Introducing EnergyTechStocks’ ‘Wise Energy Use’ Stock Index (Part 2 of 5) – EV Firms Nissan, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Ener1, A123
Submitted by EnergyTechStocks.com
Try as you might, you won’t find an exchange-traded or mutual fund that targets “smart energy” companies whose technologies and processes serve to reduce energy costs. And yet, in the wake of the Wall Street meltdown, every company and household can be expected to put a higher priority on saving money by saving energy. So we’ve created “The EnergyTechStocks.com Wise Energy Use Index.” We haven’t run it through a whole bunch of financial filters, so think of this as an informal index, your starting point for creating your own “wise energy use” stock portfolio, continuing with:
Five companies that should be near the top of the coming electric vehicle revolution: Mitsubishi Motors, Nissan, Toyota, Ener1 and A123.
This should be the time of year when oil prices are lowest because summer demand is down and winter demand hasn’t started up. But the Wall Street meltdown has caused many investors to buy crude oil futures as a supposed safe haven, all but guaranteeing that next summer’s gasoline prices will be as high as or higher than this past summer’s, despite Americans driving less. Motorists will once again feel pain at the pump, which should make a lot of them keenly interested in the arrival of plug-in electric hybrid vehicles (PHEVs). Running up to 40 or 50 miles on electricity before switching over to gasoline, PHEVs’ popularity will depend in part on their price tag and the reliability of their new lithium-ion batteries. Neither is guaranteed, but when PHEV experts such as Felix Kramer of CalCars.org say PHEVs are ready to go right now, don’t be surprised to see PHEV mania in 2009 and 2010.
While General Motors has recently gotten a lot of attention for its planned PHEV, the Chevrolet Volt, it’s hard to put GM in our “Wise Energy Use” index because of the company’s overall financial instability. So we go with the three Japanese auto makers that definitely plan to make a PHEV statement – Mitsubishi, Nissan and Toyota, in that order. Indeed, if you could only buy two of these, we’d leave out Toyota, based on its flip-flopping public statements about the future of PHEVs. Mitsubishi, on the other hand, has the pedal to the metal for a 2009 rollout, as does Nissan, which is deeply involved in Project Better Place, a consortium that plans to convert all of Israel’s motor vehicles to electric in 10 years.
While Mitsubishi and Nissan could stumble, the betting here is they take over the mantle long held by Toyota as the world’s most energy-efficient car companies.
Meanwhile, there are so many companies developing somewhat different batteries for the new PHEVs, it’s impossible to predict at this stage any definite long-term winners. Having said that, Nissan and Toyota are in separate joint ventures expected to do well manufacturing lithium-ion batteries. In addition, two U.S. firms – Ener1 and A123 – score high in experts’ assessment of the field.
Ener1 is tied into Norwegian electric vehicle manufacturer Think, which is planning a 2009 rollout. A123, a rollout from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, could be the battery supplier to both GM and Chrysler. In EnergyTechStocks.com’s most recent “report card grades” for lithium-ion battery developers, both earned straight A’s from “professor” Mike Millikin of Green Car Congress. (Please note that while A123 has announced its intention to go public, it hasn’t yet done so.)
