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

To: Tom Hoff who wrote (2827)	12/30/1998 12:28:00 PM
From: Sid Turtlman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8393

Tom: Keep in mind that hybrids need strong, light batteries. The Toyota Prius uses NiMH, if I am not mistaken. Success of hybrids would come at the expense of conventional auto's and throw fuel cell cars on the far back burner. I don't think they would hurt the prospects for EVs that much.

To: Tom Hoff who wrote (2827)	12/30/1998 1:23:00 PM
From: Don Devlin	Respond to of 8393

EXCERPT: (AP newswire) "In two years GM has sold only 600 versions of its EV1 electric coupe. Other manufacturers of electric cars have had similarly disappointing results. But Pereira likened the new cars to other consumer technologies such as the cellular telephone and microwave oven. Both, he said, were unreliable and slow to catch on at first. AP-NY-12-30-98 0120EST " Let's give this always repeated comment a bit of thought. The EV1 is a two seater sports like model with lead acid batteries and very low range. The only manufacturers model existing or contemplated with these lead acids. A model that eliminates most potential buyers. Take a look around while driving and see what proportion of vehicles are two seaters. Young families particularly, need more seats. The low range problem has been addressed with NiMH but we have an almost complete blackout of this advancement. The Honda Plus is only making one hundred vehicles per year and has made it extremely difficult to lease. They are however, leased. The RAV 4 has not been available to individual customers. There are no Electric Nissans available to customers. There are no other large Auto company vehicles available yet. So what the are the auto writers talking about? "Other manufacturers of electric cars have had similarly disappointing results". It's one thing for the Auto writers to be consistently ignorant but quite another for the auto companies to make no effort to educate them. If we were talking about Low mileage, heavy polluting, unbelievably profitable, SUVS, You would see (as you do see) what PR and advertising is all about. Don Devlin

To: Tom Hoff who wrote (2827)	1/1/1999 3:36:00 PM
From: Futurist	Respond to of 8393

I had exactly the same reaction to this article. I think a lot of these media guys use a phrase like "because of the low range of the batteries" as boiler plate until some other cliche becomes current. I can't imagine that Michael White, the author of this piece, actually knows anything about the status of the electric vehicle industry. On the other hand, countering this stereotypcial language is absolutely the job of Ruder-Finn, ECD's PR firm. My view is that the company should target something like 15 "retail" media outlets (with the LA Times certainly being on the list) as foci for the public side of its PR effort (i.e., working stiffs like me). The company should do every thing in its power to get its story out to these targetted channels of info. For example, when Michael White pens an article such as this, they should be on the horn to him within an hour of the release and shipping him a videotape by the same afternoon. Maybe the Clinton spin team will go to work for ECD sometime between now and January 21, 2001.