Electric vehicle industry along with related stocks like Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA), Kandi Technologies Group Inc (NASDAQ: KNDI), HydroPhi Technologies Group, Inc (OTCMKTS: HPTG) and Green Automotive Co (OTCMKTS: GACR) continue to produce a steady flow of interesting news for investors or would be electric car owners alike:
What Motivates Electric Vehicle Buyers? A survey from the San Diego-based Center for Sustainable Energy suggests that owners of three of the most popular plug-in electric vehicles have different reasons for jumping in and buying electric cars:
Nissan Leaf owners: 38% said environmental concerns was their primary motivation while one in five Leaf owners said saving money by using cheaper electricity rather than gasoline was their top motivation and 16% said access to high occupancy vehicles was the main reason. Toyota Prius plug-in electric hybrid owners: 57% of Prius owners said HOV lane access was their primary motivator, followed by saving money at 18%, environmental concerns 16% and other reasons at 9%. Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid electric vehicle: 34% cited saving money as the primary motivation, followed by HOV lane access at 27%, environmental concerns at 18% and other reasons at 21%.Finally, the survey asked electric car owners what their desired electric range would be for their cars with all saying they wanted more range:
Tesla's Plans for Europe and a China Update. Tesla is committed to a major expansion in Europe through 2014 thanks to superchargers, proprietary charging station that allows Tesla owners to rapidly charge their cars for free with a full charge supposedly taking around 75 minutes with the first 50 percent charging in under half an hour. The Verge has this map of the proposed system:
There is also a full list of planned store and service-center locations along with a map of Tesla's proposed Supercharger network extension on the Tesla website. Meanwhile, Want China Times has reported that Tesla has received a sizable number of preorders with a Tesla salesperson saying there are two versions of the Model S on sale: 1) The S85 priced at 734,000 yuan (US$119,700) and 2) The P85 priced at 852,500 yuan (US$139,000). Tesla shares are up 68.1% since the start of the year, up 630% over the past year and up 1.217.4% since July 2010.
Kandi Technolgies Pulls Back From an All Time High. Small cap Kandi Technologies Group, which makes specialized electric vehicles such as all-terrain vehicles and utility vehicles, hit an all time high in early Thursday morning only to close down 3.02% at the end of the day. Kandi Technologies Group's shares are up 63.7% since the start of the year, up 420.2% over the past year and up 2,797.9% over the past five years.
China's Geely Acquires UK Electric-Car Startup. Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. has announced that it has acquired British electric-vehicle startup Emerald Automotive for an undisclosed sum. Emerald said Geely had committed to investing a minimum of $200 million over the next five years to help develop Emerald's electric vehicles as the company has so far developed prototypes of two models of electric delivery vans. The Wall Street Journal has also noted that a year ago, Geely acquired the principal assets of Manganese Bronze Holdings PLC (the owner of the London Taxi Co., which manufactures the city's black cab) for $18.5 million plus they acquired Sweden's Volvo Car Corp. in 2010. Geely apparently has plans to develop new-energy vehicles for London Taxi first and will then target taxi fleets in other markets, including China.
Green Automotive Co. Small cap Green Automotive Company, a state-of-the-art niche vehicle design, engineering, manufacturing and sales company based in Riverside California, announced that it had signed a binding agreement to acquire privately owned Transhock Ltd., a well established re-manufacturer and distributor of vehicle parts and accessories based in the UK's West Midlands, the heart of the UK Automotive Industry. The company reported circa $7 million+ in revenues revenues for the year ended March 31, 2013 (to UK GAAP), and was both profitable and cashflow positive. The business has over 50 employees, operates to ISO 9001 standards and has a diversified customer base of over 2,500 clients from which repeat business represents 85-90% of sales. It should also be mentioned that the Green Automotive Company's Californian subsidiary Newport Coachworks had reported that it was one of the major exhibitors at the recent LCT Show, one of the largest shuttle and charter events, where the company presented its shuttle bus range on a 2500 sq. ft. exhibition space. More than 450 bus operators from the US, Canada, France and a number of other regions visited the company's stand plus GACR took in orders worth over $1.6 million, selling 9 Patriot models (a 19 to 23 seat shuttle bus), 3 Freedom 45 models (the company's biggest bus) and 2 up-market Limo model buses.
HydroPhi Technologies Group. Small cap HydroPhi Technologies Group, a leading developer of water-based hydrogen fuel production systems which utilizes ordinary water for the production of hydrogen that is then injected into carbon-based fuels such as diesel, unleaded gasoline and natural gas, recently provided a business update for the fiscal third quarter of 2014. The update noted HydroPhi Technologies Group's announcement that Rutas Unidas Federación de Transportistas Independientes de México, the largest association of bus operators based in Mexico City, had reported consistent fuel savings in excess of 20% on buses equipped with HPTG's Hydroplant technology. HydroPhi Technologies Group is also in discussions with large fleet operators in selected markets in Latin America and Asia because its product provides significant environmental benefits, fuel savings and high return-on-investment for fleet operators while the CEO commented:
"We have significantly improved our balance sheet from the prior fiscal year end largely by converting debt to common stock, thus reducing total liabilities from approximately $14.3 million to $4.8 million. At the same time, we have been keeping our current fixed costs low. So as sales, begin to ramp up, we expect to benefit from high incremental margins."
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