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Technology Stocks : VALENCE TECHNOLOGY (VLNC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J. M. Burr who wrote (13846)	8/19/1999 8:41:00 PM
From: Rich Wolf	Respond to of 27311

Electrofuel? You must be kidding, right? Right? They are no threat whatsoever to Valence. Aside from the dangers with their product which require metal encasing (as Paul noted), there is the glaring omission of any data regarding the number of recharge cycles their battery provides. If their product were capable of meeting the industry standard of 500 cycles with at least 80% capacity retention, it would have been so stated. The absence of such a specification is quite damning. Further examination of their chemistry indicates the likely reason as the use of a 'doping' method for the initial charge state, if you will, which in all likelihood does not retain its capacity upon repeated charge/discharge cycles. On the other hand, the current Valence cellphone cells have a spec of over 140 wh/kg, and this material will be transitioned to their large-cell line for laptop applications, allowing this performance for very thin battery formats (compared to the relatively thick and bulky Electrofuel cell); then the lithium-phosphate cathode materials will be commercially available next year (according to comments from Valence during the recent conference call), which allow performance equivalent to or better than Electrofuel's (around 170 wh/kg).... yet without the safety problems, without the requirement of expensive titanium casings and mechanical safety systems, and while yet retaining the ability to recharge without losing energy capacity. If I was an OEM, I'd be designing Valence's cells into my products, and looking forward to the upgrade to the other generations later this year (and to generations beyond that, alluded to by the company during the last conference call). I'm not surprised no one is interested in marketing the Electrofuel cell along with their own products. But I agree with Paul, the excitement created in the marketplace even by the substandard Electrofuel product is good for all makers of advanced batteries, and would add that it is but an indicator of what awaits the first products introduced with Valence cells.