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Technology Stocks : Energy Conversion Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Futurist who wrote (2364)	9/26/1998 11:32:00 AM
From: Michael Stavy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 8393

You general point is well taken. ECD must get royalties from its research work. The business plan for ECD is to sink the stockholder's money in to doing research and then to earn a return on the stockholder's money by earning royalties from the patents developed in the research. It would be nice for the shareholder's and the public to know which NiMH, solar and disk storage products are being manufactured under ECD patents. I have already seen batteries with the label "Ovonic Inside" on the packaging. I would like to see this labeling program expanded.

To: Futurist who wrote (2364)	9/27/1998 8:29:00 AM
From: Michael Latas	Respond to of 8393

None of the power tool mfgr's are licensee's. They all buy their NiMH batteries from any one of our sixteen consumer battery licensee's. The licensee's are listed in the back exhibits of ECD's 10K. Three of the Japanese licensee's are held in confidence under a special ruling made available by the SEC. I am not personally aware of any patent infringement case pending on our NiMH technology. That doesn't mean none exist. We have been successful in winning our patent cases in Japan, as well as against Saft from France. Is anyone aware of any further litigation? Back on the power tool subject; we should start enjoying a new royalty trickle that will gather momentum as our vastly superior NiMH batteries hit the market. We will not only replace the Ni-cad's, but, make possible additional new tools that were not possible because of the limitations of the 30 wh/kg Ni-cads with their notorious memory shortcomings vs. our 95 wh/kg batteries and no memory problems. Regards.

To: Futurist who wrote (2364)	9/27/1998 1:30:00 PM
From: Michael Latas	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8393

The Motor Trend article was indeed very interesting. Following are some comments I would like make: Toyota's RAV4 EV's will accelerate from 0-60 mph in "approximately" 18 seconds, with a range of 120 miles on a charge. The Honda EV Plus will accelerate from 0-60 in "just over 17 seconds", with an estimated range of 125 miles. However, it is interesting to note that the couple cited in the article were achieving 80 miles per charge in urban driving. They were happy as a lark with the overall performance, which still achieves double the lead acid battery range. Nissan's lithium-ion batteries provide a driving range of 120 miles, with no acceleration speed given. The Ford Ranger EV has a range of only 85 miles, with no acceleration speed given. The good news here is it will be available in all fifty states. No range or acceleration was given for the GM EV1 or the Chevrolet S-10. I found that void rather interesting. I personally appreciated the up-beat tone of the article. Also, the credit given to Stan Ovshinsky as being the father of the NiMH battery technology. He certainly deserves that honor, along with ECD. However, I also personally believe that if it indeed were Ruder Finn who was responsable for the article, they would have separated our "advanced" NiMH batteries from the rest of the so called "advanced" NiMH Nisch-Misch batteries by stating our new GM EV1 with its 160 mile range and our dazzling acceleration speed of from 0-60 in nine seconds represents the latest NiMH battery technology. Another noteworthy comment some of you may not be aware of is that some of the GM executives who have been test driving the GM EV1 have been achieving ranges upwards of 215 miles, with some battery life still left in them. This surely would have included highway driving. Lead acid batteries have a poor driving range of about forty miles in the city, but they have an excellent acceleration speed. It's going to be interesting to see how the public will react to the sluggish 0-60 mph in 18 seconds, or, twice as slow as our GM EV1. This is a very serious problem Toyota faces with their Prius HEV. They openly admitted to Automotive News that they have to improve their acceleration speed on their Prius before attempting to market them in the US. I have yet to see their 0-60 mph acceleration speed on their HEV. You cannot assume it is the same as their Toyota RAV4 EV's. Automobiles have to be able to get up to speed from the time they approach a ramp entering on to freeways. Otherwise they will literally get run over. This slow acceleration of the Prius in Japan is not a problem, with Tokyo in particular, where the average speed during rush hour is nine miles per hour, which is twice the speed of a brisk walk. With all of this said, it should be interesting to see the public reaction we will get after we introduce our GM EV1 with our very first NiMH batteries at long last later this year. Regards.