Wall Street Doesn’t Get It But You Can – Cash In On PHEVs With Maxwell, SQM, Echelon (Pt. 3 of 4)
Submitted by EnergyTechStocks.com
The hottest investment on the horizon is plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), environmentally-friendly cars and trucks that can go 40 miles or farther on a single “fill up” from an ordinary electrical outlet. The first PHEVs arrive this year and next and by 2010 the car world will be electrified. But don’t expect Wall Street to help you mine this new “green” sector. Unlike for wind and solar power, there’s no exchange-traded or mutual fund for PHEVs, because many expected beneficiaries don’t meet the Street’s arbitrary rule that a company must get at least 50% of its total revenue from a green business.
We’ve got some suggestions, broken down into categories, continuing with three companies whose products and activities support PHEVs: Maxwell Technologies, which makes ultracapacitors, battery-like devices that are expected to give PHEVs quick pick-up to go along with the storage capacity of their lithium-ion batteries; Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile S.A. (SQM), a leading lithium mining firm; and Echelon Corp., a leading manufacturer of programmable utility meters that will enable power companies to sell “electric gasoline” at discounted prices during off-peak hours.
Nobody quite yet knows how big a role ultracapacitors will play in the electric car universe. Thanks to a mysterious private Texas company called EEStor, some see “ultracaps” as the holy grail of electrified transportation, eventually capable of powering a vehicle for hundreds of miles on a charge that takes only a few minutes. But even if ultracaps turn out to be used only in combination with lithium-ion batteries, providing the quick acceleration motorists require, their role could make a big winner out of Maxwell Technologies, a leading ultracap developer.
SQM is a straightforward commodities play. The more PHEVs that are sold, the more money SQM will make mining lithium carbonate. The company is the midst of expanding its lithium mining capacity. With the soaring price of fertilizer, SQM also should continue benefiting from its potassium nitrate mining.
Echelon’s smart meters are expected to be a key component of “smart” grids, enabling households to save energy through time-of-day-pricing. This will be especially important for PHEVs, given the discounted electric rates utilities are expected to offer to entice PHEV owners to fill up overnight while they are asleep (and electricity demand is extremely low). Without meters from Echelon, some of the promise of PHEVs likely would go unrealized.
