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Technology Stocks : Ballard Power -world leader zero-emission PEM fuel cells -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sid Turtlman who wrote (2517)	5/5/1998 10:42:00 AM
From: David E. Smith	Respond to of 5827

You can bet that CTA will do a detailed performance comparison. I suspect that we'll only see it, officially, if it turns out to be positive though. Dave

To: Sid Turtlman who wrote (2517)	5/5/1998 11:05:00 AM
From: Kayaker	Respond to of 5827

<<Ooops! I keep forgetting; as everyone on this thread knows, fuel cells and buses are just like DRAM chips--the more you produce, the more the cost plummets, until they undercut everything in the market. There--problem solved.>> Sidney, if I bought 3 regular Ford cars, without engines or drive trains, and paid a team of engineers out in my garage to build and install, piece by piece, a new and unique type of ICE and drive train in each, from a bunch of nonstandard parts, how much do you think it would cost? And if I then moved this production to an assembly line in an auto plant that would make tens of thousands a year, would the assembly costs for each one not be cheaper by at least a factor of 10? Would the cost of fabricating new and specialized parts by the tens of thousands not be cheaper by at least a factor of 10? Everything is dramatically cheaper when produced in quantity. If I go to my local printer and ask for 1000 sheets of letterhead, he will charge me next to nothing for an additional 100. When I get software binders made, they won't touch an order of less than 1000. What's the price if I need only 750 of one of the tab inserts? Virtually the same as 1000. Dupont has already stated that when produced in quantity, their membrane material (Nafion?) would be cheaper by a factor of 10. Everything manufactured, from rubber balls to wing nuts, is at least 10 times cheaper when produced by the ten of thousands, than when produced by the handful.

To: Sid Turtlman who wrote (2517)	5/5/1998 3:17:00 PM
From: Hawkeye	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5827

Sid you ought to try reading that article again. It was actually an article on a UCS report urging support for Fuel Cell and Other Advanced Buses. You must have missed the part where it says and I quote "The UCS report estimates the OVERALL savings by a hydrogen fuel cell bus could amount to as much as $180,000 over the lifetime of the vehicle compared to a diesel- plus a quieter ride- because of the intrinsically higher energy efficiency of the fuel cell." Further on it states "If cost targets of about $150/kw for the entire fuel cell system can be achieved, the outlook for fuel cell buses, which possess unmatched environmental benefits, will be very positive." You might want to also read the article starting on page 1 on hydrogen sales since it quotes an SRI Consulting study which predicts " the economics of small scale hydrogen production may change dramatically over the next five years to the point at which on-site or captive hydrogen becomes more economical than liquid or trucked gaseous hydrogen." If you read the whole newsletter it generally becomes much more understandable than if you pull things out of each article willy nilly.