More Toys Continued.....
Ford P2000
Ford contour "look a like". Ford claims 63 mpg. Car weight is 40 % less than the Taurus. Ford claims trimdown comes at no expense to safety, strength, stiffness or durability. Body is aluminum and car has many expensive space age materials. Engine is a direct injection diesel/parallel hybrid with Nickel- Metal Hybride batteries. Ford plans on testing in mid 1998 BUT.... Ford admits it cannot meet emission standards unless a new kind of fuel is developed (see previous agreements Ford has made in this area). Ford has released substantially less info than Toyota and Chrysler.
Honda J-VX
Gas/electric Hybrid that uses a Ultracapacitor battery that they claim will give it 0-60mph acceleration in 9 seconds (over the rest of the competitors 12 seconds. Not much else mentioned on the Honda.
GM-EV1
Weight 1900 lbs plus 1,100 lb batery! Nickel hybrid batteries will be revealed this fall and will reduce this weight and offer a 160 mile range on the new battery. GM is also toying with a 1.0 liter CNG fueled reciprocating engine. GM Chairman john Smith said that by 2001, the company would have a production ready hybrid electric powered powered by either a clean burning 80 mpg diesel or a 60 mpg turbine engine. By 2004 a fuel cell powere, 80 mpg EV1 should be ready.
Mitsubishi
Plans on using all direct injection gas engines in two years. major block for gas direct injection is that US has high sulfer in gas(...hence the recent agreements between car manufacturers and oil companies to reformulate fuels)
Speculations......
BAAT technology is ahead of what has been revealed. Toyota has an advantage in that their vehicle hybrid is being deployed. Look for mas marketing (but extremely low sales) as Toyota puts on the WE ARE GREEN tag to sell their autos to American Yuppies. Remember BAAT is a pure engine.... no hybrid to assist fuel efficiency. Nobody has topped their mileage for a real engine in a real car.
Baat will not have the upper hand for long. The recent press releases and photo spreads is not an accident. The major automakers are behind and they know it. They also have serious war chests and resources to catch up or even buy BAAT tech (if they deem it necessary and cannot copy it outright). BAAT has no patents.....which makes the technology virtually unmarketable until they get some protection. BAAT needs to release more on the patent picture... Who the firm is that represents them and the timeline for patent prosecution. ( A company can speed or slow down the process if it wants to).
I expect the dyno tests to reveal that the BAAT Yanmar engine can in fact get over 100mpg. IFF FFFORD backs out of its supplying of two engines, then BAAT should have a dyno test done on the Yanmar at UC Riverside! I kind of liken the BAAT situation to inventing the airplane. The Wright bros. did not make much money, but received a lot of fame. The technology was too new and the market wasn't ready for it. By the time the market developed the brothers were a minor player in the airplane industry even though their names were houselold words.
Baat management should learn from this history lesson and start building technology applications and then showing it off publicly:
(The best defense is a damn good..in your face... offense)
A genset using BAAT tech
A tractor truck (Mack or whoever) with BAAT tech compared to a similar outfitted truck with a standard diesel run side by side in a track or highway test.
A hybrid diesel electric car that could conceivabely get 135mpg plus that blows the Ford P2000, Toyota Prius and the Chrysler Intrepid ESX2 away. The GM EV-1 is so far behind that they are not even a contestent.
BAAT needs $$$$ from a big boy to do the above magic on their truck or genset.
BAAT needs to do a full court press with the above actions for the media and the American public to win the minds and the pocketbooks of our fellow citizens ( and politicians who are looking to slam the big three whenever they can) that they are not some off the wall company with good, but undeployable ideas.
I understand the current Eastern European marketing strategy, but the two strategies do not have to be mutually exclusive...and the Eastern Europeans do not have the same amount of cash or pocketbooks. Time is only on your side if you know how to use it. BAAt needs to strike now before the Automakers invest the war chest to come up with their own versions in what looks like a technology/PR battle. Microsoft made its money by staying one step ahead of its competitors. The market is littered with those that did not...Wang computer, Osborne computer, etc.
I must admit that high mileage and hybrids NEVER got much attention in the Car mags until BAAT came onto the seen. Then again, Toyota also just started to advertise their Prius hybrid.It is also very intersting to note that BAAT was not mentioned in any of the magazines ( I know Don McCosh at Popular Science knows about BAAT...I personlly left him messages on the BAAT engine.)His summary line in the April 98 Popular Science is the big three party line....."The ultralight, ultraefficient concept cars gleamed on the stand, but are still at least several years away from the showrooms." Will BAAT change this paradigm??? BAAT is ahead of the best and brightest of Tokyo, Detroit and Europe, but they aren't getting us rich.....yet. Time as well as STRATEGY will tell if they have seized the moment or have pissed the opportunity away.....
For now I am riding the BAATmobile and I am wiling to give management the benefit of the doubt and therefore the time to develop their opportunity and STRATEGY to succeed. They may not be proceeding exactly the way I would, but then I don't run the company, I only invest in it. As long as they are moving and progressing then they are not a stationary target. BAAT is good LONG hold until news develops to the contrary. The upside potential is very lucrative and the downside is that they will go back to being a little R&D company living off of government contracts and developing automotive ideas that are ahead of their time. At present the odds are substantially greater on the upside than on the downside....I'm still waiting for financials to see their cash flow situation, but indications are that it will be positive.
The Alaskan |
