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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Travis_Bickle who wrote (168846)	6/5/2009 10:55:07 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 362944

Mitsubishi Motors to Preempt Rivals’ Electric Cars (Update2) By Naoko Fujimura and Tetsuya Komatsu June 5 (Bloomberg) -- Mitsubishi Motors Corp., the maker of the i MiEV electric car, will begin selling the model to corporate and government customers in Japan next month before Toyota Motor Corp. and Nissan Motor Co. introduce rival versions. The i MiEV electric car will cost 4.6 million yen ($47,500), Mitsubishi Motors said in a statement today. That excludes as much as 2.4 million yen in subsidies available to buyers from central and local governments. The company aims to sell 1,400 units domestically in the year ending March 31. Mitsubishi Motors joins Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. in unveiling electric cars ahead of Toyota’s and Nissan’s release of similar models by 2012. While automakers plan to tap demand spurred by government incentives and stricter emission rules, price and a shortened driving range may hinder sales. “People won’t pick electric cars as their first choice,” said Yasuaki Iwamoto, an auto analyst at Okasan Securities Co. in Tokyo, who has a “strong sell” rating on Mitsubishi Motors shares. “Demand for electric cars may grow once they can be replacement for gasoline-powered cars” based on price and driving distance, he said. The company, which built 1.31 million vehicles in 2008, plans to make electric vehicles 20 percent of production by 2020, it said today. Mitsubishi Motors aims to make its electric-car business profitable in the year starting April 2013 on sales of 30,000 units. It plans to sell 15,000 electric cars in 2011. Hybrid Competition Mitsubishi Motors may add a commercial mini vehicle and a small car to its electric vehicle lineup in 2011, President Osamu Masuko said at a press conference in Tokyo today. The company is also developing a plug-in hybrid car. “We place electric cars as one of pillars for our business,” Masuko said. While Mitsubishi Motors plans to start taking consumer orders for the i MiEV next month for delivery in April 2010, it faces competition from lower-priced electric-gasoline hybrids including Toyota’s Prius and Honda Motor Co.’s Insight. New versions of the Insight and Prius went on sale earlier this year with better than expected orders helped by price reductions. The Toyota Prius, priced from 2.05 million yen, was the best selling model excluding minicars last month in Japan, with sales topping 10,000 units, the Japan Automobile Dealers Association. The Insight, priced from 1.89 million yen, ranked third with 8,183 units sold. Nissan, Japan’s third-largest automaker, has said it plans to introduce electric cars in Japan and the U.S. in 2010 and mass-produce them globally in 2012. Toyota, the world’s largest maker of gasoline-electric hybrid car, is also developing electric cars for sale in 2012. i MiEV Mitsubishi Motors rose 2.3 percent to 175 yen at the 3 p.m. close of Tokyo Stock Exchange trading. Customers including utility companies and governments lease the i MiEV for 60,000 yen a month under a five-year contract, Tetsuro Aikawa, Mitsubishi Motors’ sales head, told reporters in Tokyo today. The i MiEV can travel as far as 160 kilometers (99 miles) per single charge of its lithium-ion battery, Mitsubishi Motors said. The carmaker has a venture with GS Yuasa Corp. and Mitsubishi Corp. to make the battery, which is lighter and more powerful than nickel-hydride units currently used in hybrid cars. Fuji Heavy, the maker of Subaru-brand cars, plans to sell about 170 Plug-in Stella electric cars this fiscal year from July, it said yesterday. The car will cost 4.73 million yen. It can travel as far as 90 kilometers per charge, according to Fuji Heavy. In the U.S., General Motors Corp., the world’s second- largest automaker, plans to sell the Chevrolet Volt electric car next year. Germany’s Daimler AG acquired a 9 percent stake in Tesla Motors Inc., a U.S. electric-car startup, in May. The agreement builds on Daimler’s plans to buy Tesla battery packs for electric versions of the Smart minicar. bloomberg.com

To: Travis_Bickle who wrote (168846)	6/5/2009 5:03:45 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 362944

‘Black Swan’ Hedge Fund Bets On Hyperinflation finalternatives.com June 1, 2009 Universa Investments, a hedge fund firm affiliated with famed “Black Swan” economist Nassim Nicholas Taleb, is launching a new fund betting that global economic stimulus packages will lead to hyperinflation. The Black Swan Protection Protocol-Inflation fund is the brainchild of Mark Spitznagel, a longtime Taleb collaborator who owns and manages Universa. Taleb himself has no ownership stake in the Santa Monica, Calif.-based firm, but is a major investor and adviser. According to The Wall Street Journal, the new Black Swan fund offers investors big returns if inflation and interest rates soar as they did in the 1970s. The fund will invest in commodity options, as well as commodity-linked stock options, including oil drillers and gold miners. Spitznagel’s fund will also short Treasury bonds. “We think these things are going to see massive volatility,” Taleb told the Journal. Investors have flocked to Universa, which has seen its assets soar twenty-fold to $6 billion over the past 18 months. The firm has closed several funds to new investors, after some of them doubled in value last year betting against the market. But investing with Universa isn’t easy, or cheap: The firm has a $25 million minimum investment requirement, the Journal reports, and rarely accepts investments of less than $100 million.