Plug-in Vehicles

Clean Energy Intel Tesla Model S: Image used with permission from Tesla. Tesla (TSLA) officially announced the pricing, options and timing for next year´s US launch of the Model S this week. There have been some worrying rumors that the company would forced to raise its prices due to cost factors. Consequently, the good news for Tesla stock is both that the pricing has been held steady and that the summer launch date remains in place. Confirmation of both of these factors is certainly welcome news. Firstly, the official pricing for the US market...

John Petersen While I jumped the gun last week and published my third quarter outlook for the energy storage and vehicle electrification sectors early, it's worthwhile to take a look back and see how my tracking list of companies performed over the last quarter and examine the past to see what the tea leaves in the bottom of the cup portend for the coming quarter. So without further delay I'll present my price performance table for the second quarter that ended on Friday. Q-2 was a dreadful quarter for Maxwell Technologies (MXWL) and ZBB Energy...

John Petersen The first thing every securities lawyer learns is that technology is a two edged sword. On the leading edge, developers of cheap innovations that ramp rapidly over a few years build thriving businesses that deliver market beating returns for investors. On the bleeding edge, developers of expensive technologies that can't be implemented at relevant scale for years morph into financial black holes that suck the lifeblood out of portfolios and teach a new generation of investors about an insidious market phenomenon the Gartner Group refers to as the hype cycle. The second thing...

John Petersen Over the last couple years I've frequently argued that plug-in vehicles are inherently wasteful on a micro-economic and a macro-economic level. Unfortunately complex economic proofs are hard to grasp at a glance and my biggest challenge has been finding a simple proof for a patently obvious truth that can't be distorted by flimsy assumptions or misconstrued with rosy forecasts. I hope today's article will drive a stake through the undead heart of plug-in vehicle efficiency claims. To keep it simple, I'll use the Camry Hybrid from Toyota Motors (TM), the Leaf from Nissan Motors (NSANY.PK)...

John Petersen Over the last few months I've had a running debate with some die-hard EVangelicals who insist that plug-in cars will be cleaner than simple, reliable and relatively inexpensive Prius class HEVs. Since most of my readers have enough to do without slogging through the comments section, it's high time we lay the cards on the table and show why the myth of zero emissions vehicles is one of the most outrageous lies ever foisted on the American public. The following graph comparing the life-cycle CO2 emissions of conventional, hybrid and plug-in vehicles comes from a...

John Petersen On March 30th, Lux Research released an update on the vehicle electrification market titled "Small Batteries, Big Sales: The Unlikely Winners in the Electric Vehicle Market" that predicts: E-bikes and micro-hybrids carry minimal storage, but compensate with high volume. E-bikes show strong unit sales, as they sustain a 157 GWh storage market totaling $24.3 billion in revenues in 2016. Micro-hybrids benefit from increasingly stringent emissions limits, supporting 41 GWh and $3.1 billion in storage sales. Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) like Toyota's Prius grow steadily while PHEVs and EVs are at the mercy of external factors....

By Jeff Siegel A good friend of mine recently took delivery of a brand-new Tesla (NASD:TSLA) Model S. This is the electric car you've read about in these pages before: a sleek, all-electric vehicle boasting high-end luxury, state-of-the-art design, and an all-electric driving range of 300 miles... Take a look: Not only is the Model S a top-notch vehicle that crushes every other electric car available in the marketplace today, but its ability to travel 300 miles on a single charge has proven to be a serious game-changer in the world of electric cars. In fact,...

Doug Young Bottom line: Tesla’s newly announced modest China sales and announcement of a plan for potential local production reflect the uphill road it faces in the Chinese market, which is unlikely to get much easier in the next 2 years. China is fast becoming the land of promising upstart companies that failed to reach their potential, with word that former new energy superstar Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) has posted very ho-hum car sales in a market where it once held out big hopes. The rare China sales figures...

Denny Schlesinger Machiavelli's The Prince and Sun Tzu's The Art of War are the two best known classic treatises on strategies to conquer and to govern. As Kandi Technology Group's electric vehicle strategy unfolds, I'm reminded of these masterpieces. The Challenges There are many of them. To start with, the current personal land transportation paradigm, the internal combustion engine, is not just well entrenched, it is becoming more efficient as time goes by. The fears of peak oil are vastly exaggerated specially now that fracking technology has added billions of barrels of recoverable...

*with humble apologies to Charles Darwin John Petersen The Oxford Dictionary defines the adjective 'specious' as: Superficially plausible, but actually wrong; Misleading in appearance, especially misleadingly attractive. The Wiktionary offers a broader definition as: Seemingly well-reasoned or factual, but actually fallacious or insincere; strongly held but false; Having an attractive appearance intended to generate a favorable response; deceptively attractive. Over the last two years I've patiently analyzed the evolving price and performance forecasts of electric vehicle advocates and lithium-ion battery developers. In the process I've shown them to be possible, but unlikely, and...

by Debra Fiakas CFA After the market close Tuesday, AeroVironment, Inc. (AVAV:  Nasdaq) is scheduled to report financial results for the quarter ending October 2015.  Management is holding conference call with investors and analysts directly following the announcement.  It is going to be an interesting call. AeroVironment has some crowing to do.  Hyundai recently tapped the company to provide electric vehicle charging stations at its dealerships for the 2016 Sonata plug-in hybrid model.  Sonata drivers will also have the option to buy the company’s TurboCard charging system or the wall-mounted EVSE-RS charging station.  Hyundai is the...

Doug Young The BYD gas-powered S6 SUV debuted in Chile last month. Image Credit BYD. Struggling electric vehicle (EV) maker BYD (HKEx: 1211; Shenzhen: 002594, OTC:BYDDF) got a major boost last week when Beijing announced an innovative new plan to stimulate an anemic industry whose sales have failed to take off despite generous government support. The plan this time around looks much smarter than previous ones by focusing on big customers. Unlike previous campaigns that focused mostly on consumers, this new campaign takes aim at Chinese cities and mass buyers...

Denny Schlesinger The policy is hot, but the market is cold "The policy is hot, but the market is cold" is how a Chinese industry spokesman described the problem facing electric vehicles, the public is not buying. The core problem is the battery. A battery is no match for a tankful of gasoline in energy density meaning reduced driving range. Recharging the battery is time consuming, no match for a quick fill-up. If you use fast charge, you diminish the battery's life expectancy. To add to these worries, the battery typically costs as much as the...

By Jeff Siegel If you don't believe that folks are waiting impatiently for Tesla Motors (NASDAQ: TSLA) to slip up, look no further than today's action on the stock. After the Wall Street Journal reported that the company was selling fewer cars and offering new incentives, the stock tanked 6 percent. Of course, as it turned out, the decline in sales was only in the U.S. And it didn't take long for super genius Elon Musk to tweet the following message: Credit Suisse analyst Daniel Galves followed up on the piece, noting that...

John Petersen One of the first lessons investment professionals learn is that if an investment proposal sounds too good to be true, the proposal is probably materially false and misleading. On November 15th, the Electrification Coalition released its Fleet Electrification Roadmap and once again proved the wisdom of the "Too Good To Be True Rule." I know that lobbyists are supposed to take a policy position and make the best case they can; but when their case is based on deliberate distortions, somebody has to point out the differences between current realities and bafflegab. In building the...

John Petersen Last Friday President Obama and executives from thirteen leading automakers gathered in Washington DC to announce an historic agreement to increase fleet-wide fuel economy standards for new cars and light trucks from 27.5 mpg for the 2011 model year to 54.5 mpg for the 2025 model year. While politicians frequently spin superlatives to describe mediocre results, I believe the President's claim that the accord "represents the single most important step we've ever taken as a nation to reduce our dependence on foreign oil" is a refreshing example of political understatement. After three decades of demagoguery, debate,...