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

To: Mike Klobouk who wrote (3581)	12/31/1998 9:49:00 AM
From: Stephen O	Respond to of 5827

Chrysler was a proponent of gasoline reformers. This was wildly trumpeted back in the past as a real plus for fuel cells and a big reason to buy Ballard. No need to worry about distributing methanol everywhere, the current infrastructure would support fuel cells. Now that Chrysler has been taken over by Daimler, gasoline reforming has been shoved to a back burner that is probably not even lit.

To: Mike Klobouk who wrote (3581)	12/31/1998 9:52:00 AM
From: david sosiak	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5827

Dear Mike, What a breath of fresh air. Great post. A lot of dinasaurs around here like SiD WHO and the rest of his clones full of hot air. Please,just disregard his transparent short posts for what they are nonsense. Sid and his clones write posts for a profit. They are paid shorts, who are compensated by short hedge funds,to post dis-information on various internet investor threads found here on S.I. and Yahoo. Sid, help us out here, with the name of the company is: (insert here). A highly illegal,unethical practice,which will cost these people a lot of money in fines$$$$ What Sid and his clones don't realize that a number of people on S.I., work for the WSJ and with the help of the SEC monitor these threads for exactly this type of nonsense. I attempted to warn him earlier, I even gave him a recent decision in a court case involving one of his infamous short who is now trying to figure out how he will pay the $8.3 million $$$ in fines for his patently false posts he made using various names on various threads,sound familiar Sid !!!!! Regards, Dave P.S. To all Ballard long term investors,thanks for all your informative posts and making me proud to be a shareholder. Happy New Year to all !!!!!

To: Mike Klobouk who wrote (3581)	12/31/1998 9:57:00 AM
From: Sid Turtlman	Respond to of 5827

Mike: True, the Daimler part of DCX was never optimistic about gasoline reformers, but the Chrysler part was, and that project has gotten the ax. That is bad news because, should someone figure out how to do a commercially acceptable gasoline reformer, the methanol infrastructure problem wouldn't exist. Introduction of methanol tanks and dispensing equipment is not a trivial item, as you suggest. I recommend you read the American Methanol Institute study, most recently cited by Hawkeye, and read the numbers. I have a little trouble believing that that organization is intentionally overstating the expense. In fact, all it talks about is the initial capital expense, and does not include very real expense of interest on the capital investment and lost opportunity of having a tank full of methanol for which there will be virtually no customers until fc cars are sold in quantity. There is your fundamental chicken-and-egg problem: people won't buy the cars unless refueling opportunities are widespread, and gas stations won't invest the money in methanol until they see enough customers around to justify the investment and expense. Chicken-and-egg problems are solvable; all it takes is someone willing to front the, in this case, billions of dollars needed to solve the infrastructure problem, and then maybe people will buy the cars - if, that is, they represent a good value to the customer. That is a big gamble, since hybrids are already better in performance (especially fuel expense) than the hypothetical fc car, and hybrids will be a lot better in 2004. The fact that Daimler is readying its own hybrid to sell before then tells me that, it won't see any good reason to take that gamble. Like I said, watch for the first fc car introduction postponement trial balloons being floated during 1999, and confirmed at next year's winter auto shows, where hybrids will be the rage.