John,
Two associates and one outside my area told me the post was relating to a competitor not valence. It apparently was an attempt by FMK to do some damage control--take the air out of a competitors upcoming release concerning an OEM. They said they would try to post something regarding it here. Maybe you could try to get Greg to confirm this for you. If I am not mistaken and he is who his user name and e-mail indicate he is then I think he would know.
In addition, considering the difficulty setting up this live industry analysis I am considering setting up a new site on the www for industry and technology analysts, industry participants, academic researchers, qualified investors, and V.Cs, in which this experiement will be taken to the next level. I think it will prevent the kind of b.s. that has gone on here and will provide a serious source of credible information. I am talking with the advanced materials departments of several institutions and hope to have news soon. If you are one of the above mentioned I would like to invite you to fill out an application and join in one of the world's first industry and technology on-going live analysis of the advanced battery industry. Participants have to be credible but anyone may read the discussion without applying first. I should have the arrangements completed by the time I return from vacation. I will still drop in here every so often to participate in this thread and check up on things. I am quite astonished to be informed of how many people are watching this and the vlnc thread (but not posting). To speculate a little, I think someone at vlnc thread really pissed off either a gov entity or a research dept of an investment partnership-- I am expecting that the new www site will not suffer from any of the problems incurred here. Certainly p.r. firms of the type incurred on the vlnc will not qualify and neither will short selling partnerships. Industry participants are strongly encouraged.
On a side note, some of you wanted to know what I thought about the participants. To prevent any vitual shouting matches I will only list strengths of the players I think are most interesting: A side motive is to encourage representaives from these companies to participate in my new project.
Battery Engineering(hitachi/maxell)--Manuf tech, japan partners, tech
Electrofuel--Battery performance, R&D, patents
Johns Hopkins--All plastic battery, cycle lives
Lithium Technology Corp--dual product line, web constr.
Polystor--Hawkers backing, R&D
Sanyo Energy--R&D, low cost proc, dist, brand
Sony--low cost proc, domin over channels, brand, manuf tech
Tadiran Batteries--first li-metal battery, R&D, innovativens
Toshiba--progressiveness, low cost, prod line & synergies, mgt
Ultralife--oems, brand, prod line, innovat, devmtl rel (lockheed/McD)
Valence Technology--first auto line, mgt, J.V.s (Hanil, Alliant, De)
I did not include any proprietary analysis or deductions that could compromise any of the companies positions. You asked me for a ranking of the top three earlier I will try to do so but I going to have to do it a little unconvetially. Based soley on my personal opinion and intuition and nothing else I believe the rank like this with regard to your orginial question (contenders for long term):
Sony/Toshiba/Sanyo
Battery Engineering
Ultralife Batteries
Tadiran
Powerdex
Valence Tech
Polystor
Lithium Tech
I hope you find this useful and I sincerely wish you good luck.
DISCLOSURE I have public or private equity stakes in some of the companies listed in this post. |
