"Today everybody is exited about REE, tomorrow Peak Oil time will come and Lithium will make the headlines again. During excitement stage it is easy to make the wrong decision and chase the mini bubbles only to see them to pop - do not mistake the mega trends, Next Big Thing and parabolic rises. There is time to buy and time to sell. REE gives us a very good example - what can happen with a very small sector, when the all world depends on it. Peak Oil realisation will be next. With GM Volt and Nissan Leaf on the streets you will see the future - The Future is Electric."
Potentially we can talk here about the order for EVs with a magnitude of tens of thousands electric cars which will be on the streets very soon. This is the step into the right direction! We hope that GE will not disappoint with the final numbers to be released next week. Adoption rate for EVs will depend on the production volume, which can allow to reduce the cost of Electric Cars. Commercial users - like GE - apart from all other benefits to the all other consumers will benefit in PR and brand building by projecting their environmentally friendly image. Commercial fleets will allow EV to gain momentum in the market place. Today we have a very important step into this direction - we think that other corporations will follow the GE lead.
Bloomberg:
October 29, 2010, 11:57 AM EDT By Rachel Layne and Alan Ohnsman
(Adds share prices in ninth paragraph.)
Oct. 29 (Bloomberg) -- General Electric Co. may jump-start the electric-vehicle industry with an order that Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Immelt said will be the largest in history.
GE, whose power-generation equipment provides a third of the worldʼs electricity, will order “tens of thousands” of the vehicles in about a week, Immelt said yesterday in a speech in London, without giving a total or identifying a manufacturer.
“This is a huge step up,” said Brett Smith, a vehicle technology analyst at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan. “Itʼs the biggest order to date Iʼm aware of, by a lot.”
Expanding the worldʼs fleet of electric vehicles would bolster GE as it expands so-called clean-energy technology such as car chargers, solar panels and wind turbines. For every dollar of electric-vehicle sales, GE estimates it may get 10 cents in revenue, said Gary Sheffer, a spokesman.
Immelt said half of GEʼs sales force of about 45,000 will drive electric vehicles. The Fairfield, Connecticut-based company also has a vehicle-leasing division through its GE Capital finance unit. Financial terms and other details about the order arenʼt yet being disclosed, GE said.
GE is investing $10 billion over the next five years in clean energy across its business lines, including power- transmission software and so-called smart- grid technologies. Its products include lithium-ion batteries for cars and trucks via a venture with A123 Systems Inc. and sodium-based batteries for use in large vehicles such as locomotives.
Creating Jobs That spending creates jobs, Immelt told executives at an event sponsored by the University of Cambridgeʼs Programme for Sustainability Leadership.
“GE has been one of the biggest players in this game and certainly has a lot to gain from the electric vehicle,” Smith said. “Theyʼve really truly tried to push this hard to get things going, and it seems to be a core corporate value.”
GE fell 4 cents to $16.04 at 11:53 a.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Shares of A123 climbed 11 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $9.78 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
An order the size of GEʼs probably would come from several vehicle makers, Smith said.
Automakers preparing to sell vehicles powered solely by batteries over the next 18 months include Nissan Motor Co., which starts delivering Leaf hatchbacks late this year; Ford Motor Co., readying electric versions of its Transit Connect delivery van and Focus compact car; and Toyota Motor Corp., which will sell a rechargeable RAV4 sport-utility vehicle.
Global Outlook
General Motors Co. begins delivering plug-in Volt hybrids this year, and Honda Motor Co., Chrysler LLC, Bayerische Motoren Werke AG and other large brands are preparing battery vehicles due by 2012.
Combined deliveries of hybrids, such as Toyotaʼs Prius, and battery-powered cars may reach 5.2 million by 2020, according to an Oct. 27 forecast by J.D. Power & Associates. That would be about 7.3 percent of the projected global vehicle market.
Immelt used his remarks in London to renew his call for increased private spending on renewable-energy investments.
“Now is exactly the time, because itʼs less popular, where we have to invest more,” Immelt said. “We have to do it more courageously. And weʼre going to have to go forward for a while without government at our backs.”
GE Energy Infrastructure is the companyʼs biggest industrial unit, accounting for $37 billion of the parent companyʼs $157 billion in revenue last year. GE is also the worldʼs largest maker of locomotives, jet engines, medical- imaging equipment and related information technology systems.
GE is the largest shareholder for Watertown, Massachusetts- based A123, which has signed agreements with Navistar International Corp. and Fisker Automotive Inc. to supply advanced batteries for their vehicles.
--With assistance from Howard Mustoe in London. Editors: Ed Dufner, Margot Slade To contact the reporters on this story: Rachel Layne in Boston at rlayne@bloombergOhnsman in Los Angeles at aohnsman@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Ed Dufner at edufner@bloomberg.net
No comments:
Post a Comment