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

To: Sleeperz who wrote (3309)	11/28/1998 6:04:00 AM
From: Sid Turtlman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5827

CR: So that is my problem - my November issue of "Tramways and Urban Transit" UK must have gotten lost in the mail! Seriously - I guess that is how it is with Ballard: Any good news (which always relates to corporate deals and maneuverings, not the performance of its fuel cells) gets announced with press releases and further puffed up with internet round table conferences, etc. Any actual facts about how the company is doing in solving the enormous technical problems in front of it (aka bad news) one has to find in the likes of "Tramways and Urban Transit", or infer from weaselly language in the quarterly. This is why the criticisms of my prediction of single digits for Ballard stock are premature. I never said it would happen in 1998. I said it would happen long before 2004, the supposed date of fuel cell car production. When before 2004? As soon as it becomes obvious, despite company smokescreens, that the real introduction date is going to be long after 2004. My target date for single digits is by late 1999, since Daimler said it would make a go-no-go decision by around then. Daimler's CEO has too much ego involved in the project, and the company's work on fuel cell cars is too attractive for fending off the Greens, for Daimler to actually cancel the project. What I expect is a statement like "We remain deeply committed to introducing fuel cell powered cars. But we want them to work perfectly when they are introduced, and that will take a little more time than we originally anticipated." English translation: onto the back burner. Hydrogen powered buses should have been easy. Even a skeptic like myself thought that the much harder problem to solve is the cost, reliability, and infrastructure issues of onboard methanol reforming. Also, the tough time should have been winter, and the buses couldn't even work right in the summer. No wonder the company doesn't release much data about its tests. It is easier to keep up illusions that way. As long as true believers are happy with buzz rather than data the stock will stay here or go up, for all I know. That won't last forever. We are getting close to the time when the products had better work right or, with 83 million shares, double digits will be ancient history and the only question mark is whether it will hold above a buck.