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

To: Michael Latas who wrote (2843)	1/1/1999 11:58:00 AM
From: Michael Latas	Respond to of 8393

I thought this was a rather appropriate time to reflect upon the past, present and the future and wanted to share this with you. It has been said that the twentieth century will go down in the history books as America's century. Likewise, it has been said that the twentieth century will go down in the history books as the internal combustion engine century. If there is a total consensus on any subject you can name, it is that the scientific and engineering world agree that the twenty-first century will be the century of alternative fueled vehicles. And here we are on our final year of this century, having already made great strides in developing the vehicles of the future with EV's, HEV's, and the forthcoming fuel cells, all of which will require efficient batteries. Those of you that are new to this thread should be aware that our NiMH battery operation began in 1982, sixteen years ago and here we are in the process of introducing our very first NiMH GMEV1 autos, which represents the very first major paradigm shift in vehicles during this past century, with Hev's being introduced this Fall, and fuel cells forthcoming within five years. Not bad. Let me put this feat into some proper prospective. I'll try to be as brief as possible, but please bear in mind the beginning of this story goes back to 1859 where the first oil well in the world was drilled. It was the Drake well in Titusville, Pa. Up until this landmark event occured the lamps of the world were lit with whale oil. That's right, whale oil. Wood and coal was the fuel. Kind of hard to fathom today, but that's the was it was. The bi-product of refining oil for lamps and fuel was, would you believe, gasoline! That's right, gasoline was a totally useless bi-product that was literally dumped in the fields. A totally wasted bi-product! No one knew what to do with the stuff. The basic and favorite mode of transportation parked in most people's garages (barns) throughout the world was the horse, which was loved by all. If you think that the love affair people have with their cars is a new phenomenom just think if you will the attachment people had with their horses, that were essentially family pets, to appreciate the major hurdle the horseless carriage would face in replacing what was man's best friend, beast of burden, and sole means of transportation and you will begin to get an appreciation of history repeating itself. It wasn't until 1876, seventeen years afer the discovery of oil, before Rudolph Otto in Germany invented the first internal combustion engine. His basic engineering design and principles remain the same, in spite of the many thousands of minor improvements along the way for over a century. While Otto was deeply engrossed with the development of his new internal combustion engine, there was another German, in another part of Germany who was at the same time busy developing his version of what he believed was an internal combustion engine with what he felt had even better attributes, by the name of George Diesel. Sound familiar? Interesting isn't it? The diesel too, is basically unchanged, but has been improved upon with thousands of minor changes and improvements. Talk about a phenomally successful life cycle of two great products, the internal combustion engine and the diesel, that changed the world forever more. It wasn't until 1896, twenty years later, before the first automobile was invented by what is today Daimler-Benz, thirty-seven years after the discovery of oil. Some things take time. This story would not be complete without mentioning Henry Ford, a late comer, which comes as a surprise to many who thought Henry was the first to invent an automobile. He gets the credit because he did more to mass produce affordable automobiles than anyone else, introducing his model-T in 1906. By 1912, Ford had captured ninety percent of the auto market in the US, when GM brought out the first automobile with an electric starter, the Buick. Up until that moment electric cars were quite popular over the hard-to-start, crank-starting cars that women hated. This new invention killed EV's. In fact, Henry Fords wife preferred her electric car and continued to drive it until 1922. By the way, Thomas Edison's lead acid battery discovery over a hundred years ago has also stood the test of time and has served its purpose like few other products have. Looking back over history and the resistance to change, who would have thought back then that people would live long enough to see the new-fangled horseless carriage replace the horse? The rest is history. We're well on our way to changing transportation history one more time. And we're all playing our part in it. Regards.