Viewing posts tagged "Eestor"

Zenn and Them Old EEStor Blues

The EEStor music catalog continues to expand.

This summer's EEStor tribute folk song from James Schultz, Quaker songwriter, was a Guthrie-esque ode to EEStor's Dick Weir and Zenn's Ian Clifford and their saga of permittivity and barium titanate purity.  Schultz has released a bluesy new hit single entitled "The EEStor Blues" in which he sings (sort of sings) of being  "tired of the old NDA, no new net news blues," and laments the demise of the City Zenn. He once again manages to get barium titanate into the rhyme scheme, unique in the history of song.

In September, Zenn Motors Chief Executive Ian Clifford told Reuters that the company discontinued its plans to sell its own highway-speed EV. Instead, Zenn is betting on EEStor, the secretive startup claiming a radical advance in ultracapacitors, that will allow EVs to charge faster and go 250 miles on a single charge at low cost. Zenn abandoned its car manufacturing business to focus on the EEStor alchemy and a drivetrain built for other auto vendors. 

EV maven Darryl Siry and former blogger on these pages writes in Wired:

"This change in strategy represents a moment of clarity for Zenn – recognition that the entire value of the company lies with its speculative bet on EEStor’s game changing technology claims, and not with the expected value of its now abandoned car business.  Which means that if you attribute today’s $169 million market capitalization of Zenn Motor Cars entirely to its 10.7% stake in EEStor, the secretive and mercurial startup can announce another questionable milestone: an implied value of more than $1.5 billion."

In the words of EEStor skeptic, frequent commenter and fabled gadfly, Steve Pluvia, "EEStor is nothing more than a vehicle for a Canadian pump-n-dump, specifically Zenn Motors. Zenn has a powerful Canadian hype team supported by a crooked bucket shop (Paradigm Capital), paid promoters and degenerate gamblers. Experts in the field of EEStor’s technology do not believe the claims in their product... The trade here is to short Zenn on all pops from here forward."

Investor Vinod Khosla is also skeptical of the company and it appears as if early investor Kleiner Perkins chose not to re-up on their investment when Zenn raised their ownership stake.

In the truthy column, apparently UL has received a request to test the mythic EESU and a firm called Polarity has received a contract from EEStor to integrate Polarity’s high power HV to LV converter into EEStor's EESU.

If EEStor is real and its technology is a game changer that disrupts the world of automotive transportation – then Zenn, Weir, KP, Paradigm, Ed B. are brilliant technologists, investors and futurists.  If EEStor is a scam, we get an illustrative story of technical disingenuousness and a naive public and investor team.

And we get a few good songs. Thanks Brother Schultz.

EV Round Up: Tesla, ZAP, Zenn, EEStor, Etc.

Listed EV firms

Clare Ondrey, one of Greentech Media's inside stalwarts, somehow got me volunteered to speak at something called The MoneyShow in San Francisco a few weekends ago. It was an unusual event for me – more a retail stock picker show than a renewable energy / technology event, filled with regular citizens looking for info on which stock to invest in. I restricted my comments to market trends and technology and let the speculators make their own stock bets. We don't recommend particular stocks at Greentech Media.

The topic of batteries and electric vehicles was clearly on the mind of these astute investors – and they wanted to invest in EVs. But the problem is that there are no EV firms that trade on the NASDAQ or the Amex (Maybe Tesla can change that soon). The only publicly traded EV firms are on the backwater bourses of the OTC BB and pink sheets. These companies are tightly held, thinly traded and have, let's say, less transparency and more relaxed reporting requirements compared to their SEC-overseen brethren.

Anyway, here's a list of publicly traded EV firms:

Zenn Motors is thinly traded on the TSX-V exchange in Canada. Zenn is small despite its' bluster with revenue of $379,916 in its most recent quarter and losses of about $2.5 million for the quarter.  (Amounts in Canadian dollars).  Zenn generates considerable controversy and bloggage with its 10.7 percent ownership of ultracapacitor lightning rod startup EEStor (hi, Ed).  Zenn builds 100 percent electric vehicles. The spec sheet on the 2009 Zenn claims a base price of about $17,000 and 280mpg.  Despite mpg being a questionable spec for an EV. 

ZAP, like all of these publicly traded EV companies, loses money. It lost $2.5 million on sales of $769,000 in their most recent quarter.  ZAP offers a wide number of models of electric trucks, vehicles, and scooters on its website. But it's difficult to ascertain which of these products are real and deliverable. According to a recent article in Wired, ZAP's management is prone to, um, overpromising and underdelivering.

UQM Technologies builds components for EVs and lost $648,000 on sales of $2.1 million. It builds motor and controller systems for EVs and has contracts with the military and with commercial customers.

EV Innovations loses money and claims to be "a concept and brand development corporation in the field of alternative-fuel automobiles, motorcycles, scooters, and bicycles, and alternative-fuel products."  Whatever a concept and brand development corporation is.  The artist renditions of their many cars are presumably powered by artist renditions of lithium-ion batteries.

Leo Motors is an OTC front for Leozone, a Korean EV company that allegedly uses "12th generation lithium polymer cell" battery technology.  The Korean connection might prove lucrative as the site shows Korean police and military EV designs.

EV Quotes, Drag Racing, Autotune

• “No one is going to pay a $15,000 premium for a car that competes with a Corolla. So there are not enough idiots who will buy it." said Johan de Nysschen, president of Audi of America. He called the the Chevy plug-in hybrid “a car for idiots.”

• Joe Biden (auto-tuned) on Made in USA EV batteries.  

• Tesla quarter mile in 12.64 seconds, an EV record.