Just heard from FRB:
Betsy Truax just returned my call, and said she last spoke with Lev on 12/21, and as of that date they were still on schedule, 'to *begin* shipping from the first (large cell) line *in earnest* the first of the year, continuing through the first quarter.' Note that this was the submission date of the S-3, so the S-3 should not be interpreted as a revision of the company position.
She said the SEC document was written by attorneys, for SEC purposes, in the most conservative language possible. The 'safety testing' referred to is NOT a requirement for them to ship batteries off the line. She said that if the testing continued beyond the dates they intended to ship, they would commence shipping without completing the tests. However, she said that Lev was trying to do both at the same time, if he could, so that the shipped batteries would already have UL approval. And she also said that the UL approval required meeting harsher specifications than usual.
So in a nutshell, I don't know where the information came from that said they'd shipped from NI already, but it is incorrect, according to the company's representatives. Perhaps someone passed on secondhand information.
However, Ms. Truax' clarification about the safety testing, together with VLNC's statements in the S-3 about the battery already meeting their own specifications (and only failing certain 'abuse' tests), clearly indicates that they are indeed preparing to ship out large quantities of batteries beginning in January, and see no reasons why those shipments would be delayed.
It would appear they intend to keep their NI workforce of 270 employees busy, making and shipping batteries, from the start of the new year. Sounds good to me.
So perhaps contracts may indeed be forthcoming around the time of the shareholders meeting, if any OEMs are truly rarin' to go. Which, though not the most likely scenario, is not entirely unrealistic. I note that their chosen battery format is fairly generic and could readily fit in a CD-ROM slot, for example; not to mention that it appears (based on the picture at the MOT website only) to closely resemble MOT's 'new standard battery format' that was designed to allow a transition from li-ion to li-poly without changing the spatial dimensions (only charging circuits, etc.). Note that the new Micron laptop was to use this design.
Can anyone say, 'Let's see a demo at CES in Vegas the first week of January? Hey, it could happen!' ? ...Though I'm not holding my breath anymore.... |
