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Electric Cars, And EV Charging Stations, Wave Of Future
By: AllPennyStocks.com News
July 22, 2010
“All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come.” (Victor Hugo)
The author of Les Miserables would be vindicated by the progress made by the electric car market in recent years. For it seems -- despite all the attempts (real and perceived) of big automakers and big oil to stop its progress -- the electric car appears to be just that idea whose time has come.
U.K. consultancy firm J.D. Power came out in June with projections that global sales of electric vehicles are set to rise this year, due to worries about security of oil supply, the environment and fuel costs. Power analysts said sales of electric cars are expected to reach 940,000 units this year compared with 732,000 units last year, with the number jumping to three million in 2015. The uptake of battery-powered cars is seen as key to fighting climate change by cutting carbon emissions, as well as a way to wean economies off imported or difficult-to-reach oil, as highlighted by BP (NYSE:BP) PLC's Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
More than 98% of sales are expected to be of hybrid electric cars, which are part gasoline, part battery, rather than plug-in cars, which are wholly battery-powered and need to be charged from a power point. Power also said it expected the United States to account for 55% of the hybrid market by 2015, followed by Asia with most of the sales in Japan.
Since about 2000, automakers have been working away at producing vehicles powered by at least fractionally by electricity. Since then, the market has grown to the point where industry heavyweight Carlos Ghosn, who helms both Renault ADR (Pink Sheets:RNSDF) and Nissan ADR (Pink Sheets:NSANY), foresees zero-emission -- primarily electric -- cars capturing a 10th of the world market by 2020.
Certainly, Tesla Motors Inc. (Nasdaq:TSLA) did not wait long to stick its toe into the more turbulent waters of the electric car competition, announcing its Initial Public Offering (IPO) this summer, becoming the first U.S. car-maker to take that route since Ford (NYSE:F) went public in 1956.
Investors seemed to like what they saw; Tesla had to raise the number of initial shares from 11.1 million to 13.3 million. And it even upped the original $14 – $16 price tag to $17.What’s more, in May, Toyota ADR (NYSE:TM) signed on for a $50-million stake in Tesla, and agreed to cooperate with it on building cars. TSLA, headquartered in Palo Alto, California, will collaborate with TM on developing an electric version of the RAV4, Toyota’s popular mid-size sport utility vehicle.
The new electric car will be the product of a Tesla generator engineered inside a Toyota RAV4 body. The vehicle is expected to enter the market in 2012, and will be distributed and sold by Toyota.
Back to Nissan for just a moment; the company is putting its marbles on its electric LEAF car (an acronym for Leading, Environmentally Friendly, Affordable, Family Car) is a compact five-door hatchback electric car to be produced by Nissan. According to the manufacturer, the Leaf's all-electric range is 100 miles (160 km).
Sales are scheduled to begin in the United States, Japan, the Netherlands, and Portugal in December, and the U.K. and Ireland in February 2011, with global market availability planned for 2012.
Not that companies like General Motors (Pink Sheets:MTLQQ) are content to sit behind. Its Chevrolet Volt is a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, expected to be launched in November 2010 as a 2011 model. Its propulsion system will be based on GM's new Voltec (formerly known as E-Flex) electric automobile platform, which differs significantly from GM's earlier BAS Hybrid and Two-Mode Hybrid systems.
For up to the first 40 miles (64 km), the Volt is powered by electrical energy stored in its on-board lithium-ion batteries which are charged by connection to an electrical power outlet. The car's 16 kW•h (8.8 kW•h usable) lithium-ion battery pack can be fully charged by plugging the car into a 120-240VAC residential electrical outlet using a charging cord. No external charging station will be required.
Smaller companies, not to be outdone, are toeing the starting line, too. One is Santa Rosa, California-based ZAP (OTCBB:ZAAP), one of the world's oldest and most experienced electric vehicle providers, having delivered over 117,000 of a broad range of electric vehicles to more than 75 countries since 1994. ZAAP offers some of the only electric city-speed cars and trucks in production today and is leveraging its accrued technology knowhow in developing a cost effective high-speed electric car called the ZAP Alias.
Also worth considering is Toronto-based Zenn Motor Company Inc. (TSX-Venture:ZNN), which is fixing its goal of being a global leader in enabling zero-emission transportation solutions for markets around the world. ZNN technologies and solutions, to be powered by electrical energy storage units (EESU) from Texas-based EEstor, are expected to enable OEM and Tier 1 partners to deliver advanced electric transportation solutions to their customers.
ZNN started out around 2001, developing small lead-acid electric vehicles that were suitable for the neighbourhood electric vehicle (NEV) market. It spent the next few years strengthening its connection with EEStor and buying up rights to the latter’s product. Over 2009 and 2010, the company ceased making cars, and released employees to save cash, and opted instead to focus on the EEStor technology and their rights to it.
Now, what about when these vehicles run out of juice (not gasoline, obviously, but the electricity needed to keep them on the road and humming)?
Wall Street claims that sales of lithium-ion batteries will hit $25 billion U.S. by 2015. And by 2020, it expects it to reach $66 billion U.S. With the BP oil spill riveting attention on the hazards of too much dependency on oil – no matter whether it’s produced on land or sea - electric cars (and the batteries that power them) have gotten something of a second wind.
Miami Beach-based Car Charging Group, Inc. (OTCBB:CCGI) claims to have the car charging answer. CCGI is in the business of owning, providing and servicing electric car charging stations in designated parking areas of public and private property, such as multi-family residential and commercial buildings, parking garages, municipalities, shopping malls, strip centers, sporting venues and other convenient charging locations.
CCGI installs electric car charging stations in convenient locations across North America, and anticipates locking down as many convenient locations as possible, ultimately to provide easy access to the end user -- the electric car owner.
Charging stations are provided and installed by CCGI at no cost to the business/property owner. The benefits for the host is the ability to provide his customers or constituents with the service of convenient car charging and at the same time benefit from a percentage of the revenue from the station.
CCGI is an owner and provider of electric car charging stations with the mission to build out a nationwide infrastructure as a first-in-market leader, enabling vehicle owners to charge their electric cars anytime, anywhere. What’s more, CCGI is also technology-neutral, meaning that if technology changes, it can easily adapt, not being tied down to any exclusive technology agreements.
There’s obviously a need for this sort of thing; despite more than 120,000 gas stations in the United States, there are probably fewer than 1,000 publicly-located electric vehicle charging stations – thus, creating a huge opportunity. Management’s goal is to have hundreds of charging stations up and running by the end of the year.
Investors hoping to capitalize on this need to charge these revolutionary vehicles (and their portfolios with it) should take notice to the relative bargain price at which CCGI is available. The price registered in late July around the 80-cent mark, below the 52-week high of $1.10 to which it soared in mid-March. The gulch for the year of 51 cents was hit in mid-April.
Worries over the future availability and safety of fossil fuels will likely continue to foster interest in the electric and hybrid car industry. Lawmakers and environmentalists are poised to make sure the issue doesn’t go away anytime soon, and industry participants great and small ignore the issue at their peril. Car makers anxious to provide their customers with conveyances that will satisfy their need to get around in their world, without interfering with the breathability of that world, will certainly keep their focus on these futuristic cars and trucks, and apply themselves to make them practical, saleable and profitable.
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The author has been compensated six thousand dollars in April 2010 and five thousand dollars in June 2010 by the Company for its efforts in presenting the CCGI profile on its web site and distributing it to its database of subscribers as well as other services. For a full CCGI profile, investors are encouraged to click here: http://www.allpennystocks.com/aps_us/company_spotlights/archives/ccgi.asp.
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