Plug-in Vehicles

John Petersen Last Friday I received my copy of the presentations from September's European Lead Battery Conference in Istanbul. Most of the presentations were written for a technically astute audience and don't offer much in the way of concrete guidance for investors, but an overview presentation from Ricardo PLC, a global leader in engineering solutions for low carbon, fuel-efficient transportation, included three slides that merit serious investor consideration and show why I'm convinced cheap will beat cool for the next decade of vehicle electrification. I've posted a copy of the Ricardo presentation here. Technology Timeline The...

Clean Energy Intel BYD at the Central China High-Tech Fair, Shenzhen, November 2009.  Source: Wikipedia / Brucke-Osteuropa. Over the course of the past few weeks we have seen a couple of noteworthy developments at Chinese auto maker BYD (BYDDF.PK). I have previously discussed the troubles at BYD, which by mid-September had taken the stock down 72% year to date. However, a couple of developments suggest that the Warren Buffet-backed automaker is at least worth keeping an eye on in the period ahead. In late October, the company opened its US ...

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 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....

Tom Konrad I asked Art Porcari for a paragraph about what Kandi Technologies' (KNDI) recent press release meant for the company to be included in this article. He managed to keep it to a page, but it was too much for an article about ten stocks.  I thought I'd share his thoughts here.   In its Q3, 2011 10Q filing Kandi (KNDI) stated: “On August 14, 2011, a team is formally formed in Hangzhou by Development Research Center of the State Council, Society of Automotive Engineers of China (SAEC), and Zhejiang University to...

John Petersen Last week I did a 40-minute interview for Hedge Fund Radio, a weekly investment program hosted by John Thomas, the Mad Hedge Fund Trader. While our conversation focused on the unassailable mathematics supporting my contention that plug-in vehicles are wasteful, I was fascinated by John's description of his recent conversations with Toyota Motors (TM) where Toyota confirmed its commitment to NiMH battery technology for hybrid drive and fuel cell technology for electric drive. Its somehow comforting to know that the world's most successful automaker agrees that the first modern plug-in, GM's EV1, died from congenital birth...

John Petersen In late June I wrote a forward looking article that identified several companies in my energy storage and vehicle electrification group that I expected to perform well or perform poorly during the third quarter. Since short-term market changes are notoriously hard to predict, it’s worthwhile to look back and see where I got things right and where I got them wrong. So I’ll start today with a quick summary table and assess the relative accuracy of my Q3 calls, and then turn my attention to Q4, which is shaping up as a time of bright opportunity...

John Petersen On November 15th I suggested a paired trade where investors would buy 11.5 shares of Exide Technologies (XIDE) and short one share of Tesla Motors (TSLA). Over the last two months, investors who made the trade on November 15th would have realized the following gains. 15-Nov-11 13-Jan-12 Net Entry Exit Gain Buy 11.5 Exide -$30.59 $36.69 $6.10 Sell one Tesla $33.93 -$22.79 $11.14 Pair trade total...

Doug Young Bottom line: Bureaucracy at the homeowner level is providing a major obstacle to China’s ambitious new energy vehicle build-up plan, with new government directives unlikely to fix the problem. A new report is showing just why new energy vehicles are failing to gain any traction among Chinese consumers, despite huge government efforts to promote the technology. The main culprit in this case is the country’s huge bureaucracy, which affects everything from the largest government programs all the way down to something as simple as installing a vehicle charger in an apartment building. In most...

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...

Tom Konrad CFA Stop debating the viability of electric cars, and work on fixing our broken transportation paradigm. My friend and colleague John Petersen has it in for the electric car.  Recently he wrote a summary of his anti-electric car views, entitled "It's Time to Kill the Electric Car, Drive a Stake Through its Heart and Burn the Corpse."  Did I mention he also has a flair for the dramatic?  Many electric vehicle (EV) advocates, or "EVangelists," as he calls them, have tried to refute his arguments.  One of the more coherent...

Tom Konrad CFA A recent financing transaction dramatically changes the outlook for heavy-duty electric vehicle company Balqon (BLQN.OB). Last summer, I mentioned Balqon Corporation (BLQN.OB) as one of ten electric vehicle (EV) and hybrid vehicle stocks as part of my Best Peak Oil Investments series.  At the time, I thought that Balqon's short-haul electric trucks were a better fit for EV technology than electric cars, but that Balqon's constant need for investor funds made the common stock a bad investment because of probable dilution.  Overall, I thought the stock was worth watching, in case the funding...

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...

Part II - The Business Arthur Porcari. This is part two of a four-part series on Kandi Technologies (KNDI).  Part I was an introduction, and Part III and Part IV will look at the company's financial condition and stock price, respectively. Kandi was founded by its effectively sole controlling shareholder Hu Xiaoming in late 2002 in Jinhua City, Zhezjiang Province, PRC as a prolific developer and manufacturer of two, three and four wheeled gas powered, mainly off road, recreational vehicles exclusively for the US export market. By 2007 KNDI rose to the status of being...

Doug Young Tesla cruises into China I have to give my congratulations to new energy car maker Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) for creating the kind of buzz and excitement this week that only names like Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and smartphone sensation Xiaomi have typically been able to muster. In the last 2 days, the company and its charismatic founder Elon Musk were all over the Chinese headlines as Tesla delivered its first electric vehicles (EVs) in China on the sidelines of the nation’s biggest annual auto show happening this week in...

John Petersen In his 2006 State of the Union Address, President George W. Bush said: "Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. And here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. The best way to break this addiction is through technology." What a crock of balderdash! If you compare US fuel prices with those in other industrialized countries, gasoline is a screaming bargain and the same can be said for electricity. It's not the energy we use that's a problem. The problem is the...