
I could not find the PbC white paper on the Axion website. Is this my technological deficiency or has it changed?
The technology portion of the website know describes the benefit of the PbC to be that the positive electrode does not become diminished wheras I recall the white paper espousing the theory that the benefit of the PbC was that the negative electrode did deteriorate thus allowing a faster recharge rate and a much longer life. Now the site says this: "The result is reduced acid concentration swings from the charged to discharged state which reduces grid corrosion on the positive electrode and leads to longer life of the positive electrode."
As a non scientist I am sure this means the same thing. But why the emphasis now on the positive electrode instead of the negative? Now I'm all for being positive (sic) . But this description seems to me to diminish the most positive thing about the PbC. That being the fact that the carbon based negative electrode just keeps on working. Any thoughts?
"As a non scientist I am sure this means the same thing. But why the emphasis now on the positive electrode instead of the negative? Now I'm all for being positive (sic) . But this description seems to me to diminish the most positive thing about the PbC. That being the fact that the carbon based negative electrode just keeps on working. Any thoughts?"
Futurist, My "guess" is that they are describing it this way for two reasons. 1) As a means to deal with the Li-ion nay-sayers who have claimed in the past (Killacycle and others) that just because you get rid of the sulfation problem on the negative electrode you don't prevent it from happening on the positive one. So they "claimed" that it must be happening and that Axion was hiding the results. Since we already know from the white paper that the negative electrode isn't effected by over a hundred thousand cycles in testing they may be trying to point out that the positive electrode is holding up just as well with no sulfation problems. 2) When you remove the worry about sulfation destroying the negative electrode you then are left with only shear stresses on the positive electrode as the most likely reason for the battery to fail. It has been pointed out in the past that Axion is one of the first to look at this, since LA batteries never lasted long enough in the past to see how long the positive electrode could go before it failed. These issues have been considered to be more important in the past for the PowerCube, since storage users think of their investments in terms of decades, unlike batteries for cars. Since Axion is now pushing the PowerCube this maybe their way of letting the storage people know it's going to be stable for them as well.
The website has always included that description of the positive electrode benefits, but the bigger issue has always been the negative electrode benefits.
When we first started testing the PbC, the negative electrodes were so robust that the failures were coming from the positive electrodes, which nobody in the industry had ever worried about. That sent the team off working on advanced positive electrode designs and other changes that would extend the life of the positive electrodes. They ended up with a better electrode design and a weaker electrolyte solution that makes the device last longer.
Axion may be the only lead-acid battery manufacturer in history to spend time worrying about positive electrode failure mechanisms, but when you eliminate the negative electrode as an issue the positive electrode effects become the life limiter and particularly for stationary applications, long life is the name of the game.
Thank you for the history. Have they tried making the positive electrode out of carbon? I wouldn't think they need the surface area of carbon to store ( as you do on the negative side) but it certainly seems to last a long time. As I think it through though the idea is not very bright. I have just increased the cost of a PbC considerably. And I did it by replacing a part that hasn't failed in many thousands of cycles. I will let Dr. Bruell and his cronies do the job from now on.
Without the lead-acid chemistry on the positive side, you wouldn't have any energy and you'd end up with a poor carbon-carbon capacitor instead of a great lead-carbon capacitor.
It is rather impressive how many news organizations here and abroad have reprinted the story about PJM, Viridity and Axion. Hopefully it will increase new interest in what is going on in New Castle.
Axion is facing a weird market dynamic because the 0.001% of investors who've found my blog know almost everything there is to know about the PbC and the company and the 99.999% who don't know I exist don't know Axion exists either. With thousands of press releases hitting the wires every day, somebody who isn't looking for Axion news is not likely to hear Axion news.
Items like the PJM release are rare because they're important enough to rise above the background noise - at least a little bit. If they're interesting enough to make somebody do a little surfing to find out more, my archive is one of the first things that pops and it provides a rich source of information and due diligence links. Sooner or later somebody is going to pick up the Axion story and dig deep enough to understand what the Concentrators already know. It may not happen till after the slop is cleaned out of the market but it will happen eventually and then everything will be different.
It would be nice to get some new big money into this one. Seems like many of us on SA are either out of ammunition or running low. Also I noticed some on the Yahoo boards who have been around a few years are starting to get antsy with the pps and volatility while retail newbies are waiting on the sideline for large revenue gains before jumping in. Our best hope will be an institution or two who does a deep DD dive into this one. This picture somewhat explains the current share stagnation around .50 give or take. http://bit.ly/vleJyT
>gottliep ... I heard someone (I believe it was J. Cramer) on CNBC the other day state; "No one in the market is the least bit interested in solar, batteries or any alternative energy right now".
DRich> I heard someone (I believe it was J. Cramer) on CNBC the other day state; "No one in the market is the least bit interested in solar, batteries or any alternative energy right now".
That sure makes sense. Look at Quercus's losses and the poor performance of the entire battery sector. With all the lithium ion and EV hype followed by the lack of EV sales and the pullback in lithium ion stocks, XIDE taking a dump and crash of Chinese battery stocks (CRTP, ABAT, NEWN) then no one who wants to make money is going to explore the battery sector for stocks to buy.
With no interest in the sector it might bode well for Axion next year IF they get a substantial rail or automotive SS order. Why? Because it would signal that there is an emerging battery technology that is distinctly different from all the other battery companies. Lower cost than lithium ion batteries with similar characteristics and ideal performance for the SS market. Strong potential in the grid and renewables storage market.
Until Axion reports a significant sale the stock is going to wallow along about like it does today. We are still in the valley of death and will be until we get some major ground-shaking headline news from rail, autos or the grid. Something is going to have to happen that grabs the market's attention - very few people are going to poke around in the battery sector, read an Axion white paper and say "Eureka" followed by placing a market order.
Bang: As JP writes, 99.99% of the world's investors are unaware that Axion exists. Same with CNBC's auto sector expert, Phil Lebeau. Basically, almost no one knows about the coming stop/start evolution of the internal combustion engine.
Almost no one knows about the PbC, and most certainly no one knows about the next gen, more powerful HT30. Almost no one but us Concentrator followers know that the PbC can go 100s of thousands of light cycle charges and discharges.
No one knows that BMW is in the late stages of testing the PbC...the same with Norkolk Southern, or another major Detroit OEM.
And, if we as a group only know about Viridity/Axion/PJM stategic partnership, as well as BMW and NS, I can only wonder what we don't know...who else is looking into the Power Cube (the military and oil derricks we already know...)?
Markets are creatures of critical mass and Axion's mass has been building nicely for a couple years. As soon as our willing sellers are out of stock and the mass has some bragging rights, the word will spread rapidly. It's just hard to brag to buddies when we're commiserating with each other about being under water. Once the change comes, we'll probably all be obnoxious.
It's hard to believe Phil Lebeau doesn't know at least something about start-stop coming down the pipe... increased cafe standards are already baked in to the next few years...and if in fact he is unaware, he ought to find the subject worth investigating. I sure wish he and John could somehow bump in together on some street... JP would make a fine guest for a short CNBC segment on the subject...
It would be fascinating to learn whether any of the Concentrators could make an introduction. We have a lot of lurkers out there and you just never know.
481086: I absolutely believe Phil Lebeau knows about stop/start technology. But for now, it's a next year subject.
I probably should have written the above comment in better context. I bet Phil Lebeau does not know about Axion Power. But again, I'm positive he is aware of S/S.
>bangwhiz ... I'm nearly certain that when selling pressure lets up (if that happens in my lifetime) the stock will bounce to where we will feel better looking at green numbers. Like I've said before a sales contract will insure the business and help the stock price but not the skyrocket effect. I'll stick with my belief that the "crazy" price appreciation will come when Axion can't build to fill its needs and has to expand by partnering up with a know market entity. Until then its a good "little" boutique, novelty product to the market.
One thing I found out today, while I was poking around the Axion website, is that before the world comes looking, someone at Axion should get the technology section updated. I email Axion earlier to point out that their information under HEV is quoting sales estimates for 2009. Three year old information isn't going to impress anyone.
DRich> "I'll stick with my belief that the "crazy" price appreciation will come when Axion can't build to fill its needs and has to expand by partnering up with a known market entity."
Yes, I agree with you because partnering would significantly improve the rate of growth and financial metrics - difference between a single entity doing all the work, financing growth and trying to make a profit versus multiple entities bringing greater resources to bear without corresponding Axion physical and financial investment should dramatically change the stock valuation.
(AXPW): Just thought folks might have an interest in buy:sell from Tuesday, 11/29.
Assuming a trade at bid, ask or other are a buy, sell or unknown respectively, we have 95,566, 22,900 and 21,000. This gives a buy:sell of 4.17:1, a nice ratio. Buy:(sell+unknown) is 2.18:1, still a nice figure.
Volume was 139,466, lower than the 25-day average of 224,949 on Monday (included three recent very large volume spikes) but higher than the abysmal 10/13-11/4 period.
On balance, lows have been moving up the last 4 days. I believe that we're going to consolidate a few days here. If the trend lines reflect what's going on with the seller(s) and buyers, the narrowing range today should have a low around $0.38 and the *maximum* high around $0.44, although we know recent congestion has been in the $0.40/$0.41 level.
Monday filled the trend range that day ($0.355/$0.444) but couldn't close above the congestion. That was its first shot at the declining resistance line. Subsequent challenges are more likely to close above the line and allow movement up to begin.
The support rises ~1 penny a day and the resistance drops about 1/2 penny a day.
The lateral range has *just* entered the period in a triangle formation where breakout is often seen, 2/3 to 3/4 along the way.
The following is based on *very* short-term pattern development, so it should be considered with some skepticism.
I can also argue for a tall inverted roof pattern forming, albeit a very raggedy one. If it is what I believe it is, there could be a nice break up, although down breaks are not uncommon. If it does break above the $0.40/$0.41 congestion *and* the falling resistance (around $0.44 and falling 1/2 cent/day), we should see ~$0.48 as the next pause point unless strong momentum appears, in which case it could blow by there to ... $0.53(?)-$0.55 before hitting another potential pause point.
Any unexpected catalysts make all this even more so much FUD.
HTL: The data you shared is very interesting. Something I haven't seen before. I am a little confused though. It seems that in this case, most of the activity is taking place at the "bid" price which would imply that the pressure on the stock is downward. Wouldn't it be good to have most of the activity at the sell which would imply upward pressure on the stock price? Thanks very much.
>ApMarshall: Yes, we want to see buy:sell 1.xx:1. That indicates that the pressure is upward. By EOD, we'll likely see it (IIRC, most days I've checked have been that way).
But with the distressed seller(s) entering orders in the early part of the day, some folks that bought in the low-$0.3xxx area taking profits, ... it's not unusual to see early-day ratios in the 1:1.xx (or worse) area. Low volume also exacerbates the trend I think.
But so far today, the price is behaving as I expected (hoped?) and we've seen a low of only $0.38 so far. The distressed seller held his $0.41 bid for almost two hours before I saw signs that he might be "chunking" in some lower offers (when that happens, can't be sure if it the distressed seller or just "retailers" taking profit - but in this case the $0.41 bid went away at the same time some $0.39 offers showed up new).
ATM it *does* look like short-term consolidation has, indeed, begun. Narrower spreads, lower volume. Supported by the top ($0.40/$0.41) still holding even as lows rise.
In a *normal* scenario, this would be potentially (I stress that word) bullish. Having an apparent distressed seller, likely with some ending time-frame in mind to be out of the position or at some target level, muddies *my* consideration of TA (I'm not one of those that believes the chart tells you everything you need to know - folks like JP and others that contribute are critical to my "blended" thinking).
BTW, I haven't said it in a while - I'm relatively new, still early on the learning curve, use experimental settings on the charts and so you should consider these things when viewing any "prognostications" I volunteer.
MHO, HardToLove
P.S. 50K $0.39 offer showed up at 13:31:12 - I believe this is our "villan".
Couldn't resist another block, executed at .38 Not sure how long this will last but I'm scrambling for powder ... "Smoke em if ya got em boys .."
Someone was talking about a share tally for this group. Not sure if there is a "delegate" or some special tally link. I'm at 87.4k shares.
Is anyone else having trouble with SA website ? Last few days VERY slow & lots of bad gateway messages. Sorry if this posts twice ... I'm trying to delete double post .
I saw some yesterday (bad gateway messages indicating overloaded servers?) but today has just been so-so slow.
Nothing exceptional over here. But geographic location will affect that - edge routers, gateways and DNS servers that service you might be heavily loaded while in my neck of the woods it might not be the case.
Your cache settings in your browser *might* also affect your performance, as may disk utilization in your computer. But *usually* its stuff beyond your platform that cause it.
>F-kru: was that you that got the 5.6K at $0.37 (the only ones so far today)? That's the low of the day so far (I wish the $0.38 had held) and next up is 10K at $0.375 - that I can live with.
Volume strengthened: so far 155.33K vs yesterday's 139.47K - "thasa good pizza"!
Still have a higher low if no one gets lucky at $0.36.
CO3: I had great difficulty with SA two days ago in my attempts to report on the ribbon cutting event, to the point where I was calling around to fellow commenters so I could through them get the facts posted straight. All sorts and kinds of mysterious computer-ese stuff was occurring. I was seeing such that it reminded me of walking down the generic aisle in a grocery store. Black and white, no advertising, no personalized toolbar; even had to access this Concentrator not through SA, but by Googling "Mayascibe Axion."
Today, at the close, SA was also moving pretty slowly.
(AXPW): EOD buy, sell and unknown ended at 46,076, 77,750 and 31,500.
This gives a buy:sell ratio of 1:1.69, just inside the high of what I consider normal range on another stock for which I calculate this number. If my past experience holds, 1:1.3-1:1.7 is "normal" for "consolidation". Of course, it's only one other stock so we can't make book on it. But neither can we decide that one day like this indicates "selling pressure", especially when we know the distressed seller is on the field, we know his/her behavior and he/she has been acting as we predicted.
I normally also calculate buy:(sell+unknown), preferring to assume the worst case scenario. Today that is 1:2.37. I have no "normal" for this number as I'm fairly certain that the odds are good that not all should be "sells".
Considering volume, the low of $0.37 (only 5.6K shares), a penny below the rising support (assuming my old eyes could read those tiny pixels that accurately), bumping the congestion high *again* of $0.41 (albeit only 2K shares), knowing the distressed seller is on the field, ... Not a bad day at all.
BTW, if we are truly in consolidation, price will be trading predominately sideways and the rising support will not be in play. In this case, tomorrow or the next day could show lows in the $0.36-$0.37 range (give or take) again, or even higher, while the trend support would indicate low in the ~$0.39 range (allow some imprecision here). Top *could* go as high as ~$0.44 or so and still be consolidating.
A higher low and the marginally stronger volume today, 155.33K vs. yesterday's 139.47K, also allows that we may be moving up, either within the consolidation area or to a higher range. The *earliest* technical indicator I use, MFI, has left the oversold area and begun moving towards neutral, which indicates money flowing out of the stock (as does a "bad" buy:sell ratio) is abating. If that is telling the truth, it suggests there is not a lot of downward pressure and reinforces my thinking of today's buy:sell suggesting consolidation is occurring.
RSI also left oversold a couple days ago and is in neutral territory.
Most of the other oscillators and indicators I use are "meh" ATM, pretty much normal if we are in consolidation or have just turned to begin that process. They tend to lag. The Williams %R is pretty much centered at -45.8, having improved from -82.8 on 11/22, also suggesting consolidation to me. This one moves pretty quickly also.
Last thought: the distressed seller is the key ATM AFAICT. If they are done, we could quickly start an up trend. If not, we hope they show some sanity and don't go hog-wild as they did when we first noticed them - $0.3xxx lows several days.
It does look like they are being a bit more wily in their activities ATM.
All MHO, caveats about my status are a given, HardToLove
I got all 9K yesterday half an hour after market open. Still think it will drift lower. HTL, do you have an idea how many shares have traded since Oct 1?
HTL, it looks like the "distressed seller" is trying to get out end of year no matter what. Given there's not much going on between Christmas and New Years eve, they've got three more weeks. Fingers crossed, this will be it.
Total reported volume so far in Q-4 is 7,189,700 share. Reported sales by QT account for 237,200 shares on the sell side.
Known percentages of total reports volume for SS were 5.9% in Q-1; 15.4% in Q-2 and 7.9% in Q-3. Unfortunately there's no way to know what percentage of Q-4 has been SS and what percentage has been other holders who are fretting EZ or other market factors.
For the last two years, December has been a stronger volume month than September, October or November. With a bit of luck the pattern will hold this year.
For them that are interested I just tossed up an Instablog with monthly trading volumes since January 2008. I find it helps me visualize patterns a bit easier. http://seekingalpha.co...
We know that SS had 3.1 shares left by Oct.1. As John mentioned, QT is only responsible for maybe 10% of the volume. Depending on what percentage of the selling you want to attribute to SS, you can extrapolate how long the distressed selling will go on.
>CO3: On 11-21 in concentrator 22 I said "I bought 12.7K @ .37 over the last two days. Makes me wonder how much of the company our group owns?
Maya replied, "KentG: Really. Good question. I expect we're in the millions of shares held as a group.
HTL replied, Well, we have to exclude JP to get a fair assessment of "the group", no? I presume his holdings would bury us all several times over.
I started out wanting 10K shares and now I have 68.6K and my friend has 51K. I would venture to guess as a group we have a couple mil or more. We are both currently out of funds.
No tally being taken that I know of but I know the group keeps getting bigger by the day and the % we own as a group grows bigger daily as well.
When ABAT's top two financial managers resign and the President says the turmoil is making him ill too it doesn't look to good for the company, or stockholders does it?
The letter he wrote to the shareholders was so dishonest and pathetic it was almost comical. It really is a shame b/c apparently another Chinese company bites the dust in the face of fraud.
I haven't kept up with KNDI, but ABAT is a walking corpse, and CRTP is now a pink sheet OTC stock that closed at .68 cents today. I sold my CRTP at the high for the year last year of $4.40 with a very nice profit. I was very high on ABAT and CRTP during my early trading days - but that was because I believed the SEC filings. What a joke.
Along the way last year at various times I owned ABAT, CRTP, KNDI, NEWN, and C&D. Most of them are gone with the wind these days. I also made money last year on GFRE - another Chinese stock disaster that changed its symbol (but not its spots) to GURE. The only Chinese stuff I buy now are takeout dinners.
Anyone want to spend .40 plus a trading fee to move us up 2%. It would be fun to pretend we are taking part in this rally. (its ok I am sure it will happen by eod.)
(AXPW): Big seller enters - getting smart. 50K @ $0.41 at 10:31:43.
Based on past behavior, they should not be lowering for several hours.
And when they do lower, if we don't see an overwhelming surge of buying, should only drop a couple cents. If heavy buying exhausts the current offer quickly, they might evn bump it up a penny if they are thinking about the trading environment.
(AXPW): Got some profit-takers comeing in right now. But not substantial *presented* sizes: 16K @ $0.39 and 10K at $0.40. The 48K $0.41 offer is still there.
Volume should remain low, I think, as folks seem to be geared to entering a low bid, mostly, and waiting for the distressed seller or profit takers come down to meet the bid.
Raw buy:sell ATM is 1:1.81 and buy:(sell+unknown) is 1:2.89. Not good numbers, but not unusual for ealy morning trading. Volume so far is only 35K.
Thanks fellas, smaller fish than most of you guys. Still extremely interested for reasons beyond financial gain. This could truly be earth-moving, disruptive technology that helps the rich world ween itself off of Mid-East oil dependence. I look forward, and hope I'm alive to see a clean energy economy. I find Axion to potentially be a huge part of my drea.
BW...as stated by Paul Ingrassia... Reuters deputy editor and chief...curious. "Thomson Reuters welcomes four new members to its news organization. Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and former Dow Jones Newswires president Paul Ingrassia is joining the company in the new position of deputy editor-in-chief."...Ap... 2011
Wanted you kind folks to know that as I was clearing out my Junk email box (I get about 130/day, and am 100s behind due to the trip) I stumbled into an email from Thomas Granville, thanking me for attending and sharing what he termed an, "...an important validation."
With all attending the ribbon cutting gone, with the "normal" days work still ahead of him, I greatly appreciate this thoughtful gesture.
Ya gotta know someone who takes time to reach out after such a marquee moment he has been working so hard on for years, is a gentleman leader that truly appreciates his shareholders.
Just listened to your "Hype per mile" quote on CNBC. Amazing how many follow the hype without due diligence. EV not "ready for prime time" in the forseeable future. Along that vein, given your comment and automobile background, you might find an interesting development that BMW, Norfolk Southern, Virginity Energy et al have developing in the energy storage arena. A small company called Axion Power.
"Planes, trains and automobiles"
May be worth a look see via Seeking Alpha/John Petersen." **********************... Couldn't send via LinkedIn...tried the web site. Maybe if enough poking and prodding...ya neva know!
ooops!...too late!... Believe it or not just frustrated by the EV and other energy subsidies...more than just the stock price status...I know...I know....rrrright! Frankly, a do it yourselfer AXPW technology ignored by the "Hype per mile" crowd...frustrating!
Maybe my spelling error will give him pause to read! (I better double check my other correspondence!)
Oil Rig application Axion Power gives exclusive distributorship to RoseWater Energy Group: http://bit.ly/ru1GhG
I happened across this announcement and was shocked to find that Rosewater is apparently the new distributor for the Power cube to Oil rigs. This arrangement was made in July,2011. According to the Rosewater website Axion is their major partner. An oil rig can save up to 11,000 gallons of fuel per month.
I suspect we will need a new concentrator to break down how no one has heard of this or made this connection. All I know is that the powerpoint presentation on this website is very specific as to how this works.
Bangwhiz. I think Axion is showing you how they intend to build the sales force. By using exclusive distributorships with experienced companies with existing sales forces.
This appears to solve the power cube sales force issue in a major way. I would think Rosewater might be a good solution for railroads as well since both applications deal with large groups of batteries. All Rosewood would need to do is add some consultants familiar with railroad operations.
Interesting to note that the website says that they have been partnered with Axion since back in Febuary to develop residentail storage (i.e. small scale PowerCube). So they've been in this probably as long as Viridity, and making plans to sell the PowerCube once it was tested out. What is even more interesting is the press release on the same page for Oct 2011:
"RoseWater is pleased to announce it has secured the exclusive distributorship for its oil drill rig and Utility products within the Middle East and Northern Africa with Amlak International.
Amlak will have the exclusive rights to market and distribute the RoseWater product line in that region. Amlak has long established itself as one of the preeminent distributors within that region and looks forward to further developing that relationship and watching the product line become an integral part of the Middle East’s expanding energy need solutions."
See it...Utility Products...same wording they use for the PowerCube in the other press releases. So now the PowerCube has marketing in the Middle East and North Africa! Axion just went international! :-)
Looks like Axion is wroking with a lot of companies on various applications and from this site I presume Axion allowed partners to reveal Axion name if they want.
Axion only does PR when something substantial has been achived and complete. So let's just wait and see.
Here is another interesting tidbit. Rosewater Energy will be the distributor of the Power cube for home energy storage. Wow, that's a big market for a company I have never heard of.
There is very little information I can find about Rosewater Energy, a Canadian company. However, one of the news releases has a statement issued by a certain "Joe Piccirilli". Now this would be the same Joe Piccirilli that has been involved with Axion since the beginning. Axion was formerly a Canadian company. I'm not sure what Mr. Piccirilli's relationship is but he was one of the named defendants in the notorious Mega-C lawsuit.
I'm sure John is well aware of Joe Piccirilli and can fill us in on his expertise and relationship to Axion. This appears to me to be the another Granville moment. Where all the behind the scenes work simply comes to fruition without a lot of fanfare.
Of course since the only information about Rosewater Energy can be found on their website there is a possibility that the information was not suppose to surface just yet.
When I do a search for Joe Piccirilli I get two guys. One guy who ran the Iron City Brewery in Pittsburgh and then a guy down in Florida whose address matched the address on the website.
As I understand it, Joe Piccirilli was one of the original investors who, along with TG and Mr. Averill and many others, invested $50,000 each. Along the way they all invested a lot more and eventually were all partners in the lawsuit to get control of the assets after attempts were made to defraud them, the investors/lenders. I am sure JP can fill us in with more detail than we even want to hear. Apparently Mr. Piccirilli is still in the picture as part of the original investor group trying to turn this "battery idea" into a business. My 2 cents worth.
I know both Joe Piccirilli and Mario Bottero. In fact both of them spent some time with Rachel and me in Switzerland this summer. They've been working on putting together a marketing team for the residential, oil field and utility scale PowerCube products for over a year now. Until today, I did not know that they'd said anything publicly and believed it was not my place to do so.
After spending some time clicking links on the Rosewater Energy site, I learned a number of new things about the technical specs and configuration of the PowerCube. For those who enjoy digging into the detail, there's quite a bit of information.
IM) in 2005. http://bit.ly/v9tWrA Previously, Pic was president of the FL based regional retailer Sound Advice, which was sold to Tweeter Home Entertainment Group.
Unfortunately I can't fill in as much detail on Mario's background.
I'm not a salesman but I've met more than my share over the years. Pic and Mario strike me as top-flight sales professionals.
What a wonderful, surprising revelation. I wonder how the news on the Rosewater website dating July and August could have been missed. Makes me almost hope the stock price will stay this low a little bit longer so I can grab more. But as Axion and its partners are getting more and more forthcoming and the distressed sellers are running out of stocks, those days will become old very soon. This post made my day.
I figured you knew him but didn't ask when I talked with him. Since you didn't say otherwise I will assume you trust him as much as the other management team at Axion. The more I learn about the Axion insiders the more impressed I become. How did this group of successful people ever come together to find and fund and then save the PbC technology?
I tried to edit the last comment and screwed up somehow. Sorry about that.
Joe and Mario have been investors in the PbC for over a decade, first in Mega-C and then in Axion. Joe also serves as trustee for the Mega-C stockholders trust which will eventually distribute about 3 million Axion shares to innocent investors in Mega-C.
Joe's first company Sound Advice was sold to Tweeter Home Entertainment Group for a reported $150 million. He then moved on to Avad, a smart home technology distributor that they built to $200 million in sales before selling it to Ingram Micro (IM) in 2005.
I just picked up the phone and called Mr. Piccinilli.
What an enlightening conversation. A great guy who was gracious enough to spend his time filling me in on whats up.
Joe Piccinilli was a founding member of Axion Power. He is a major shareholder of Axion. He has spent his life in marketing and sales. I believe he built up one company from scratch to being a publicly traded company. He and his new partners are becoming the marketing arm for Axion.
He is not involved with Automotive OEMs. He is not involved with Norfolk Southern.
Rosewater will be marketing to the oil industry A power cube will have about a two year payback for an oil rig. Even though that is a huge savings (11,000 gallons per month) he believes the diminished carbon emissions is more important to the "green" look the oil companies want to project.
Rosewater sees the home utility market to be a huge winner in the near future. The utility companies want to be able to deliver smoother power to homes due to the advanced electronics in a home. The utilities are mandated to provide a certain percentage of renewable energy into the grid. The Power cube can accomplish the storage tasks on a small scale that has the potential to make a monster market. Not all the pieces are in place just yet to make that happen but the market potential is Huge.
I am excited to see that Axion has made a commitment to Sales. I am also happy that Axion will not be spending a lot of their precious capital on developing a sales team. Subbing this function out to a major shareholder can get the job done and still retain decent oversight of the function. Focusing on sales implies to me that Axion does not see production as a problem. This is good news and comports with what TG said at the last call.
Again, all seems good on the Axion front. Just another welcome surprise by TG.
It would be nice to get some type of statement from Axion on this. Perhaps, TG as well did not expect this to be public at this time.
Futurist was Joe surprised by your call? Very interesting and seems to be good news...I have just never seen things work like this. However, it makes sense...Joe knows sales, he knows the PbC and powercube, so why not start a marketing arm for Axion and the PowerCube for the oil rig industry, that is a shareholder who believes in his investment, for sure.
Joe was not at all surprised by my call. I introduced myself as an Axion shareholder and he said " well, we have something in common". He had a couple of minutes before going into a meeting and was excited to give me a quick version of his vision.
There is a wealth of information on the RoseWater site. A couple of things jump out. The original Axion/RoseWater partnership appears to have been established in an MOU back in February of this year. RoseWater has the right for oil rigs and utilities. Rosewater has only one other partner beside Axion - Amlak from Bahrain was added in October.
The July release claims "“With over 3,500 oil drill rigs world wide in operation, the savings in fuel and emissions is truly astounding.” added Joe Piccirilli of RoseWater Energy Group. “Even with a 10% market penetration, that would represent the savings of over $ 165,000,000.00 in saved fuel costs and the equivalent of removing over 60,000 vehicles from the road."
The more I read, the more incredible Axion as an investment appears to be... ...as long as some company doesn't relize the same thing and buy them out while they are still dirt cheap.
Interestingly that Feb. MOU would have been around the same time Axion's price began its ascent to $1.29, before falling from the distressed sellers pressure.
Thanks for the link. Looking over the PowerCube specs given there, I see some inconsistencies with other documents.
Axion's data sheet on "Sure Energy" UPS batteries include a 30HT battery with same dimensions as those given in the PC spec sheet, but where the PC spec sheet gives weight as 73 lbs the "Sure Energy" spec sheet states 93.5 lbs.
Rosewater Energy's FAQ on PC's for the drilling market states that the PowerCube incorporates 16 strings of 40 batteries. 16 X 40 = 640 batteries (which is consistent with statements Maya heard while touring a PowerCube on the 28th.
The 93 lb version is most likely an old type lead acid battery and NOT a PbC. PbC versions have lead replaced by carbon in 1/2 of the electrodes and are therefore about 1/4 lighter.
When I look at Rosewater's depictions of both Powercube configurations, I count 14 racks not 16 racks of 40.. Then I note 14x40 = 560.. So I wonder what's what... maybe it's 640 of the standard case batteries, or later, 560 of the 30HTs to make up one 500KW / 250KWh Powercube...
Seems to be some overlap in claimed representation to utility industry between Rosewater and Viridity/PJM. I could use some clarification on that.
I have confidence in JP's endorsement of "Pic" as a salesman, but I do not see an oil background for Mr. Piccirilli. I am glad to see marketing to that market, but I wonder if "Pic" is handling it more out of long association with Axion than out of competence and experience in the industry. So I have only cautious confidence in this relationship.
I looked at the website for the Middle East rep that supposedly is representing Rosewater and Axion and their website has a page of the firms they represent. That page does not mention representing Axion or Rosewater or anything about batteries or the power industry. They obviously are putting little effort into representing Rosewater so that, too, gives me concern.
Viridity's business is managing dynamic demand response networks rather than selling hardware. They basically want to sign up every PowerCube owner as a client and maximize that owner's economic benefit. There is some potential for overlap, but cooperation seems more likely than competition.
There's a big difference between selling electrical equipment to the oil industry and knowing how to drill a well. I spoke with Pic this morning before responding to the original post and he has high expectations for their middle east partner. It's not often the oil industry gets to put on a green arm band and there's apparently a lot of interest in being able to do that with a two-year payback.
Rick, Joe was very forthcoming to me that his experience is in sales and marketing, not oil. But there again he isn't drilling for oil. He is selling an energy storage solution that he has been involved with for 7 years. He is very experienced in selling high end electronics to the home market. 3,100 oil derricks using 600 batteries apiece is a niche market. Millions of homeowners using 50 batteries is ,well, a market I'm glad he has experience in serving.
He might ask their middle east partner to include Rosewater among its public list of companies they represent. That might give credence to his confidence in them.
I suppose it might, but I'd be happier with a purchase order.
In the final analysis the number of guys on the planet who have built and sold two marketing and distribution companies for over $100 million each could probably be counted on one hand. Joe's going for the hat trick and I won't second guess him or underestimate his capabilities or commitment.
Very good point. That would be a reasonable request for him to make. I suspect that the Amlak website isn't updated often. Its really a mysterious site. From the site one cannot tell what the company does.
Its mission is " providing a superior service and products in a business environment..."
Its vision is "to setup the standard in the right business environment"
The CEO's statement is in awkward English. Proofreading for grammar was simply not done.
I suspect that this is one of those companies that leverage their investment acumen and oil dollars into creating relationships between overseas product suppliers and middle east oil companies. I imagine that finding a trustworthy business partner is difficult. However, I am only looking at tea leaves and a poor website. But no one would go to this website to find a certain product.
I am however interested in a relationship that puts Axion and a company called Amlac International Investment, together.
HMMM. oil money, energy storage company, investments. TG, what have you up your sleeve?
I could care less about a website. I have a few buddies who do financial calc for oil companies, however most of them are in the pipeline business. Called them up this am and none of have heard of the tech. One guy interested from a personal investment standpoint so I directed him here.
The only concern I have is sales guys for the oil patch are usually a little different. There will not be any orders just like trains, autos without some test units being run in the field and more than 1. Hopefully one in the Ford Nat Gas (Okie) and one say in the Marcellus. My guess is that for an oil guy they will be concerned about this tech especially since they are often in remote areas. Without a local sales and tech guy to repair quickly if needed this will be a hard run. Potentially very lucrative but as of now I'm saying further out than both rail and auto fi there are not active tests out there.
It's funny that one can get a better image and understanding of how a PowerCube is put together and works on the RoseWater Webpage than one can on the Axion webpage.
Well done brochure which clearly describes the unique selling point of the PbC - charge acceptance and reduced TCO. I became a little bit sceptical about Axion in the past months, but I got a feeling the waiting game is finally coming to an end.
One thing missing is that they show life as 2,500 cycles for 100% DOD... how often in real world applications will the batteries actually be discharged all the way to this level? I think it would be greatly helpful if they included another data point, say number of life cycles at 50% DOD (or whatever is the most realistic, relevant DOD for the application)... I think doing that would better highlight the PbC's true astonishing durability.. (if I have that right)
The other piece that is missing is JP's dream that the batteries can be recharged by capturing the resistance force of the drill bit going down the pipe. No where in this schematic does it call for that. I suspect that is in the future if it is possible. Without a constant state of charging the batteries probably will be fully discharged more often than a stop/start environment. Therefore the need to show when they will go bad after full discharge. But if the battery is drained all the way every day ( that does not sound likely or possible) that would be 7 years. With a two year payback period it is a nice investment and a renewable source of business for Axion.
heck John, nothing so far says your envisioned application isn't viable.. seems to me, once they already have the powecube onsite for the generator augment duties, adding the capability to recapture/reuse the lift energy shouldn't be too much additional trouble/investment and just adds to the fun...
Off-road diesel is about $2.50 a gallon. Call it $36,000 a month in savings by the time you figure hauling costs. I'd peg the all in price at $750,000-$1,000,000?
See, your accountants crystal ball is working fine. About $1,000,000 for the entire cube. Now I don't have the answer to this one but would this put our PbCs in about the right price range for stationary systems? In other words are we a better deal than other choices?
Ener1 got about $5 million per MW for the systems they were selling Russia and it's unclear what A123 is charging, but all in including control electronics it doesn't seem out of the competitive range.
560 batteries at say $300 per + shipping container enclosure 10K+ racks 10K + hvac 10K + power electronics 300K.. add all together and still sounds like one heck of a margin (50%) if they can get that price..
Oh I think our new marketing company is ready to yell out the price. Would you start up a marketing company for a product that was not price competitive? Who will compete with it? Lead acid that wears out quickly? This isn't lithium where you have to sell it at a loss. This is a product 5 times better at twice the cost. It is a product that pays for itself in 2 years. It is a product that allows you to charge the utility companies for using it. Oh I think the price is simply beautiful.
You also need to remember that we're sitting on the upper left hand corner of the learning curve with a brand new battery technology and a brand new manufacturing technology. The savings over the next few years should be very substantial, although I hope Axion never starts promising economies of scale and uses them to increase the bottom line instead of reducing the top line.
You have to add insurance/warranty, factor in the development cost of the BMS etc. But still a nice business indeed. 56.000 batteries a year, i.e. 100 PowerCubes would bring get them to 100 Mio in revenue. I don't know how many oil rigs exist in Bahrain ;-)
Think of all the shale gas drilling in this country. Lots of rigs out there that can save money. Oil now back to $100/bl, which pushes up diesel fuel price in the near future.
One possible fly in the ointment: lots of wells have associated gas that used to be (and still is in many cases and places) flared. (CPST) has made a lot of inroads as the source of electricity for those things, especially in the off-shore and remote areas.
IIRC, a typical 1MW installation runs a lot less than $1M+ (but don't quote me) and is quite a reliable generator (40K-80K hours before overhaul and maintenance is only a yearly filter change, depending on environment, ~6 hours maintenance per year) with uptime of 99.99% (per CPST presentations), remote monitoring and all those sorts of goodies.
For any rig in which flare gas is usable and considered "free", a microturbine might be a preferred choice.
However, there's still a good potential market there as the traditional IC diesels represent a substantial sunk cost on existing platforms/sites and require much more frequent maintenance and don't last near as long before overhaul is needed (20K hour: top end, 40K hours: bottom end, per CPST presentation). Uptime is around 88% (120 hours planned maintenance/year per CPST presentation). If the PowerCube allows them to run a lot less (possibly via the regenerative process JP has mentioned?), I think that may be a strong selling point.
There's also those areas that feed off of the grid and may have no on-site generation. They would also be potential candidates for both reliability and grid-cost reasons. With many new wells being in more and more harsh/remote areas, the sites that have grid availabilty might be getting less common over time.
So a Powercube may be able to easily justify itself in *many* of these situations as it could be the most cost-effective solution. Trashing on old IC in favor of a Cappy would not be all that attractive when you can just add a PowerCube and keep on truckin'.
For new rigs, if a regenerative capture process, which JP has suggested, is available, I think the PowerCube could also be a preference, but there is still the issue of flare gas, which is beginning to be heavily frowned upon in many places. So some solution for that would still be needed and I guess that could swing a decision to something like a Capstone microturbine.
If someone really wants to get into this area, a good starting point is Pumps and Service.
They have been making big inroads in the shale plays for CPST and are well know in the O & G industry. They are quite aggressive in applying new products and probably know the business as well as anyone.
>Futurist ... To be exact, the week ending 25 Nov 2011 had 2,484 rigs in operating in N.America. At the end of October there were 3,722 in operation worldwide.
CPST too has had an intriguing story for quite a while ... and their stock performance has been dismal ... though I think they've had to issue a lot of stock along the way.
Yeah, I used to be enamored with their product, but the problem is that their margins have always been terrible. They keep selling the dream that huge improvements in margins are just around the corner ...
Maybe with the eventual upgrade to the C250 things will improve.
I'm still enamored of the products, it's the consistent failure to meet goals on time that aggravates me.
Margins are improving, sort of on (a slightly slipped) plan. Last Q was +6% and first-ever profit of $0.00. But I got concerned that even though current inventory is now providing a greater percentage of lower cost stuff, it may not be enough to offset the higher cost from their increased head count while revenues haven't ramped enough to keep from going backwards, near-term.
Just cautious in wondering if they let their preparing for the future get ahead of the revenues available to support it and stay on track towards near-term profitability.
When I first started with it, they were strongly managing to cash flow. Now I haven't heard that phrase in a couple of years. They've improved a lot in many regards but still can't deliver on the profitability they've stated is coming soon a few times.
With the C250, C370, austinetic alloys, ... still 12-18 months out and then I presume California certification to follow and then UL listing, I don't see the product as a near-term "savior". Those will help with increased efficiency, expansion of applicability, lower COGS, better margin, ... They still need to keep on-plan and manage to cash flow without getting ahead of themselves.
I thought the first couple years of the new management team great strides were made. The last couple I felt they were less disciplined in execution of their plan.
Drich "A 10% market penetration is a doable goal and would be good margins but the market is not huge. "
The market is not huge yet but this decade we could see a significant boost in rigs thanks to natural gas production as long as environmentalists and others get their heads on straight. (of course, I don't know much about this stuff but I am assuming NG rigs could use the PowerCube as much as Oil rigs.)
With the C250, C370, austinetic alloys, ... still 12-18 months out and then I presume California certification to follow and then UL listing, I don't see the product as a near-term "savior".
GSFVF.PK/GFS.TO (Gasfrac) uses Propane instead of water to Frack ... an interesting Speculation to check out. Proved in Canada, coming to US. Chevron has recently tried them out in US and will be big news one way or the other if they come on board.
I think it's time may be near. Unfortunately, I think the general EZ fear and lack of a strong impetus in the energy area until now has been the cause of its fall from the $13 range in March to its current $7-$8 range.
In this environment, I think fear has had an unjustified effect on some of these small-cap energy plays.
More details on the Obama-Clinton initiative: http://buswk.co/vFJUwa and look ... SA is shortening URLs! (good news, bad news, I always think twice before clicking on any shortened URL posted on a web site)
I don't know either, but I'm going to guess that there are 30+ that I can hit with a stone in NE PA; probably close to 100 in the Marcellus, and more out drilling the Utica in Ohio. I'd like to dig into this a bit further. I think I might like to throw my hat in the ring. If any of you can send some contact info for Joe Pic, that would be greatly appreciated.
Eggwis The author of this article (Also about about drilling for NG.) Has money on gasfrac as well as the one listed and wtblanchard put a few links to gsfvf in the comments. http://seekingalpha.co...
I'm impressed by Joe Piccinilli 's credentials but Rosewood Energy seems to be a start up with no established distribution within the oilfield industry. I would rather see someone with existing business relationships in the oilfield power business than any start up. Someone like a Halliburton as an example.
Generally speaking, the fast track is to partner with the established players. The home energy play is interesting, but with today's housing market this is way down the road IMHO to any meaningful sales. I don't see any quick sales hitting the balance sheet, but I admire the people involved. Perhaps a year from now my doubtful position will result in a lot of egg on my face.
My estimates of a business can be way off the mark. Back in DC where I lived for about 40 years there was a rug cleaning business with a drop off location. I told my girlfriend what a stupid business! Who's going to drop off rugs to be cleaned? Little did I know that the company "Joe Hadid" specialized in Persian rugs and had outlets in every major Washington DC moneyed enclave like Georgetown, Potomac, etc.
Then a commercial appeared on TV that my girlfriend took great delight in telling me about. It pictured a stylish woman telling the world that when a fire in her home harmed the Persian rug she played on as a child Joe Hadid had restored it to exactly as it was back then. She delights in describing new Joe Hadid commercials to me and singing their catchy radio and TV jingle. I bet Joe Hadid is sitting in a hot tub right this minute with a 20 something beauty while I am sitting on thousands of shares of Axion underwater.
You need to remember that Avad was huge in the integrated smart-house technology market and the idea is to fold smart-house, solar and storage into an integrated package for the Malibu set who want the green creds of being off-grid and driving a Tesla roadster. It's not a Joe Lunchbucket marketing plan. Every time I've represented a small company that's partnered with a big one, it's been an Exide class case of the big fish inviting the small one for lunch. Your goal is to sell a product - not a service.
I agree Bang. It seems to me to be a "why not?" business venture for RoseWater. Axion could use some sales people with their feet on the ground doing what they can to sell the PowerCube in the Oil rig and residential market. So unless the relationship with RoseWater would potentially hurt already blossoming relationships with Vridity or others I see no reason why they shouldn't try it out and see what happens. At this point I don't hang my hat on it like I did with the Vridity/PJM announcements. Still, not "bad" news. Also, this is most likely the reason we never heard anything about it from Axion..until, of course, they announce a sale.
Personally, I prefer that we have an experienced, successful and highly motivated seller.
I feel that the Power Cube could just get lost among all the other options and products sold by larger distributors.
The larger distributors would have no incentive to sell the Power Cube v. some alternative product that they also sell that may have higher margins for the distributor.
I'm very happy to have these guys selling the Power Cube.
Bang, I thought you would be thrilled to see that a sales department has been formed. At no cost to Axion out of pocket. A trusted Axion insider will now build a sales department disguised as a marketing company. Who says they won't hire an oil field professional and tap that market quickly? If TG had to hire a officer to be in charge of Sales and Marketing I can see where he would hire Joe P. ( I hate to use the nickname Pic but I guess if JP says it is not discourteous then we should. His last name is way to hard to type correctly) I am just ecstatic that Axion has made an arrangement and are now headed for sales. Obviously they are on the ball enough to get help overseas from oil specialist. I would have thought it would have put you over the top.
Futurist> I just see the sales curve as slower than going with an organization with deep roots and an active order book in the oil and gas and utility industry. I am impressed by Joe P.'s past experience. If they bring on people with existing working relationships in the oil and utility business then that changes my view dramatically. Lacking that, then I am less enthusiastic. I've done ground zero start ups (no direct experience, limited direct relationships (or none at all) - they take a year or two to bear fruit. I'd just like a more established company representing the product line.
On the plus side, Joe P. has impressive credentials and is obviously the real deal as a salesman and businessman. I'm rooting for him and wish him well.
Am reminded of Gasfrac ... proved itself in Canada with lots of small exploration firms; now trying to break in to US market. Chevron has recently tested with them, and we're waiting with bated breath to see if the win or lose that "seal of approval." They also recently had a management change where the new CEO has much stronger contacts with Texas oil interests, which I think will be important to the company.
We may have to do some "loss leaders" for a while to get a toe hold in this market ... always tricky to prove yourself, and then charge what you're worth ... which often has relatively little to do with what it costs to build the product.
Related ... rebates on cars ... it didn't take long before they became expected ... hence the "tricky" reference above.
The difference is that Axion has a cube up and running and can prove its worth every day. This kind of real world testing is invaluable. All you have said is true. I'm just thinking that the hill isn't as big as you project.
This is LA Times this AM - seems from this that Axion shouldn't have tough time raising $:
"Energy storage companies...led clean technology investment during the third quarter by raking in $421 million in venture capital, a 1,932% increase from the same period last year, according to an Ernst & Young report..."Some of the trepidation about the overall state of the economy is starting to subside a little bit," said John Gartner, a research director for Pike Research. "And it is time to get back into the market, and clean tech is an area that still has a lot of upside."
brishwain: Great catch. Did you read this performance below? If true, the PbC blows away what Leyden Energy is producing. And that's an understatement.
"A typical lithium-ion battery can be charged 350 to 400 times before its performance starts to weaken. Batteries produced by Leyden Energy can be recharged more than 800 times until performance begins to deteriorate."
The PbC can't claim the specific energy of lithium, which will always win when size and weight are mission critical. When size and weight are not mission critical, the PbC will be a very strong competitor in terms of cycle-life, durability and recyclability.
There are several dozen BCI standard battery sizes. A complete list of external dimensions is here http://bit.ly/rXeP68
HT30 is simply a large heavy duty commercial truck case size that apparently racks and stacks well in the PowerCube and maximizes the amount of energy that can be stored in a given footprint.
It's not magical or a new generation, it's merely product optimization.
Why would a homeowner want a "residential" powercube. In my jurisdiction (Plano, TX) there is no demand charge or off peak rate for residential. And I have never heard of a complaint about power surges or uneven flow that might affect electronic equipment. Are things different in other areas?
There is a pretty well defined niche of consumers who want to be as free from the grid as possible. There is also an increasing number of places where the grid is growing increasingly unreliable. Even tiny small of a 300 million person population base can be a worthwhile market niche, particularly if you have a rolodex full of high-end builders around the country who cater to the kinds of consumers who splash out big money for smart house technology and tend to be geeky enough to want solar and storage because it's cute.
Rick: Power issues exist in my area (almost like Honduras!). Though some of it might be due to a bridge being rebuilt just off property that has been closed for over a year, my power is been out so many times this year I have a hate on for digital clocks. I'm guessing at least 1% of the time total, which doesn't sound like a lot, but when twice your out of power for over a day, you think about Axion's minicube.
I should add that this has been occurring for years.
The power has been out so frequently this year, an hour here, two hours there, that the subject of noisy generators was broached by the homeowners' association meeting held this past Nov. 5th. The minutes of the meeting recorded me stating there will be a much quieter solution coming in the form of batteries in about 2 or 3 years--much quieter than a bunch of generators.
>Ricknplano ... I live over by Addison and where I live suffers from line voltage problems all the time. Our substation was built 30 years ago to accommodate growth of about 20% less than presently lives there. The real estate doesn't exist to build or even expand the one we have. The power company has the work-around of 2 breakers feeding from other yards with many seconds response time (if we're lucky), otherwise it's lights out while circuit reset (or blow).
My neighborhood is a fine candidate for a PowerCube/ UPS system. Three computers so far have been blown by under voltage/low current problems.
It's not only to be cute for everyone. Not to be overly dramatic, but If you live in rural fire country, your water comes from an electric well pump, and when the lines go down during a fire, your generator is the only thing to save you. The farther you are out on a line, the more chances for interruptions and outages. Interruptions and outages that take down your internet, satellite, phone, water, everything. A smallish powercube UPS that's always ready to step in and feed your hoses and sprinklers and keep your comms up and refrigeration going for a day or so would be a very nice thing to have. At the right price of course.. Add in some affordable solar and it would be even more awesome. Ok, and then I woke up... ;)
Out here in my boonies, we have *frequent* low-voltage, "blinks:, etc. For the price of a few batteries and some revenue capability (maybe?) I'd lay out a few bucks if the payback period was reasonable.
In fact, it could be worked out with the utility company to pay out of my revenue stream, ... maybe? I mean, they sent me free mercury-laden flourescent bulbs to help meet their green mandate, so why not this?
It would save me the cost of BBS for all my computers! :-))
Have no fear HTL... VUOCD.OB and their mercury free ESL bulbs are on the way! Coming to Lowes this month. Now if we can get the gubment/utiities to subsidize them just like them nasty CFL bulbs...
Now if we can get them to last any near as long as they claim!
So far I figure their lifetime estimates must have been made in a geologically-stabilized, sound-proof, temperature-controlled, semi-evacuated, perfectly-regulated electrically-supplied chamber.
That doesn't describe my house and not one of the bulbs has made it over a couple of years.
Thank goodness I don't have electric heating - no telling how far I'd have to jack the thermostat up to compensate for the heat generation lost by switching to those "cool" bulbs! ;-))
Axion Power Concentrator 25: Beginning Nov.28, 2011 RE: Viridity and the Power Cube 268 comments
It was a dreary day as I drove the rolling hills toward New Castle this morning; low wispy clouds, lingering, the kind cell tower tops disappear into, a fine, intermittent misting rain, weather so typical for a late November western Pennsylvania day. Having lived a solid hunk of my life in Pittsburgh, I found the 54 degree temperature quite satisfactory.
I came armed with an umbrella of which I never used, as the inclement weather abated, if almost magically just in time.
As I entered the white temporary tent thrown up to shield the attendees from the elements, the first bit of news I learned was that the CEO of Viridity was unable to make the ribbon cutting ceremony. Maybe some folks were disappointed, but I was not, because I came to see the Power Cube, up and running, hooked into the grid. And it was.
I would guess there were about 40 or so who made the journey, some from New York City, Florida, the Viridity folks from eastern Pennsylvania. Late arriving stragglers may have taken the number to 50.
I kind of want to scream loudly: Hey world! Do you not realize what happened today!
This is an incredible development that caught all of us Axion Concentrator followers completely by surprise. A classic right out of left field potential bonanza for us first floor level investors. This is much bigger than any of us could have ever expected, or than any of us ever imagined.
We shareholders now share in the ownership of the first of its kind, multi-purpose, battery powered virtual generation device, that can take in power, or discharge power at an ultra fast rate of 250 milliseconds response time. I am not sure what, if any device out there, battery, flywheel, molten salt, or whatever, save capacitors, that can keep up with, or even come close to what the Power Cube can deliver in the electrical demand response market.
I also want to reiterate what I learned when I attended my first Axion Power function, the Shareholders Conference, June 20, 2011. Everyone I talked to was most cordial, informative, and of course, very up beat. Many knew about the Axion Power Concentrator.
Beyond the startling 250 milliseconds fact here are some other fascinating tidbits I learned today:
--I should start off with perhaps the most significant, and that is that testing of the PbC continues, and now has passed, "100s of thousands of light cycle discharges and charges." If only I could age so gracefully.
--CEO, Thomas Granville, stated that the energy storage sector will be a $122B industry by 2022. He joked that he did not think Axion would get all of it.
--The Power Cube is movable, such that electric companies can move Power Cubes to where they are needed most, such as demands that the time of year brings; north in the colder months, and then south in the warmer months.
--The Power Cube can be moved via a tractor trailer (the Cube is 40 feet long), or shipped in an elements protected shipping container. I deduce that this means the Power Cube can now be shipped internationally, safely.
--We should all offer thanks to FERC, for lowering the necessary watts needed to help stabilize the grid. Otherwise, PJM, Viridity, and Axion Power would not have been able to cut today's ribbon. Axion is one of the first to follow the new rule making, implement and deliver a system, from building out the Cube to testing, to large string application that provides rapid response. And rapid response is key, because with the new October 24, 2011 rules, the faster the response, the more owners and users of the Power Cube get paid by PJM. This is a key advantage the Power Cube delivers.
--The PbC can deliver 2500 full discharges with 95% efficiency, and charges significantly faster with partial state charging called, "Duty cycle." (I'm not completely sure what all this means.)
--The half megawatt Power Cube consists of 600 plus PbC batteries (this number is up for debate, as I also heard 500 plus batteries).
--The power Cube is in active and live communication with Viridity and PJM. Today, the Power Cube was following its instructions to, "Do nothing." I'm guessing because the local grid was stable.
--As in the latest conference call, Thomas Granville spoke of other potential PbC applications in hybrid locomotive, hybrid vehicle, solar, wind and military.
--I probed a few questions about the HT30, and was returned that indeed the HT30 is the next generation, more powerful than the PbC, but that was it. It appears the HT30, and what it can do, is under tight wraps,
Speaking of tight wraps...
--I noticed not far from where the ribbon was cut a small mountain of battery cases atop stacked pallets. Doing a very brief and possibly inaccurate count, I believe what I saw was some 54,000 empty battery casings, neatly wrapped in plastic, and hollow sounding when I tapped a couple. Whether they are destined to become PbC or flooded batteries I did not ascertain. If I am off on this number, it's because I chose to error on the side of caution...a lower amount.
My take away from this journey is that Axion has quietly stunned the world with how well the Power Cube can interact with the grid.
It's only a matter of time until large investing houses understand that what Axion Power is doing is unique, in unexplored territory, where the only investment models out there are "start up" investing models that can aid in investment decisions. The only problem is that Axion Power is so unique, there just may be no investing model out there for the big players to use.
When I left Axion Power headquarters, I did not see nary a dreary cloud during my return drive to my hotel, but rather, if almost innately, felt the growing and maturing confidence of all present at the ceremony today about Axion Power's future.
####
I will be "off the Seeking Alpha grid" tomorrow, while I make the return trip to Philadelphia.
Instablogs are blogs which are instantly set up and networked within the Seeking Alpha community. Instablog posts are not selected, edited or screened by Seeking Alpha editors, in contrast to contributors' articles.
Share this Instablog
This post has 268 comments:
We can calculate how long they will be dumping stock all we want, but its like rain - it will stop when it stops. Personally, I am enjoying picking up cheap shares at SS and Quercus's expense and planning my next buy next month..
If the selling plows on into the end of Q1 and start of Q2 (not an impossibility given Quercus's and SS's total holdings) then Axion may have to get creative with its financing. I assume they will compute their options and make the right decision when a decision needs to be made.
I thank you for your time and energy spent exploring for all f us today. Your statement that the power cube appears more valuable than other devices ,due to its speed, is a tantalizing morsel to chew on. A competitive advantage over other devices.
Again thanks for your hard work today and on the concentrator.
There were so many questions I wanted to ask. But they were mostly all non-Viridity, non-grid based--not about what today was about.
Today was a celebration of the Power Cube, and the PbC's grid related abilities. And I decided to leave it at that...which is more than enough for this trip.
I truly had to stifle my curiosities. But I did not stifle my congratulations to all Axion employees.
Very generous. We are in your debt.
I wondered, any inkling from today with respect to how the economics play out with the various Power Cube applications?
Many thanks once again
I'm rather clumsy in doing such analysis, but I'm SWAGuessing that the grid implications could rival, or even exceed what the automotive or raillroad sectors could eventually generate, at least, especially at first, as Axion eases its way into the new and evolving stop/start generation of hybrid vehicles, and hybrid locomotives.
Thanks for the information from today's RCC. As many questions as it answers, it brings up just as many questions. Until they start selling these things, and we get a handle on who's buying and in what configuration, we're not going to have a lot of the answers.
Obvious ones:
1) When do they plan on active tests of the PowerCube or will all tests be on a strict grid need only?
2) How long will it take them to ramp up from 100 KW to 500 KW?
3) Still have no idea how much a PowerCube will cost?
4) Does PJM have any plans to purchase other PowerCubes for their own, mobile back-up systems or will they only be integrating ones owned by their users into their system?
5) Were there representatives from other possible end users for the PowerCube there?
6) Were there possible financing representatives?
I know...so many questions. Let's just hope all those casing that Maya saw were for PbC batteries and they will all be filled and ready to sell really soon!
I believe what I saw today is second only to the Viridity/PJM/Axion Power Cube announcement, is that inventory of empty battery cases stacked outside the Clover Leaf facility.
I JUST got around to crunching some numbers. And if I am correct (but I know I'm not) about the estimation of 54,000 battery cases...Yikes!
What I saw was 24 batteries per layer with 9 layers per skid (pallet). That gives us 216 battery casings per skid. These per skid numbers are accurate.
What follows is best guess stuff.
The skids were 10 deep and about 15 wide. Again, I want to make sure everyone knows is that the 10 deep and 15 wide was a guess, not an actual count.
However...
So now we get this: 216 casings per skid times 10 deep and 15 wide. That equals 32,400 battery casings. Again, I'm not sure if it was exactly 10 skids deep by 15 skids wide.
But wait a minute! There was a mountain of skids, and I can not recall, nor did I make note of how many skids high the skids were stacked. The pile of skids was higher in some parts of the "mountain" than others, as one can imagine, because empty battery cases don't weigh very much.
Ack!
So let's say the stacks were piled just four high, and all of a sudden what I was looking at was not 54,000 battery cases, but more like about 130,000 empty cases (129,600 to be exact in all my inexactness).
I understand that those familiar with Google Maps can zoom in on those pallets inorder to grasp how many stacks there are.
I'll let you kind folks ponder the potential revenues these empty battery casings represent of which I just calculated. Clue: If true, it's staggering. I can not believe what my I-Phone calculator is saying.
Again, this is not exact. And I feel queazy in even making this comment, knowing how much Axion likes and needs to protect pipsqueak commoners like me from knowing this kind of info.
Maybe Thomas was not kidding today, when he told me to wet my fingers and touch around inside the Power Cube!
2, 3, 6............. 1 ? ;>)
Thanks, Maya. Above and beyond the call, for sure.
Maya,
Just did it, but unfortunately what you zoom in on isn't a current image, but the one in Google's archive. It's still amazing how detailed an image you can get of the outside of the plant, but it's not current.
Glad you (LT) took time to get into Google Maps. I only was reporting what I had heard, and that was that the stacks of battery casings was visible by using Google satellite technology.
One thing is for sure, I did see that "mountain" of battery casings. I only wish I was not otherwise distracted so that I could have done a better job at gaining a more exact amount.
Believe when I say this...I was so close to asking TG, "So what's with that big stack of stuff piled all high behind this tent?" today, as we talked about other stuff while sharing a bite at the spread full of delicious cookies and sandwiches.
Without a doubt, that was the question today I should have posed.
BTW: There was no Q&A session following today's presentation. I was waiting...for any question to be asked. Think I had to hold down my raising up "questioning hand."
Decorum observed and appreciated, as I likely would have asked questions not relevent to what today was all about.
If we assume that the agreement for the flooded batteries with East Penn is the agreement was 86% of $2.0M sales or $1.72M. If you assume a selling price of $50(?) to East Penn that is only 34k batteries sold. Using inventory turns of 1.0 -1.3 of 34k would mean if it was all for East Penn you are talking about 26-34k flooded batteries.
Therefore your assumption of 50k-100k cases is significant as it would either signal a much higher sales expected in the quarter and/or it ties into John P's comment in a previous concentrator where he compared inventory to payables vs prior periods and came up with the idea that there may be a new inventory build for PbC and not flooded. Add in the fact that Axion reaffirmed their guidance with regards to the flooded battery contract to the high end of the $8.0M annual range which fit with last quarters sales and would be confirmed by a higher inventory amount at Q3 end and that means there are batteries for something else.
Maya, from what I understand about Google Earth, the satellite images are only updated about every 1-3 years unless the area is of high interest, then it is updated more often. Also, the really high resolution images aren't from the satellite, but are from aerial photography.
You gotta know that these takes were sattelite, not aerial. Those airplane flying buggers would have been shot down. (Kidding, somewhat, but these drug lords are tough, wildly informed bastards, and I dearly hope none of them are reading this comment)
Question from above. You state the .5MW is either 500 or 600 batteries. Yet the item in production is only 100kw so its about 100-120 batteries, no?
Isn't this less than what you originally thought?
I'm still a bit confused by the way the PowerCube was described in the press releases because they spoke of a 500 kw / 250 kw device. In most case, one of the two values is expressed in kw and the other is expressed in kWh.
The stationary lithium-ion solutions that A123's been selling for renewables integration are typically configured as 2 MW / 500 kWh containers, which means they pull all the power off the battery in 15 minutes.
Since the PowerCube in New Castle is not a single purpose device designed for power and nothing else, I don't think the power rating matters all that much. I would, however, like to know just for the sake of curiosity.
Given that it was Chuck who stated that there are 600 plus PbCs in the Power Cube, I side with that fact rather than 500 plus batts.
I honestly don't know what's in production. How could I? What Viridity is potentially buying or whether or not Viridity is contemplating using 100MW strings, or half meg strings, or "pods" of multiwatt strings of Power Cube batteries, I simply have no idea.
I think what MrHolty is asking, is not what is in production but what is being used for the test. According to the press releases they are currently testing a 100KW PowerCube, which makes it sound like they are testing a smaller one. If the only PowerCube assembled there is the one you were inside, which is a 500 KW one, it brings one to conclude that this is the PowerCube they are testing and that they are only using 1/5th of it for their initial tests, but that they will have the ability to ramp that up to the full 500KWs eventually.
One of the biggest reasons to do this kind of gradual ramp testing is to find the optimal performance level for the device. As Maya noted in the introduction, the cycle-life at 100% depth of discharge is in the 2,500 cycle range but the cycle life at shallower depths of discharge can run into the hundreds of thousands. In the simplest example, 2,500 cycles of a 1 kWh battery at 100% DOD is a lifetime throughput of 2,500 kWh, but 100,000 cycles of a 1 kWh battery at 10% DOD is a lifetime throughput of 10,000 kWh. Somewhere between 10% and 100% there will be a sweet-spot maximum and knowing what that number is helps you optimize your economics.
This permits facilities planners, and financial types, to project very long term, which is exactly what you need in that business.
As a side-effect, it may also tell them what happens in extreme scenarios, which must be planned for with mother nature factored into the mix.
HardToLove
I suspect there is lots of thermal sensing instrumentation attached to this particular PC to monitor the inverter system.
What I would like to know is how long this procedure will take, or if this test has already occurred, and all parties concerned are just easing the Cube into full utilization. Yet, when I was standing inside the Cube, I was under the impression that the whole Cube was working. I guess I was mistaken.
Also, I'm intrigued toward DRich's 500kw house, and 250kw grid comment.
Again, I'm not a battery geek like many of you are.
Ramping up questions for the next CC....
http://bit.ly/ryWTGv
If have not before welcomed you to the Concentrators, welcome!
Some may be good at researching old information to pad a story with a germ of an idea. New or inexperienced ones may draw on previous stories from their paper.
So, I hope you're right, but as with many things with Axion, we may not know until they surprise us with an announcement.
AMSC designed, built and tested a full combat ship sized superconducting motor (no iron needed for magnetic field "conduction" ) that was much smaller for its output torque than a conventional motor. Also more efficient. The motor was designed to directly drive the prop without any gear box. See their website for details.
Given this concept, the addition of a battery storage system capable of supplying emergency power would seem to make good sense to me. Again, added redundancy and the ability to fight with all turbines dead.
Just a thought :-)
Thanks for your efforts.
"Pennsylvania-based Viridity raised $14 million in January, and is balancing and storing power at several university campus microgrids, Philadelphia’s SEPTA train system, a wind power storage management project in Pennsylvania,"
http://bit.ly/sGbVZu
After the article you can click on the funder's names to get a synopsis of who they are and what they do.
"Grid Storage (Lead Acid / Water): Axion Power, wastewater treatment plant offering ancillary services.
Following the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) decision to require utilities to pay for voltage and frequency regulation services, PJM Interconnection (a division of PJM, the large East-Coast utility) announced it was using two service providers. The first, operated by Enbala Power Networks is a oddly, a wastewater treatment plant that adjusts its water pumps to match PJM’s requirements – a sort of pumped-hydro storage system. The other, operated by Viridity Energy, uses Axion Power’s lead-acid-capacitor technology in a grid-storage configuration it calls the “PowerCube”.
Natureo’s take:
The fact that Axion is working with Viridity, a highly regarded grid-storage operator, is a very good sign for the company. The question now is of profitability; does the configuration make enough money given the energy storage cost and capacity. The wastewater project shows that, under the new FERC rules, anybody, using any technology, can provide “storage” services to the local utility. Water offers large capacity, infinite cycle life and long-term storage; the question here is whether water pumps are sufficiently efficient for this application."
http://mnordan.com
No doubt you are a novelist the way to describe business matters as novel is really unique.
I have been out of reading a lot so perhaps what I´m going to ask is already there somewhere in your previous concentrators.
Perhaps you or JP can comment a little bit about what is happening with the wild oscillations in the stock price (which seems are not market related) of AXPM
Also I received the last e-mail with the last unaudited statements, call my attention the production costs which are growing with volume (when Mr. Henry Ford theory says that bigger volume means a lower unitary cost) in Axion case they went from 65% to 84%, R+D and admin. costs are...well, what they are, but this production cost figure really calls my attention.
Rgds.
JP, I will quit asking about remaining shares in Quercus and SS. Yes, Bangwhiz, the relentless selling from the market gorillas is like rain, it will stop when it stops. But I am really ready for some sunny weather.
I understand intellectually that the selling pressure and resultant low prices are a gift to allow us to accumulate more shares and average down our cost for all the more profit in the future. But it is disconcerting to have good news day after day and watch the stock fall in the face of it. Emotionally, makes me question my judgement...is there something I am missing in this story? This blog helps reinforce my confidence. Again, my thanks to Maya for filling us in.
Question, could the company be doing what Maya is doing for us? Do they have PR people in house who could be putting news out, answering questions from investors and putting on dog and pony shows on Wall Street? I am ready for more self promotion and sales efforts, not just of batteries, but of the stock, the company and the potential. And is there a way we, as major holders, can assist in that effort?
http://bit.ly/uRqowc
Not sure of its relevance?
I think the relevant statement in the document is:
"In June 2011, the FASB issued guidance related to the presentation of comprehensive income in the financial statements. The new accounting guidance eliminates the option to present the components of other comprehensive income as part of the statement of shareholders’ equity. Under the new guidance, the Company must report comprehensive income in either a single continuous statement of comprehensive income which contains two sections, net income and other comprehensive income, or in two separate but consecutive statements. This guidance will be effective during the interim and annual periods beginning after December 15, 2011 with early adoption permitted. The adoption of this standard will not have an impact on the Company’s consolidated financial position, results of operations or cash flows as it only requires a change in the format of the current presentation."
Looks like there are new regulations that require them to release the company's financials in a single document without anything else. So that's what they are doing. I don't see anything here that was different than the Q report. IMHO
Form 424(b) filings do just that, they update pre-existing registration statements for new information.
This particular registration statement dates back to May of 2009 and includes shares owned by Quercus and a Stockholders Trust associated with some old litigation. http://1.usa.gov/tH1FC4 As near as I can tell substantially all the shares included in the filing have already been sold.
Thanks for the color. It seems strange that this update only includes Q2 and not Q3 data in its body. The Q1 was updated at the end of May.
At first I thought it would have to do with your estimate of a build up in inventory at Q3 YE plus Maya's note above and add this was a sign of them selling 3M shares to equal $1.3M in revenue which would be a sign of them selling shares to expand production. Dang.
My assumption at the time was that all of the shares included in the registration statement had been sold and further amendments weren't needed. Now my guess is that there are a few shares left, but not many.
I'd expect to see three 424(b) filings within the next few days to update all outstanding registration statements for the Q-3 numbers.
http://bit.ly/uRqowc
HardToLove
AxionPower SEC filing
Date / Time: 11/29/2011 6:02:00 AM
Document: 424B3
View: Online
PDF: View
And the PDF states "Filed 11/29/11".
I guess I should have noted the period mentioned inside. <sigh>
HardToLove
http://n.pr/vmrvhS
Since we've had a nice upward trend the last few days, lets see if he/she can hold their water a bit - we'll still get good prices (appreciation too) and they'll make a little more $ for their effort.
Looks to be a low volume day as folks see the $0.40/$0.41 line on the radar that has been the ceiling in the recent past.
If the seller is smart, next step will be smaller chunks at higher price.
They haven't displayed this behavior though.
NBBO right now is presented 17K/35K $0.393/$0.40.
HardToLove
If you don't mind, I am curious what this language means. It was in the prospectus and I can't figure out what it means, if anything with our current stock price being under $1. Thanks.
"The warrants contain conventional full ratchet anti-dilution provisions for adjustment of the exercise price in the event we issue additional shares of our common stock or securities convertible into common stock (subject to certain specified exclusions) at a price less than $1.00 per share."
TG may not be worried about "going concern" issues but I doubt he wants to sell a significant percentage of his/our company at prices that are 50% below his own cost basis.
Liquidity was a major issue in 2009 because the shares were not registered under the Securities Act and the number of shares offered represented several years of trading volume. This time around the stock is registered and the market is far more liquid.
Market capitalization was also an issue in 2009 because the pre-offering market cap was ±$75 million while book value was $2.9 million and cumulative cash invested was $36 million. Today, the market cap is $32 million, book value is $13.3 million and total cash invested is $60.7 million.
By the time you add a reasonable adjustment to book value for the bargain purchase of the New Castle battery plant and the objective value of at the PbC technology and the inherent value of a gold-plated potential customer base, it's hard to make a rational argument that the stock is overvalued.
While I could make a decent argument that the market price is too low because of extraneous circumstances, I've never seen that tactic work with investors that I've negotiated with.
While the commission is probably overstated (if there even is a transaction commission), there will probably be some sort of discount. TG said he was not going to worry about a couple of pennies, so a reasonable 10% discount on the sales price isn't going to bother him either.
TG planned the financing after a stock sales spike, presumably sometime during the first quarter. NS will be in a strong position to drive a hard bargain on a 10 locomotive order during the first quarter. Other than NS in the first quarter I don't know what else is going to spike the stock.
Thank goodness the Viridity-PJM-Powercube deal came in unexpectedly out of the blue. It gives me encouragement that TG has other clubs in the bag we don't know about also.
I rant about lack of sales, bemoan the battery sector, but I keep buying more Axion. I have slowly come around to accepting that it will be 2013 to 2015 before my Axion stock pays off big. Like Cool Hand Luke, its taken a while to "get my mind right!" Would anyone like to join me in singing "100,000 bottles of beer on the wall"?
Take one down and pass it around, 99,999 PbCs for the cubes, ...
HardToLove
"The December 2009 Private Placement. On December 18, 2009, we entered into a Securities Purchase Agreement pursuant to which we agreed to issue common stock at a price of $0.57 per share for total gross proceeds of $26,081,816 and net cash proceeds of $24,928,323 after “breakup” fees and cash offering costs. The transaction was consummated on December 22, 2009.
In connection with the execution of the Securities Purchase Agreement, The Quercus Trust entered into a Lock Up Agreement with regard to all of its shares of our common stock held by The Quercus Trust and any warrants to purchase shares of our common stock for a period of one year, and an Amendment No. 2 to the Securities Purchase Agreement with The Quercus Trust pursuant to which it agreed (i) to waive further registration rights on shares owned by The Quercus Trust that have not yet been registered; (ii) to waive further anti-dilution rights on its warrants to purchase our common stock below an exercise price of $0.75 per share; and (iii) to pay the Company $500,000 in lieu of acquiring an additional $2,000,000 of our common stock under the Securities Purchase Agreement with the Quercus Trust."
since we are talking nitty gritty stuff. As lead council can you shed some light on to the reasons why Axion went public via a reverse merger. I understand that it may be cheaper, I've heard $250k vs $500k for AMEX but it seems that in the long term financing via further equity would be more difficult. Watching all these mining companies go public in Canada also makes me wonder why not there.
Any thoughts into this process? Just thinking that the share price would be higher on larger exchange.
Axion was created as a lifeboat to rescue a valuable technology from a Canadian securities scam that was perpetrated in 2001 through early 2003 and provide a mechanism for the innocent investors who'd gotten burned to recover at least a portion of their investment. We spent the first four years in litigation with the Canadian promoters, clearing title to the PbC technology and doing the R&D that needed to be done to turn a cool science fair project into a product. The entire story would take a book.
In other words Axion was a problem deal that could never have made it through the IPO process with a mainstream underwriter. Until Quercus came along, substantially all of Axion's financing came from it's founders and their families who invested more than $15 million of their own cash before seeking outside financing.
I know a little of the Mega-C issues. How did the owners
discover the valuable asset, were they investors in Mega-C?
Second, how lucky is it that these guys/families had the deep pockets to put up $15M.
But I totally feel your pain Cory. As I am sure we all do.
Nothing but good news to tell and somebody actually decided to dump 72 shares of the next big battery bang for your buck. Makes one wonder doesn't it?
I could not find the PbC white paper on the Axion website. Is this my technological deficiency or has it changed?
The technology portion of the website know describes the benefit of the PbC to be that the positive electrode does not become diminished wheras I recall the white paper espousing the theory that the benefit of the PbC was that the negative electrode did deteriorate thus allowing a faster recharge rate and a much longer life. Now the site says this:
"The result is reduced acid concentration swings from the charged to discharged state which reduces grid corrosion on the positive electrode and leads to longer life of the positive electrode."
As a non scientist I am sure this means the same thing. But why the emphasis now on the positive electrode instead of the negative? Now I'm all for being positive (sic) . But this description seems to me to diminish the most positive thing about the PbC. That being the fact that the carbon based negative electrode just keeps on working.
Any thoughts?
http://bit.ly/vjXefT
Any thoughts?"
Futurist,
My "guess" is that they are describing it this way for two reasons. 1) As a means to deal with the Li-ion nay-sayers who have claimed in the past (Killacycle and others) that just because you get rid of the sulfation problem on the negative electrode you don't prevent it from happening on the positive one. So they "claimed" that it must be happening and that Axion was hiding the results. Since we already know from the white paper that the negative electrode isn't effected by over a hundred thousand cycles in testing they may be trying to point out that the positive electrode is holding up just as well with no sulfation problems. 2) When you remove the worry about sulfation destroying the negative electrode you then are left with only shear stresses on the positive electrode as the most likely reason for the battery to fail. It has been pointed out in the past that Axion is one of the first to look at this, since LA batteries never lasted long enough in the past to see how long the positive electrode could go before it failed. These issues have been considered to be more important in the past for the PowerCube, since storage users think of their investments in terms of decades, unlike batteries for cars. Since Axion is now pushing the PowerCube this maybe their way of letting the storage people know it's going to be stable for them as well.
That would be my guess.
When we first started testing the PbC, the negative electrodes were so robust that the failures were coming from the positive electrodes, which nobody in the industry had ever worried about. That sent the team off working on advanced positive electrode designs and other changes that would extend the life of the positive electrodes. They ended up with a better electrode design and a weaker electrolyte solution that makes the device last longer.
Axion may be the only lead-acid battery manufacturer in history to spend time worrying about positive electrode failure mechanisms, but when you eliminate the negative electrode as an issue the positive electrode effects become the life limiter and particularly for stationary applications, long life is the name of the game.
As I think it through though the idea is not very bright. I have just increased the cost of a PbC considerably. And I did it by replacing a part that hasn't failed in many thousands of cycles. I will let Dr. Bruell and his cronies do the job from now on.
Items like the PJM release are rare because they're important enough to rise above the background noise - at least a little bit. If they're interesting enough to make somebody do a little surfing to find out more, my archive is one of the first things that pops and it provides a rich source of information and due diligence links. Sooner or later somebody is going to pick up the Axion story and dig deep enough to understand what the Concentrators already know. It may not happen till after the slop is cleaned out of the market but it will happen eventually and then everything will be different.
Started the day with a chuckle for me!
Thanks to you!
HardToLove
That sure makes sense. Look at Quercus's losses and the poor performance of the entire battery sector. With all the lithium ion and EV hype followed by the lack of EV sales and the pullback in lithium ion stocks, XIDE taking a dump and crash of Chinese battery stocks (CRTP, ABAT, NEWN) then no one who wants to make money is going to explore the battery sector for stocks to buy.
With no interest in the sector it might bode well for Axion next year IF they get a substantial rail or automotive SS order. Why? Because it would signal that there is an emerging battery technology that is distinctly different from all the other battery companies. Lower cost than lithium ion batteries with similar characteristics and ideal performance for the SS market. Strong potential in the grid and renewables storage market.
Until Axion reports a significant sale the stock is going to wallow along about like it does today. We are still in the valley of death and will be until we get some major ground-shaking headline news from rail, autos or the grid. Something is going to have to happen that grabs the market's attention - very few people are going to poke around in the battery sector, read an Axion white paper and say "Eureka" followed by placing a market order.
Almost no one knows about the PbC, and most certainly no one knows about the next gen, more powerful HT30. Almost no one but us Concentrator followers know that the PbC can go 100s of thousands of light cycle charges and discharges.
No one knows that BMW is in the late stages of testing the PbC...the same with Norkolk Southern, or another major Detroit OEM.
And, if we as a group only know about Viridity/Axion/PJM stategic partnership, as well as BMW and NS, I can only wonder what we don't know...who else is looking into the Power Cube (the military and oil derricks we already know...)?
Next year is going to be a fun one!
I probably should have written the above comment in better context. I bet Phil Lebeau does not know about Axion Power. But again, I'm positive he is aware of S/S.
Yes, I agree with you because partnering would significantly improve the rate of growth and financial metrics - difference between a single entity doing all the work, financing growth and trying to make a profit versus multiple entities bringing greater resources to bear without corresponding Axion physical and financial investment should dramatically change the stock valuation.
Assuming a trade at bid, ask or other are a buy, sell or unknown respectively, we have 95,566, 22,900 and 21,000. This gives a buy:sell of 4.17:1, a nice ratio. Buy:(sell+unknown) is 2.18:1, still a nice figure.
Volume was 139,466, lower than the 25-day average of 224,949 on Monday (included three recent very large volume spikes) but higher than the abysmal 10/13-11/4 period.
On balance, lows have been moving up the last 4 days. I believe that we're going to consolidate a few days here. If the trend lines reflect what's going on with the seller(s) and buyers, the narrowing range today should have a low around $0.38 and the *maximum* high around $0.44, although we know recent congestion has been in the $0.40/$0.41 level.
Monday filled the trend range that day ($0.355/$0.444) but couldn't close above the congestion. That was its first shot at the declining resistance line. Subsequent challenges are more likely to close above the line and allow movement up to begin.
The support rises ~1 penny a day and the resistance drops about 1/2 penny a day.
The lateral range has *just* entered the period in a triangle formation where breakout is often seen, 2/3 to 3/4 along the way.
The following is based on *very* short-term pattern development, so it should be considered with some skepticism.
I can also argue for a tall inverted roof pattern forming, albeit a very raggedy one. If it is what I believe it is, there could be a nice break up, although down breaks are not uncommon. If it does break above the $0.40/$0.41 congestion *and* the falling resistance (around $0.44 and falling 1/2 cent/day), we should see ~$0.48 as the next pause point unless strong momentum appears, in which case it could blow by there to ... $0.53(?)-$0.55 before hitting another potential pause point.
Any unexpected catalysts make all this even more so much FUD.
HardToLove
But with the distressed seller(s) entering orders in the early part of the day, some folks that bought in the low-$0.3xxx area taking profits, ... it's not unusual to see early-day ratios in the 1:1.xx (or worse) area. Low volume also exacerbates the trend I think.
But so far today, the price is behaving as I expected (hoped?) and we've seen a low of only $0.38 so far. The distressed seller held his $0.41 bid for almost two hours before I saw signs that he might be "chunking" in some lower offers (when that happens, can't be sure if it the distressed seller or just "retailers" taking profit - but in this case the $0.41 bid went away at the same time some $0.39 offers showed up new).
ATM it *does* look like short-term consolidation has, indeed, begun. Narrower spreads, lower volume. Supported by the top ($0.40/$0.41) still holding even as lows rise.
In a *normal* scenario, this would be potentially (I stress that word) bullish. Having an apparent distressed seller, likely with some ending time-frame in mind to be out of the position or at some target level, muddies *my* consideration of TA (I'm not one of those that believes the chart tells you everything you need to know - folks like JP and others that contribute are critical to my "blended" thinking).
BTW, I haven't said it in a while - I'm relatively new, still early on the learning curve, use experimental settings on the charts and so you should consider these things when viewing any "prognostications" I volunteer.
MHO,
HardToLove
P.S. 50K $0.39 offer showed up at 13:31:12 - I believe this is our "villan".
Not sure how long this will last but I'm scrambling for powder ...
"Smoke em if ya got em boys .."
Someone was talking about a share tally for this group.
Not sure if there is a "delegate" or some special tally link.
I'm at 87.4k shares.
Is anyone else having trouble with SA website ?
Last few days VERY slow & lots of bad gateway messages.
Sorry if this posts twice ... I'm trying to delete double post .
Nothing exceptional over here. But geographic location will affect that - edge routers, gateways and DNS servers that service you might be heavily loaded while in my neck of the woods it might not be the case.
Your cache settings in your browser *might* also affect your performance, as may disk utilization in your computer. But *usually* its stuff beyond your platform that cause it.
HardToLove
Volume strengthened: so far 155.33K vs yesterday's 139.47K - "thasa good pizza"!
Still have a higher low if no one gets lucky at $0.36.
HardToLove
Today, at the close, SA was also moving pretty slowly.
This gives a buy:sell ratio of 1:1.69, just inside the high of what I consider normal range on another stock for which I calculate this number. If my past experience holds, 1:1.3-1:1.7 is "normal" for "consolidation". Of course, it's only one other stock so we can't make book on it. But neither can we decide that one day like this indicates "selling pressure", especially when we know the distressed seller is on the field, we know his/her behavior and he/she has been acting as we predicted.
I normally also calculate buy:(sell+unknown), preferring to assume the worst case scenario. Today that is 1:2.37. I have no "normal" for this number as I'm fairly certain that the odds are good that not all should be "sells".
Considering volume, the low of $0.37 (only 5.6K shares), a penny below the rising support (assuming my old eyes could read those tiny pixels that accurately), bumping the congestion high *again* of $0.41 (albeit only 2K shares), knowing the distressed seller is on the field, ... Not a bad day at all.
BTW, if we are truly in consolidation, price will be trading predominately sideways and the rising support will not be in play. In this case, tomorrow or the next day could show lows in the $0.36-$0.37 range (give or take) again, or even higher, while the trend support would indicate low in the ~$0.39 range (allow some imprecision here). Top *could* go as high as ~$0.44 or so and still be consolidating.
A higher low and the marginally stronger volume today, 155.33K vs. yesterday's 139.47K, also allows that we may be moving up, either within the consolidation area or to a higher range. The *earliest* technical indicator I use, MFI, has left the oversold area and begun moving towards neutral, which indicates money flowing out of the stock (as does a "bad" buy:sell ratio) is abating. If that is telling the truth, it suggests there is not a lot of downward pressure and reinforces my thinking of today's buy:sell suggesting consolidation is occurring.
RSI also left oversold a couple days ago and is in neutral territory.
Most of the other oscillators and indicators I use are "meh" ATM, pretty much normal if we are in consolidation or have just turned to begin that process. They tend to lag. The Williams %R is pretty much centered at -45.8, having improved from -82.8 on 11/22, also suggesting consolidation to me. This one moves pretty quickly also.
Last thought: the distressed seller is the key ATM AFAICT. If they are done, we could quickly start an up trend. If not, we hope they show some sanity and don't go hog-wild as they did when we first noticed them - $0.3xxx lows several days.
It does look like they are being a bit more wily in their activities ATM.
All MHO, caveats about my status are a given,
HardToLove
... Or me! I've had such a hard time keeping my itchy trigger-finger tied down. I just keep repeating "I've got enough, I've got enough, ...".
Of course, when it rockets to some astronomical high I'll be saying "I didn't have enough, should've bought more, ..." :-((
HardToLove
HTL, do you have an idea how many shares have traded since Oct 1?
Fingers crossed, this will be it.
Bums me that I've been charting a fifth Elliot Wave down for way too long. But then that fifth wave...well those Elliot folks hold only just a theory.
Have to add in new knowledge to get ahead of those waves going the other direction.
That's new knowledge we hold.
Known percentages of total reports volume for SS were 5.9% in Q-1; 15.4% in Q-2 and 7.9% in Q-3. Unfortunately there's no way to know what percentage of Q-4 has been SS and what percentage has been other holders who are fretting EZ or other market factors.
HardToLove
We know that SS had 3.1 shares left by Oct.1. As John mentioned, QT is only responsible for maybe 10% of the volume. Depending on what percentage of the selling you want to attribute to SS, you can extrapolate how long the distressed selling will go on.
> HTL: thanks. That's a pretty good number.
Maya replied, "KentG: Really. Good question. I expect we're in the millions of shares held as a group.
HTL replied, Well, we have to exclude JP to get a fair assessment of "the group", no?
I presume his holdings would bury us all several times over.
I started out wanting 10K shares and now I have 68.6K and my friend has 51K. I would venture to guess as a group we have a couple mil or more. We are both currently out of funds.
No tally being taken that I know of but I know the group keeps getting bigger by the day and the % we own as a group grows bigger daily as well.
thx
Kent G
They are down over 50% this morning...Crazy.
I only hope KNDI is not going to follow the path.
I own quite a bit of KNDI.
Anyone following CRTP? I have no idea what is going on....
Along the way last year at various times I owned ABAT, CRTP, KNDI, NEWN, and C&D. Most of them are gone with the wind these days. I also made money last year on GFRE - another Chinese stock disaster that changed its symbol (but not its spots) to GURE. The only Chinese stuff I buy now are takeout dinners.
Based on past behavior, they should not be lowering for several hours.
And when they do lower, if we don't see an overwhelming surge of buying, should only drop a couple cents. If heavy buying exhausts the current offer quickly, they might evn bump it up a penny if they are thinking about the trading environment.
HardToLove
HardToLove
Volume should remain low, I think, as folks seem to be geared to entering a low bid, mostly, and waiting for the distressed seller or profit takers come down to meet the bid.
Raw buy:sell ATM is 1:1.81 and buy:(sell+unknown) is 1:2.89. Not good numbers, but not unusual for ealy morning trading. Volume so far is only 35K.
HardToLove
Always enjoy reading your analysis. As I am not well versed in TA, but would like to be, I usually pick up something new from your posts.
Good thing from long perspective. We can buy more at low prices.
But once we have many new players then............
Before then let's just keep buying !
http://bit.ly/uFbkZB
"Thomson Reuters welcomes four new members to its news organization. Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and former Dow Jones Newswires president Paul Ingrassia is joining the company in the new position of deputy editor-in-chief."...Ap... 2011
With all attending the ribbon cutting gone, with the "normal" days work still ahead of him, I greatly appreciate this thoughtful gesture.
Ya gotta know someone who takes time to reach out after such a marquee moment he has been working so hard on for years, is a gentleman leader that truly appreciates his shareholders.
I'm stunned by this generosity.
Just listened to your "Hype per mile" quote on CNBC.
Amazing how many follow the hype without due diligence.
EV not "ready for prime time" in the forseeable future.
Along that vein, given your comment and automobile background, you might find an interesting development that BMW, Norfolk Southern, Virginity Energy et al have developing in the energy storage arena.
A small company called Axion Power.
"Planes, trains and automobiles"
May be worth a look see via Seeking Alpha/John Petersen."
**********************...
Couldn't send via LinkedIn...tried the web site.
Maybe if enough poking and prodding...ya neva know!
Good luck to you and whoever can help.
Believe it or not just frustrated by the EV and other energy subsidies...more than just the stock price status...I know...I know....rrrright!
Frankly, a do it yourselfer AXPW technology ignored by the "Hype per mile" crowd...frustrating!
Maybe my spelling error will give him pause to read!
(I better double check my other correspondence!)
Unless you are a car battery novice, don't click on it.
http://bit.ly/vJDMrJ
new revolutionary Chevy Volt battery system: Funded entirely by the US Taxpayer. Amazing stuff
http://bit.ly/sFrTHU
Axion Power gives exclusive distributorship to RoseWater Energy Group:
http://bit.ly/ru1GhG
I happened across this announcement and was shocked to find that Rosewater is apparently the new distributor for the Power cube to Oil rigs. This arrangement was made in July,2011. According to the Rosewater website Axion is their major partner. An oil rig can save up to 11,000 gallons of fuel per month.
I suspect we will need a new concentrator to break down how no one has heard of this or made this connection. All I know is that the powerpoint presentation on this website is very specific as to how this works.
Bangwhiz. I think Axion is showing you how they intend to build the sales force. By using exclusive distributorships with experienced companies with existing sales forces.
Any thoughts?
"RoseWater is pleased to announce it has secured the exclusive distributorship for its oil drill rig and Utility products within the Middle East and Northern Africa with Amlak International.
Amlak will have the exclusive rights to market and distribute the RoseWater product line in that region. Amlak has long established itself as one of the preeminent distributors within that region and looks forward to further developing that relationship and watching the product line become an integral part of the Middle East’s expanding energy need solutions."
See it...Utility Products...same wording they use for the PowerCube in the other press releases. So now the PowerCube has marketing in the Middle East and North Africa! Axion just went international! :-)
Reinforces wtblanchard comments about the AXPW web site need to spotlight these stories.
Looks like Axion is wroking with a lot of companies on various applications and from this site I presume Axion allowed partners to reveal Axion name if they want.
Axion only does PR when something substantial has been achived and complete. So let's just wait and see.
Another interesting field........Oil rig.
Rosewater Energy will be the distributor of the Power cube for home energy storage. Wow, that's a big market for a company I have never heard of.
There is very little information I can find about Rosewater Energy, a Canadian company.
However, one of the news releases has a statement issued by a certain "Joe Piccirilli". Now this would be the same Joe Piccirilli that has been involved with Axion since the beginning. Axion was formerly a Canadian company. I'm not sure what Mr. Piccirilli's relationship is but he was one of the named defendants in the notorious Mega-C lawsuit.
I'm sure John is well aware of Joe Piccirilli and can fill us in on his expertise and relationship to Axion. This appears to me to be the another Granville moment. Where all the behind the scenes work simply comes to fruition without a lot of fanfare.
Of course since the only information about Rosewater Energy can be found on their website there is a possibility that the information was not suppose to surface just yet.
I know both Joe Piccirilli and Mario Bottero. In fact both of them spent some time with Rachel and me in Switzerland this summer. They've been working on putting together a marketing team for the residential, oil field and utility scale PowerCube products for over a year now. Until today, I did not know that they'd said anything publicly and believed it was not my place to do so.
After spending some time clicking links on the Rosewater Energy site, I learned a number of new things about the technical specs and configuration of the PowerCube. For those who enjoy digging into the detail, there's quite a bit of information.
IM) in 2005. http://bit.ly/v9tWrA Previously, Pic was president of the FL based regional retailer Sound Advice, which was sold to Tweeter Home Entertainment Group.
Unfortunately I can't fill in as much detail on Mario's background.
I'm not a salesman but I've met more than my share over the years. Pic and Mario strike me as top-flight sales professionals.
Makes me almost hope the stock price will stay this low a little bit longer so I can grab more. But as Axion and its partners are getting more and more forthcoming and the distressed sellers are running out of stocks, those days will become old very soon.
This post made my day.
The more I learn about the Axion insiders the more impressed I become. How did this group of successful people ever come together to find and fund and then save the PbC technology?
Joe and Mario have been investors in the PbC for over a decade, first in Mega-C and then in Axion. Joe also serves as trustee for the Mega-C stockholders trust which will eventually distribute about 3 million Axion shares to innocent investors in Mega-C.
Joe's first company Sound Advice was sold to Tweeter Home Entertainment Group for a reported $150 million. He then moved on to Avad, a smart home technology distributor that they built to $200 million in sales before selling it to Ingram Micro (IM) in 2005.
http://bit.ly/v9tWrA
What an enlightening conversation. A great guy who was gracious enough to spend his time filling me in on whats up.
Joe Piccinilli was a founding member of Axion Power. He is a major shareholder of Axion. He has spent his life in marketing and sales. I believe he built up one company from scratch to being a publicly traded company. He and his new partners are becoming the marketing arm for Axion.
He is not involved with Automotive OEMs.
He is not involved with Norfolk Southern.
Rosewater will be marketing to the oil industry A power cube will have about a two year payback for an oil rig. Even though that is a huge savings (11,000 gallons per month) he believes the diminished carbon emissions is more important to the "green" look the oil companies want to project.
Rosewater sees the home utility market to be a huge winner in the near future. The utility companies want to be able to deliver smoother power to homes due to the advanced electronics in a home. The utilities are mandated to provide a certain percentage of renewable energy into the grid. The Power cube can accomplish the storage tasks on a small scale that has the potential to make a monster market. Not all the pieces are in place just yet to make that happen but the market potential is Huge.
I am excited to see that Axion has made a commitment to Sales. I am also happy that Axion will not be spending a lot of their precious capital on developing a sales team. Subbing this function out to a major shareholder can get the job done and still retain decent oversight of the function. Focusing on sales implies to me that Axion does not see production as a problem. This is good news and comports with what TG said at the last call.
Again, all seems good on the Axion front. Just another welcome surprise by TG.
Futurist was Joe surprised by your call? Very interesting and seems to be good news...I have just never seen things work like this. However, it makes sense...Joe knows sales, he knows the PbC and powercube, so why not start a marketing arm for Axion and the PowerCube for the oil rig industry, that is a shareholder who believes in his investment, for sure.
He had a couple of minutes before going into a meeting and was excited to give me a quick version of his vision.
The July release claims "“With over 3,500 oil drill rigs world wide in operation, the savings in fuel and emissions is truly astounding.” added Joe Piccirilli of RoseWater Energy Group. “Even with a 10% market penetration, that would represent the savings of over $ 165,000,000.00 in saved fuel costs and the equivalent of removing over 60,000 vehicles from the road."
The more I read, the more incredible Axion as an investment appears to be...
...as long as some company doesn't relize the same thing and buy them out while they are still dirt cheap.
http://bit.ly/t56ZWW
Axion's data sheet on "Sure Energy" UPS batteries include a 30HT battery with same dimensions as those given in the PC spec sheet, but where the PC spec sheet gives weight as 73 lbs the "Sure Energy" spec sheet states 93.5 lbs.
Rosewater Energy's FAQ on PC's for the drilling market states that the PowerCube incorporates 16 strings of 40 batteries. 16 X 40 = 640 batteries (which is consistent with statements Maya heard while touring a PowerCube on the 28th.
The 93 lb version is most likely an old type lead acid battery and NOT a PbC. PbC versions have lead replaced by carbon in 1/2 of the electrodes and are therefore about 1/4 lighter.
I have confidence in JP's endorsement of "Pic" as a salesman, but I do not see an oil background for Mr. Piccirilli. I am glad to see marketing to that market, but I wonder if "Pic" is handling it more out of long association with Axion than out of competence and experience in the industry. So I have only cautious confidence in this relationship.
I looked at the website for the Middle East rep that supposedly is representing Rosewater and Axion and their website has a page of the firms they represent. That page does not mention representing Axion or Rosewater or anything about batteries or the power industry. They obviously are putting little effort into representing Rosewater so that, too, gives me concern.
There's a big difference between selling electrical equipment to the oil industry and knowing how to drill a well. I spoke with Pic this morning before responding to the original post and he has high expectations for their middle east partner. It's not often the oil industry gets to put on a green arm band and there's apparently a lot of interest in being able to do that with a two-year payback.
Joe was very forthcoming to me that his experience is in sales and marketing, not oil. But there again he isn't drilling for oil. He is selling an energy storage solution that he has been involved with for 7 years.
He is very experienced in selling high end electronics to the home market. 3,100 oil derricks using 600 batteries apiece is a niche market. Millions of homeowners using 50 batteries is ,well, a market I'm glad he has experience in serving.
In the final analysis the number of guys on the planet who have built and sold two marketing and distribution companies for over $100 million each could probably be counted on one hand. Joe's going for the hat trick and I won't second guess him or underestimate his capabilities or commitment.
Its mission is " providing a superior service and products in a business environment..."
Its vision is "to setup the standard in the right business environment"
The CEO's statement is in awkward English. Proofreading for grammar was simply not done.
I suspect that this is one of those companies that leverage their investment acumen and oil dollars into creating relationships between overseas product suppliers and middle east oil companies. I imagine that finding a trustworthy business partner is difficult. However, I am only looking at tea leaves and a poor website. But no one would go to this website to find a certain product.
I am however interested in a relationship that puts Axion and a company called
Amlac International Investment, together.
HMMM. oil money, energy storage company, investments. TG, what have you up your sleeve?
The only concern I have is sales guys for the oil patch are usually a little different. There will not be any orders just like trains, autos without some test units being run in the field and more than 1. Hopefully one in the Ford Nat Gas (Okie) and one say in the Marcellus. My guess is that for an oil guy they will be concerned about this tech especially since they are often in remote areas. Without a local sales and tech guy to repair quickly if needed this will be a hard run. Potentially very lucrative but as of now I'm saying further out than both rail and auto fi there are not active tests out there.
http://bit.ly/uROX0j
http://bit.ly/s4pkQ9
Brochure for the oil and gas application
http://bit.ly/u0NUtp
PowerPoint for the oil and gas application
http://bit.ly/uB7S91
Technical spec sheet on PowerCube
http://bit.ly/t56ZWW
But if the battery is drained all the way every day ( that does not sound likely or possible) that would be 7 years. With a two year payback period it is a nice investment and a renewable source of business for Axion.
"One Aw shit wipes out 1000 Atta Boys"! ;-))
HardToLove
You get to prove that your crystal ball gets cloudy once in a while.
But riddle me this? Can we estimate how much a cube cost? I happen to know since I asked Joe P. Any guesses?
As shareholders we have to try and protect our "secrets"! :-))
But if you send us all a PM, that'll keep it secret until one of us has a "brain glitch".
HardToLove
This isn't lithium where you have to sell it at a loss. This is a product 5 times better at twice the cost. It is a product that pays for itself in 2 years. It is a product that allows you to charge the utility companies for using it.
Oh I think the price is simply beautiful.
Just to confirm, that was for a 1 MW PowerCube and not the 660 battery 500 KW PowerCube they are testing at Axion?
56.000 batteries a year, i.e. 100 PowerCubes would bring get them to 100 Mio in revenue. I don't know how many oil rigs exist in Bahrain ;-)
That was for the 1 MW cube. 1020 batteries.
http://bit.ly/t56ZWW
So the 500 KW / 250KWh unit would sell for much less than the full MW one I suppose...
IIRC, a typical 1MW installation runs a lot less than $1M+ (but don't quote me) and is quite a reliable generator (40K-80K hours before overhaul and maintenance is only a yearly filter change, depending on environment, ~6 hours maintenance per year) with uptime of 99.99% (per CPST presentations), remote monitoring and all those sorts of goodies.
For any rig in which flare gas is usable and considered "free", a microturbine might be a preferred choice.
However, there's still a good potential market there as the traditional IC diesels represent a substantial sunk cost on existing platforms/sites and require much more frequent maintenance and don't last near as long before overhaul is needed (20K hour: top end, 40K hours: bottom end, per CPST presentation). Uptime is around 88% (120 hours planned maintenance/year per CPST presentation). If the PowerCube allows them to run a lot less (possibly via the regenerative process JP has mentioned?), I think that may be a strong selling point.
There's also those areas that feed off of the grid and may have no on-site generation. They would also be potential candidates for both reliability and grid-cost reasons. With many new wells being in more and more harsh/remote areas, the sites that have grid availabilty might be getting less common over time.
So a Powercube may be able to easily justify itself in *many* of these situations as it could be the most cost-effective solution. Trashing on old IC in favor of a Cappy would not be all that attractive when you can just add a PowerCube and keep on truckin'.
For new rigs, if a regenerative capture process, which JP has suggested, is available, I think the PowerCube could also be a preference, but there is still the issue of flare gas, which is beginning to be heavily frowned upon in many places. So some solution for that would still be needed and I guess that could swing a decision to something like a Capstone microturbine.
If someone really wants to get into this area, a good starting point is Pumps and Service.
http://bit.ly/vgL3hq
They have been making big inroads in the shale plays for CPST and are well know in the O & G industry. They are quite aggressive in applying new products and probably know the business as well as anyone.
All MHO,
HardToLove
http://bit.ly/rAerHt
A 10% market penetration is a doable goal and would be good margins but the market is not huge.
But I've made money trading around a core, and totally exiting a couple of times (as now) as I wait for it to blossom.
HardToLove
Maybe with the eventual upgrade to the C250 things will improve.
Margins are improving, sort of on (a slightly slipped) plan. Last Q was +6% and first-ever profit of $0.00. But I got concerned that even though current inventory is now providing a greater percentage of lower cost stuff, it may not be enough to offset the higher cost from their increased head count while revenues haven't ramped enough to keep from going backwards, near-term.
Just cautious in wondering if they let their preparing for the future get ahead of the revenues available to support it and stay on track towards near-term profitability.
When I first started with it, they were strongly managing to cash flow. Now I haven't heard that phrase in a couple of years. They've improved a lot in many regards but still can't deliver on the profitability they've stated is coming soon a few times.
With the C250, C370, austinetic alloys, ... still 12-18 months out and then I presume California certification to follow and then UL listing, I don't see the product as a near-term "savior". Those will help with increased efficiency, expansion of applicability, lower COGS, better margin, ... They still need to keep on-plan and manage to cash flow without getting ahead of themselves.
I thought the first couple years of the new management team great strides were made. The last couple I felt they were less disciplined in execution of their plan.
MHO,
HardToLove
The market is not huge yet but this decade we could see a significant boost in rigs thanks to natural gas production as long as environmentalists and others get their heads on straight. (of course, I don't know much about this stuff but I am assuming NG rigs could use the PowerCube as much as Oil rigs.)
http://bit.ly/tsxwYc
Exactly, that's why I am no longer a shareholder.
A very interesting play that I've been watching since.
With this initiative a possibility,
http://n.pr/uAui4L
I think it's time may be near. Unfortunately, I think the general EZ fear and lack of a strong impetus in the energy area until now has been the cause of its fall from the $13 range in March to its current $7-$8 range.
In this environment, I think fear has had an unjustified effect on some of these small-cap energy plays.
HardToLove
and look ... SA is shortening URLs! (good news, bad news, I always think twice before clicking on any shortened URL posted on a web site)
That link is now dead. Any chance you have that one tucked away on your PC somewhere?
I'm looking for the NPR article, no luck yet. But here's an SA article that maybe you've not seen.
http://seekingalpha.co...
Well, went through 10 pages of NPR search and couldn't find the piece.
Found this recent piece from TX though.
http://reut.rs/s742Jv
Sorry, I couldn't find the NPR piece and hope these other links help.
HardToLove
The author of this article
(Also about about drilling for NG.)
Has money on gasfrac as well as the one listed and wtblanchard
put a few links to gsfvf in the comments.
http://seekingalpha.co...
Generally speaking, the fast track is to partner with the established players. The home energy play is interesting, but with today's housing market this is way down the road IMHO to any meaningful sales. I don't see any quick sales hitting the balance sheet, but I admire the people involved. Perhaps a year from now my doubtful position will result in a lot of egg on my face.
My estimates of a business can be way off the mark. Back in DC where I lived for about 40 years there was a rug cleaning business with a drop off location. I told my girlfriend what a stupid business! Who's going to drop off rugs to be cleaned? Little did I know that the company "Joe Hadid" specialized in Persian rugs and had outlets in every major Washington DC moneyed enclave like Georgetown, Potomac, etc.
Then a commercial appeared on TV that my girlfriend took great delight in telling me about. It pictured a stylish woman telling the world that when a fire in her home harmed the Persian rug she played on as a child Joe Hadid had restored it to exactly as it was back then. She delights in describing new Joe Hadid commercials to me and singing their catchy radio and TV jingle. I bet Joe Hadid is sitting in a hot tub right this minute with a 20 something beauty while I am sitting on thousands of shares of Axion underwater.
I feel that the Power Cube could just get lost among all the other options and products sold by larger distributors.
The larger distributors would have no incentive to sell the Power Cube v. some alternative product that they also sell that may have higher margins for the distributor.
I'm very happy to have these guys selling the Power Cube.
I thought you would be thrilled to see that a sales department has been formed. At no cost to Axion out of pocket. A trusted Axion insider will now build a sales department disguised as a marketing company. Who says they won't hire an oil field professional and tap that market quickly? If TG had to hire a officer to be in charge of Sales and Marketing I can see where he would hire Joe P. ( I hate to use the nickname Pic but I guess if JP says it is not discourteous then we should. His last name is way to hard to type correctly)
I am just ecstatic that Axion has made an arrangement and are now headed for sales. Obviously they are on the ball enough to get help overseas from oil specialist. I would have thought it would have put you over the top.
On the plus side, Joe P. has impressive credentials and is obviously the real deal as a salesman and businessman. I'm rooting for him and wish him well.
Am reminded of Gasfrac ... proved itself in Canada with lots of small exploration firms; now trying to break in to US market. Chevron has recently tested with them, and we're waiting with bated breath to see if the win or lose that "seal of approval." They also recently had a management change where the new CEO has much stronger contacts with Texas oil interests, which I think will be important to the company.
We may have to do some "loss leaders" for a while to get a toe hold in this market ... always tricky to prove yourself, and then charge what you're worth ... which often has relatively little to do with what it costs to build the product.
Related ... rebates on cars ... it didn't take long before they became expected ... hence the "tricky" reference above.
"Energy storage companies...led clean technology investment during the third quarter by raking in $421 million in venture capital, a 1,932% increase from the same period last year, according to an Ernst & Young report..."Some of the trepidation about the overall state of the economy is starting to subside a little bit," said John Gartner, a research director for Pike Research. "And it is time to get back into the market, and clean tech is an area that still has a lot of upside."
http://lat.ms/sW1cCZ
"A typical lithium-ion battery can be charged 350 to 400 times before its performance starts to weaken. Batteries produced by Leyden Energy can be recharged more than 800 times until performance begins to deteriorate."
Kudos to everyone. Great work today. Impressive!
BTW: Joe P. attended the ribbon cutting ceremony.
HT30 is simply a large heavy duty commercial truck case size that apparently racks and stacks well in the PowerCube and maximizes the amount of energy that can be stored in a given footprint.
It's not magical or a new generation, it's merely product optimization.
the PDF says 30HT, not HT30. If I Google 30HT I get lots of hits, and John's referenced doc says 30H. I'm guessing the T is for truck?
I should add that this has been occurring for years.
The power has been out so frequently this year, an hour here, two hours there, that the subject of noisy generators was broached by the homeowners' association meeting held this past Nov. 5th. The minutes of the meeting recorded me stating there will be a much quieter solution coming in the form of batteries in about 2 or 3 years--much quieter than a bunch of generators.
I hope this becomes "affordably" true.
My neighborhood is a fine candidate for a PowerCube/ UPS system. Three computers so far have been blown by under voltage/low current problems.
Contact RoseWater through their website. It might be available now.
In fact, it could be worked out with the utility company to pay out of my revenue stream, ... maybe? I mean, they sent me free mercury-laden flourescent bulbs to help meet their green mandate, so why not this?
It would save me the cost of BBS for all my computers! :-))
HardToLove
So far I figure their lifetime estimates must have been made in a geologically-stabilized, sound-proof, temperature-controlled, semi-evacuated, perfectly-regulated electrically-supplied chamber.
That doesn't describe my house and not one of the bulbs has made it over a couple of years.
Thank goodness I don't have electric heating - no telling how far I'd have to jack the thermostat up to compensate for the heat generation lost by switching to those "cool" bulbs! ;-))
HardToLove