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

To: WALT REISCH who wrote (2526)	10/26/1998 4:47:00 AM
From: Retiarius	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 8393

this weekend's alameda (california) EV expo lots of nickel-hydride, lead-acid, & lithium-ion all over the place, that real everyday people with real (ordinary) drivers licenses could take for a spin. for the first time ever, my wife, two kids, & i indulged in "non-fossil" car fuel. [our state runs largely on hydroelectric, nuke, natural gas, and wind power; most of that is considered unrefined.] we drove chrysler EPIC, honda EV+, and saturn EV1, but could've done nissan altra, toyota RAV, and others given time. nothing ovonic, sorry. pumping GM techs for information, they wouldn't budge much. one said GMO NiMH is "1999". what, december? another said "announcements soon, very soon." another said january, for sure, with many current leasees happy with old Pb battery tricknology. but you know what? -- it doesn't matter to this long-suffering ENER holder, who can be as skeptical as any short at times. that's because EVs are so obviously right that ovshinsky & crew will get some non-trivial fraction of the market, unless non-panasonic NiMH is a total hoax. the coloration here was a gorgeous sunday at "the dock of the bay". near the loading docks (or was it an ex-naval base landing strip?), a few hundred folk got a tesla-like charge out of it all. i learned that my wife is a closet leadfoot, so used to accelerating the junkers we drive according to engine noise that she squealed the tires on the EV1, and slalomed that EPIC minivan in a way that got the little tykes feisty for more. alas, EPIC's brochure shows saft only betters range from 60-70 miles for lead to 80-90 for nickel, and the unit is really a model year 2003 thing for non-fleet owners. they mumbled about how they were water-cooled whereas GMO is air. i never thought it mattered with my old VW microbus, especially after i learned that engines which fry in the desert are about the same as engines which boil... let's see, the toyota prius rep acknowledged that when it hits these shores, it will sell for the "low-20s", rather steep for a 50-mpg car in certain minds. oh, and the GM EV1 is nonpareil for two -- don devlin did good! but, there's nothing overtly wrong with honda EV+. (their chaperone griped that GM is trying to corner all the brush[less] motor patents extant.) one thing i don't quite understand is why one vendor makes you conscious of when to toggle regenerative braking and the other doesn't. another first impression: the california EV-intensive locales are now getting so many public charging stations (at costco supermarts for inductive chargers, usefully) and at an increasing number of work sites for plain 110/220V, that perhaps the range bugaboo is becoming a non-issue. big future, big fun.

To: WALT REISCH who wrote (2526)	10/27/1998 6:04:00 PM
From: Michael Latas	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8393

I agree with you also. I never took your comments in the wrong way. To the contrary. I too have continued to accumulate additional shares at these rock bottom prices. We're all in this together. Regards.