leh

Citi's Michael Klein Gets $5.5 Million Retention Bonus on Departing

The whole US corporate structure stinks to high heaven. "Board of directors" is a euphemism for wealthy golf buddies stuffing each other's pockets.

Lead-Acid, Lead-Carbon Batteries: The Only Option for Average Consumer

To clarify this issue of HEV battery pack longevity, unless things have changed recently, all mainstream HEVs sold in the US markets must have battery packs that carry a 10-year, 150,000 mile warranty, period. This is an old CARB-originated requirement that has been adopted by the dozen or so green states that have adopted CARB regulations (almost all the NE states, as well as Oregon and a few others).

Since the big automakers target these same states for HEV sales, they have no choice but to adopt these stringent warranty requirements for their entire line, and to their credit most of these packs have performed very well indeed. The failure rate on the Panasonic EV NIMH packs used in the Prius, for example, is miniscule--something like 300 failures out of a million cars sold, and some of the original older packs are in cars that have seen 200,000 miles. As far as I know these same warranty minimums will be met by the GM Volt and other PHEVs coming to market soon--at least these are the performance targets GM is using in developing the Volt pack.

Separately, I would agree with the poster who suggested that pure EVs could well have a place as a second car in many Amercians' driveway to be used strictly in local driving/commuting. But in the end PHEVS are obviously far more practical than a pure EV, and I doubt most owners will give a hoot whether there's a small gasser under the hood recharging the packs whenever they get depleted.

Virtually all the big automakers, including Toyota and Honda, are fairly negative on pure EVs (and have been for a long time, mostly from a cost point of view), so JP's thesis here is solid but far from new. IMO pure EVs will always be a small niche compared to hybrids, but I like the model of the PHEV best, mainly for its flexibiity and "best of both worlds" potential.

Lead-Carbon: A Game Changer for Alternative Energy Storage

Nice work, John. Some very interesting data here; thanks for the contribution.

Treasury's Stunning Increase in Issuance

Foreign banks have been dumping Fannie and Freddie paper for months now to the point where the Fed has had to step in and be the buyer of last resort to keep the mortgage markets liquid. Between that, TARP, Iraq, Afghanistan and Obama's new stimulus package, the accumulative costs are staggering.

Cleantech: The Sixth Industrial Revolution

John,

Interesting piece that will take some time to thoroughly digest, but a few initial responses re the different battery chemistries:

1) Operating temperatures make a huge difference in battery cycle life, and account for a huge % of the premature demise of laptop lithium batteries, especially if the laptops are used plugged into a wall outlet much of the time.

2) Improvements, some radical, are being made on a semi-regular basis with many batteries, especially NIMH and lithium-based cells. Kodak is now selling a low self-discharge rechargeable NIMH battery that holds its charge unused for months. This is a major advance for many applications and completely at odds with previous "behavior" of this particular chemistry. See this recent NYT article for the details as well as for tips on various batteries and their best applications in general:

www.nytimes.com/2009/0...

3) There are major performance differences to date amongst the various lithium chemistries--lion, lipo, liFePo, etc.--and even amongst the competing batteries within the same specific chemistry world.

Best example: The Phostech-based (Valence, LiFeBatt and a few others) liFePo cells have a much better high amp continuous discharge envelope (by a magnitude of 3-5X or more) than most of their cheaper knockoffs (some probably illegal); both are mostly made in China but the Phostech
formulation is licensed here in the States (read on).

A123 is in the middle of a patent infringement lawsuit with UTexas and HydroQuebec for allegedly stealing the original liFePo "recipe" first patented by a UTex professor, Dr. John Goodenough. A123 claims that their recipe is different enough to not infringe; the courts have yet to decide. Here's a link to Phostech's site. The cheaper Chinese liFePo knockoffs are junk compared to these deeper discharge Phostech cells; they're also about 1/3 the price. A123's cells are close to the performance of Phostech but there have been quality control issues with them as well as with the LiFeBatt cells, at least the early generation productions.

www.lifepo4.fr/en/tech...

Finally, word on the street is that Altair's batteries are problematic, or at least have failed in HEV applications. I don't want to reveal my source here but the gentleman I'm quoting has been professionally involved with EVs for several decades.

Bottom line: Not all lithium is created equal--or even close. And even so-called mature chemistries are seeing advances made on a regular basis.

Alternative Energy Storage Stocks: Review and Outlook

John,

Yes, I agree pure EVs will likely not happen in our lifetimes and that ultra-efficient HEVs are where it's at. Tesla and all the other failed or failing pure EV companies are proof in the pudding. As you say, the economics just don't work for a purely electric motor vehicle. HEVs are a whole nother bag, and we both agree that a clean diesel electric hybrid would rule.

Just found this blurb on the new Honda Insight, which looks sweet indeed, and is apparently to be priced lower than I thought--under $20K, which is the sweet spot I mentioned. All the points Honda makes about how they've achieved their efficiency goals are the ones I was trying to make in my previous post--just not as eloquently.There's no mystery why the Japanese continue to lead here in HEV tech, and I look for only more great things from them in the future.

From Honda Motors:

"The 1.3 litre Insight is powered by Honda's acclaimed IMA system, which has been extensively modified to reduce its cost and weight. With careful engineering of key components and refinement of manufacturing processes, the cost of the hybrid system has been significantly reduced. This ensures that Insight can be sold at a very competitive price without compromising ability, quality, environmental performance or profitability.

The Insight will benefit from a significant cost reduction in Integrated Motor Assist (IMA) components resulting in the most affordable hybrid vehicle to date. This dedicated hybrid vehicle will be offered as a 5-door hatchback with seating for five passengers and built on a newly developed platform. Engineers have mounted the compact control unit and battery beneath the boot space to give the Insight both a low centre of gravity and the practicality of a conventionally powered hatchback.

This reduction in cost has not been brought about by compromising the quality of the Insight, instead the Japanese manufacturer has tasked its engineers with finding more intelligent cost reduction solutions.

Insight will utilise various technologies, including a function to assist more fuel efficient driving giving customers a further improvement in real world fuel consumption. Along with the Civic Hybrid, the new vehicle will be produced at Honda's Suzuka factory in Japan which recently has expanded hybrid motor production line.

CO2 emissions and fuel economy are targeted to be at a similar level to the existing Civic Hybrid, giving drivers a flexible and highly practical lower environmental impact car. At its expected price point, Insight will have a unique combination of passenger space, luggage capacity, emissions and economy. "

Toyota, GM, Ford: Showing Off Green Cars Amid Economic Gloom

Dawg,

Dissing Toyota is a proud American tradition <g> dating back to the 1970's when their early cars first started putting a (small) dent in Detroit's sales. You almost took your life in your hands by buying Japanese in the Michigan area back then--literally--lots of stories of broken windshields and ugly threats towards anyone who dared break with the Big Three.

Fast forward 40 years and most Americans I would posit love Toyota--or at least their products, even in Michigan. Why? They've driven/owned their cars, simple as that, and/or have read what the company has contributed to the US economy in the way of new plants and good jobs, not to mention factory-efficiency models that Detroit now emulates.

But there will always be a hardcore contingent of so-called patriots who think it's their duty to bash the Japanese. Not worth the energy responding to them if they can't see how/why the industry has evolved the way it has--and why Toyota continues to lead here. In short, the Japanese don't sit on their laurels, and constantly push the envelope, even if it seems contrarian at the time. They also question themselves continuously, and seem immune to the smugness that seems to permeate companies like GM.

Best example: in the mid-90's, at the same time GM was crushing its electric cars and starting up its Hummer line, Toyota was introducing the Prius--with gas @ about $1/gallon. Which company looks prescient (and brilliant) now? Which has the lion's lead in both battery and hybrid tech?

Anyone notice Panasonic EV (50% owned by Toyota) just bought out Sanyo for its lithium battery tech? Methinks a juggernaut is born. Meanwhile Ford is already crying about possible battery shortages in its brand new, yet to be sold Fusion hybrid due out later this year. The pack supplier? Sanyo.

Meanwhile Toyota announced last year that it's spending a cool billion on battery development, with dedicated factories for both NIMH and lithium packs. GM is still shopping suppliers for the Volt, and will be at that supplier's mercy when it comes to production schedules and the like.
Which car company would you bet on?

Alternative Energy Storage Stocks: Review and Outlook

John,

We'll put this to rest for now and let the future unfold, but the surge in hybrid sales when oil went north of $100/barrel is not something you can argue. And Honda's new hybrid Insight, priced several thousand dollars below the Prius, shows the probable direction the Japanese are going in, especially in this depressed market environment--namely, cheaper hybrids aimed at middle class consumers. If this trend continues and the Koreans get on board (which is inevitable IMO), I think we'll be seeing compact, 5-passenger hybrids well under $20K within 3 years.

I think where we really disagree is re the issue of what's possible in the way of HEV efficiency gains and, specifically, gains in battery pack performance. You look at the battery chemistry alone and see only minute improvements possible--I look at Toyota's new Prius and see a 3rd gen that claims to be 10-15% more fuel efficient over the previous model--and with a smaller bulletproof 150,000 mile NIMH battery pack second to none.

In short, the battery is just part of the story in HEV application, and even with the battery pack alone I think you underestimate the potential for dynamic improvement via very basic modifications such as temperature management and other BMS tweaks.

Case in point: LGChem has apparently figured out a way via sophisticated computer BMS controls to make lithium ion a safe chemistry in HEV applications--at least this is my understanding of what they've achieved with the Chevy Volt packs to date, which are testing very well.

This is a big leap forward, and IMO just the start of what's possible: Get a few advanced chipmakers like Intel or AMD involved in this field and I think we'll continue to see rapid advances in these batteries' capabilities, including range capacity, safety, and life expectancy. Toyota and PanasonicEV have pointed the way with the remarkable performance of their HEV NIMH packs, and in honing ALL the elements of efficiency that have resulted in the Prius's success.

In short, battery chemistry is just one part of a much larger dynamic in just about any application, especially HEVs, and BMS improvements will be key in unlocking any battery's true potential. I've been personally involved with e-bikes for about ten years now, and have seen some remarkable advances in these bikes and their batteries over the past three years alone due to the advances in lithium chemistry. The same type of change is coming very soon in the automotive HEV world--likely at a faster pace due to the $$$ being poured into it right now--and I have no doubt the early Chinese lithium batteries I've ridden will be looking like complete dinosaurs in a year or two. Get the sticker price under $20K and these pups will sell; tell me they're not the ultimate college kid car being both PC and cheap to run on a daily basis.

Economic Manipulation as Political Policy

Check your meds and get back to us--what twaddle. This mysterious elite you speak of--would it include base shysters like Madoff--I can't think of anyone much better connected to the elite Palm Beach set? Tragic victims like the French money manager (tres elite BTW, he used to run one of the top French banks) who committed suicide a few weeks ago as a result of losses with Madoff? Or any of the other tens of thousands of the very wealthiest who have taken it on the chin financially over the past year?

Unless you can name some names and connect some dots with real data, your argument is nothing but paranoid hot air. One could easily make the case that the Bush family fits the profile of these precious elites given the power they've wielded--but show me one shred of credible evidence that Tweedle Dee George is capable of engineering such a sophisticated diabolical plot as the one you mention when he has trouble forming a simple sentence.

You might want to channel your imaginative energies into screenwriting as I see a great James Bond/John Grisham political thriller here--but nothing more. I can only imagine your take on 9/11...(please spare us).

Alternative Energy Storage Stocks: Review and Outlook

<<Over 75% of the cost of a typical battery is raw materials. Each raw material has a fixed electrochemical constant that cannot be exceeded. Most battery chemistries are already within a couple of percentage points of perfection. Moreover, fundamental economic laws state that as demand for scarce materials increases, so does the price. So if you can't improve the basic chemistry and you can't slash your materials costs, where the heck are the economies of scale going to come from...

But truth is a funny thing. It's truth whether we like it or not.>>


John,

You're conveniently ignoring the "truth" of falling NIMH prices as well as the dynamics of commodity pricing and the relative abundance of lithium,
which happens to be the one of the most common elements on earth.
I've seen the arguments for lithium scarcity--one guy named Kahlil--and they strike me as bogus and poorly supported by fact. The fact is lithium is NOT a difficult element to harvest and never will be. It takes some natural reserves, which are abundant, a drained lake, and lots of sunlight. Supply will meet demand as demand increases and prices will fluctuate as all commodity prices do.

Separately, your quote regarding the reduced capacity of the 3rd gen Prius battery pack only tells me that Toyota has learned how to increase the cars' fuel efficiency while simultaneously cutting battery weight and probably cost. This is utterly typical of the Japanese and one of the big reasons they continue to make the best cars on the planet. It's no secret that weight reduction is a key factor in fuel efficiency, and Toyota has worked hard to make the newest Prius lighter, with major weight savings in the hybrid drivetrain as well as the battery.

<<It's also no darned fun telling
> people that the economic numbers for Li-ion powered EVs don't work.>>

All I can say is the Chinese car maker BYD appears to be telling us the opposite with its $22K PHEV that claims up to 60-mile all-e range and is available today in China. I'm not so naive as to buy that range number until it's been verified, but even if the range is half that, this is a remarkable achievement. Warren Buffett believes enough in this company to own 10% of it. How do you explain the price point here, which to me looks extremely competitive? Seems to me if this car is even close to the specs advertised and the selling price not massively subsidized by the mfgr, your entire argument about lithium HEVs can be thrown out the window.

Follow the money, my friend--and tell us why you're smarter than Buffett, Toyota, Carlos Ghosn at Nissan, Shai Agassi, and all the other auto and battery makers that are pouring billions into lithium research and production as we speak.

Sirius' Future Looks More Promising Than Ever

Yes, in fact I'm a longtime happy XM subscriber, so know exactly what the satellite subscriptions cost--and I'd be loath to pay double to listen to Stern, which is what Sirius charges. Anyone calculated their payback as far as recouping the costs to sign Stern? My guess is it would be measured in decades, if not longer. The fact remains the Stern deal was a fiasco, and Karmazin admits as much in the NYT article I referenced.
I have nothing against Stern as a performer and used to occasionally listen to him when he was still on (free) terrestrial radio. But every dog has his day and Stern's is clearly past. Organizations that overpay for over-the-hill talent routinely get punished for it--see the recent NY Jets deal for Brett Favre--and IMO this is no different, just on a grander scale.

FoolNhisMoney should get together with the guy who advises us to simply "forget what Sirius owes" and have an ostrich fest. As several others here have pointed out, there's a reason this stock is trading for pennies. Best scenario I can see is a buyout by a larger media company with deep pockets, but I doubt the common shareholder will benefit.


On Jan 03 07:21 PM FoolNHisMoney wrote:

> On Jan 03 11:36 AM leh wrote:

Alternative Energy Storage Stocks: Review and Outlook

<<The ugly truth is that EV demand will never develop once regular guys understand how ridiculously expensive that solution will be.>>

John,

You're ignoring the economics of scale as well as the billions of dollars of R&D that are pouring into lithium pack development by virtually every major auto maker on the planet. BYD, Continental, LGChem and others have already proven that lithium technology works--now we just need to start adopting it on a large scale to get the pricing to feasible levels.

Re: your stats on NIMH HEV packs, they're just plain wrong. Years ago California mandated a 10-year 150,000 mile warranty on HEV packs and other states have followed suit, so this is the very high mark that Toyota and others must shoot for when they introduce their packs to the US market. To Toyota and Panasonic's credit, the Prius NIMH packs have greatly exceeded all expectations, with no more than a few hundred needing to be replaced under warranty. That is an amazing stat given a million cars sold. Better yet, pricing has come down on these packs both new and used, with used replacements available eBay for as little as $500.

What makes you so sure lithium pack prices won't follow suit once a few million have been sold and the Chinese and others start cranking them out in number? Govt subsidized early adopters will no doubt pave the way but this is a political no brainer for both the U.S. and China, and in fact BYD's first orders for its new $22,000 60-mile PHEV hybrid (on the market as of last week in China) are from govt-sponsored entities, so the fact is it's already happening.

And with several countries now signed on to Shai Agassi's Project Better Place, including Israel, Spain, Denmark, and Australia, I think it's just plain foolhardy to be ruling out what looks to be the future for small, ultra efficient vehicles, namely lithium-powered PHEVs and HEVs, someday likely mated with the clean diesel engines you mention. The Priuses' success speaks for itself, and is the perfect example of a committed manufacturer being willing to sell the initial production runs at a loss on the conviction that eventually the car will prove profitable. I see no reason why a similar curve won't be followed with PHEVs and lithium.

Alternative Energy Storage Stocks: Review and Outlook

A link to the Intel story and the kind of tech partnerships that will likely define our future:


www.electronicsweekly....

Alternative Energy Storage Stocks: Review and Outlook

P.S. Here's a link to an article dated 2001, for goodness sakes, mentioning both PanasonicEV and Sanyo as HEV pack suppliers. Where have you been dude?

findarticles.com/p/art...

Separately, while I agree lithium packs are not quite "there" yet in terms of price and reliability, I think we'll see a radical change within the next 2-3 years as all the previously named partnerships' hard work on these new lithium packs starts to bear fruit. Scale will bring down prices, another huge disadvantage to smaller startups in this segment since they don't have the kind of built in partnerships with the automakers that the big boys do.

In short, large scale battery production demands a tremendous amount of capital, which these smaller companies just don't have access to. Our best and brightest hope here in the US? Read Andy Grove's recent pleas to Intel to consider advanced battery production for HEV packs and the like. Grove is now retired from Intel but has become a huge convert to the HEV movement and has taken it on as a personal crusade. Grove thinks Intel is uniquely positioned and equipped to become a leader in cutting edge batteries if they put their minds (and capital) to it. Given how dominant Intel has been in the computer ship field, it's hard to argue with him. IMO this is precisely the kind of big creative buildout move this country needs to help get back on track as the world's technology leader.


findarticles.com/p/art...

Alternative Energy Storage Stocks: Review and Outlook

<<Leh, sanyo/panasonic are going to be far too busy with laptop batteries to fool around with EVs and PHEVs because the economics don't work>>

Boy, John, this egregiously inaccurate comment really makes me question the depth of your knowledge and research here, at least regarding EV/PHEV battery packs. Panasonic EV is the main (and as far as I know sole) producer of the Prius NIMH packs and has been for years. Toyota bought into 50% of Panasonic EV several years ago to assure battery pack supply for its hybrids, and as far as I can see the relationship has been screamingly successful. With over a million Priuses sold to date, that's a lot of damned batteries, and the packs themselves have an outstanding reliability record to date. How could you not know this?

Sanyo has long been an acknowledged leader in lithium cells and builds HEV packs as well, and the assumption out there is that the recent Panasonic buyout of Sanyo was at least in part motivated by P's desire/need to accelerate its expertise and production in lithium batteries. In addition, Toyota announced several months ago a billion dollar commitment to both advanced NIMH and lithium production for its hybrid packs, with new factories for each.

So here we have three of the largest corporations in Japan working together on one of THE biggest carrots in the battery world, namely robust, reliable, competitively priced HEV packs. Tell me how any of the U.S. pipsqueaks stand a chance against this juggernaut. And did you see Ford is already making noises about possible battery pack shortages for its brand new Fusion HEV due out this spring? Guess who the supplier is? Sanyo.

The only serious competition I see out there right now in this segment are other large corporate partnerships like Johnson/Saft, Continental/LG Chem, Subaru/Nissan/NEC & Mitsubishi/GS Yuasa--all large international corporations with deep pockets and a ton of motivation and competitive vigor--and all committed to making lithium work. I think you need to do a lot more homework before you start making pronouncements about lithium packs not being economically viable as almost the entire automotive world appears to think otherwise.