The only information I received from my friend in Dayton, Ohio regarding our new plant was that he personally drove by the GM/Ovonic EV battery plant in Kettering, Ohio and informed me that the plant was about the same size as a Walmart store. You now know what I know.
Our plant in Troy had a capacity to hand make one EV battery pack a day, or @250 battery packs a year. The Kettering plant was to
be able to produce ten times as much, or 2,500. The new facility
may be expandable beyond that by adding more lines, limited only
by space limitations. Our Troy plant is @5,000 sq/ft in size.
Typical Walmart stores are larger than 50,000 sq/ft. It's simply
a matter of time and we will get the answers to your questions.
Back to the Toyota Prius cost projections. Remember, you have to
factor in the difference in gasoline prices in Japan vs. the US.
The last I heard gasoline was selling for about four dollars a gallon
in Japan, or right at four times the cost in the US. So, where it indeed takes fewer batteries in an HEV than an EV the much higher
gas cost in Japan has to be factored in.
A question was asked of Bob Stempel if we were still on
target in meeting our lower cost projections at the 20,000 battery pack production level and he stated we were actually showing
improvements. We will continue to make cost improvements as we continue to further develop our technology, while at the same time
increasing our production.
Let me add a little perspective to just how small a 20,000 vehicle
production level is. Fifty-six million vehicles were mfg'd in the
world last year by 41 mfg'rs worldwide. 20,000 vehicles represents just one twenty-fifth of one percent (1/25th) of fifty-six million vehicles.
The consensus of opinion throughout the world is unanamous that the twentieth century will go down in the history books as the century of the internal combustion engine. The same does not hold true of the projections for the twenty-first century. Just one percent of the total EV and HEV vehicle output would reflect in over a half million vehicles per year. If you were to increase that number by one percent in the second year it would result in a million vehicles. By adding an additional one percent increase yearly it will take one hundred years to replace the internal combustion engine. And, guess what. We will run out of petroleum long before that at our current rate of consumption of 25 billion barrels per year. The petroleum industry has discovered only a little over seven billion barrels a year over the past three years. The bottom line is that we are consuming far more oil than we are finding and our known reserves are diminishing. So, there you have it. This is not my opinion, but based upon the facts as reported in The World Oil magazine, as well as The Oil and Gas journal, the two key publications of the petroleum industry.
It is simply a matter of time for this reality to catch up with with our politicians and the public.
If nothing else, the increasing environmental problems in the world
may again help bring about the much needed change for clean air.
Regards.
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