Speaking for myself, our year-end results were about what was expected. We showed some continued improvement in reducing our year end losses vs. a year ago. However, it's still not quite enough.
We need to make some significant improvements across the board during
this current year. And, everything is pretty well in place to bring this about.
It still irks me to see the repeated statements about the high cost
of our NiMH batteries holding us back, when it has been stated very emphatically that the cost of operating our hand made one-at-a-time NiMH batteries will become cost competitive with gasoline when we get our production up to 20,000 EV's. This is a real travesty of justice when you consider that there were over 56 million vehicles mfg'd in the world last year. Twenty thousand vehicles in relation to the 56 million vehicles mfg'd last year is not even a proverbial drop in the bucket. It's a joke. I wonder just how stupid the gov't bureaucrats and the auto industry executives think the public is to believe their hogwash. How much longer can you continue to educate the public on one hand and expect them to be so stupid not to see the continuous contradictions spewed out by the various politicians and auto exec's.
On the other hand it is interesting to note that the Prius HEV will sell about 20,000 HEV's their very first year. And as I stated just yesterday and was again confirmed in a press release by Toyota today, "they will have to improve their performance before they begin to market the Prius in the USA." Again, their press release states the good points about the Prius, that it is "capable of cruising at 88mph on gasoline alone. It can accelerate up to 100 mph in short bursts using the engine and batteries. Again, no reference was made regarding their acceleration time from 0-60. Instead, they again repeat the highly congested slow traffic in Japan.
There are definite shortcomings to Matshusita's Misch-Metal NiMH
batteries that for whatever reason continues to be one of the better
guarded secrets from the world. Lead acid batteries excel in their thrust by far in their acceleration from 0-60, when compared to Matshushita's NiMH that takes 18 seconds vs. nine seconds for ours. (The Prius hybrid should be even slower compared to an EV because hybrids have far less batteries, so as a result don't have the get-up-and-go.) But, the lead acid battery has a miserable driving range compared to Matshushita's of 120 miles quoted by the mfg'rs, with about an 80 mile range for urban driving. Matshushita's cycle life also has shortcomings vs ECD. There are additional shortcomings to their battery technology compared to ours. However, they do not have to pay any royalties to ECD for this older, patents expired, inferior technology.
Don Devlin can shed some additional light on the differences in our
NiMH technology vs. Matshushita's, as our acknowledged in-house expert.
The question now, is, how much longer can they hold out before they become a joint venture partner of ours, or start buying their batteries from GM Ovonic? They will definitely need to develop a whole new battery technology between now and next years 2000 model or deal with ECD. Wouldn't that be nice? For the time being they can get away with playing games, at least until we, GMEV1, get into the marketplace at long last so the public can test drive and see the vastly superior difference.
The Japanese wanted to be first into the marketplace with an advanced battery over GM's lead acid battery. They also wanted to be first with HEV's. And they won with their strategy in both cases.
They, the Japanese have come into the marketplace with the first "advanced" NiMH battery that offers a much greater driving range over lead acid. And their battery technology appears to meet the needs of their customers in Japan.
GM has been slow getting their act together. But, at long last appear to be marketing our very first GMEV1 later this year. Thank goodness the Japanese have been moving forward aggressively, otherwise I personally don't believe anyone of us would ever live long enough to see the environmental issues alone to bring about EV's. Thanks to the Japanese for their help.
Enough for now.
Regards.
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