G. David Felt

Positives: JC brings out products based on A123 battery technology that they were not able to do themselves and no one else was willing to do as they did not want to pay a royalty to A123. Auto Industry could gain here also as JC has major inroads here and could do a better job of selling certain technology bits into the auto industry better than A123 did. Battery management could become better as JC mgmt devices get coupled with A123 battery technology. Pure Economy of scale that JC can bring that A123 was not able to do. Negatives: Since A123 was moving production of products into China and as with any bankruptcy, security and control of Intellectual tends to get weaker, I can see china stealing A123 tech and putting it into their own products. Even with lawsuits, by the time things work their way through the courts, China companies will have figured out backward engineering ways to reproduce what A123 did and move on at a loss to JC and the Tax payers who funded the R&D. JC could just sit on a portion of the technology as they might just want the patents but not really interested in doing anything with it. Sit and wait till they can sue someone who comes up with an identical idea and wants to use it. Loss of all intellectual products due to having it in China rather than being produced here. I actually see more positive out of this than negative at the moment.

Why do I get the Feeling that the comment: “Not from the beginning, but in the medium to longterm, for sure,” he said. Really means that it will be a rebadge to a point at first as they work to change it all. They want to get this to market so you will see things that are common and in will show up in the Q5 also. I doubt they would really re-engineer everything, otherwise you are not really using economy of scale with a platform. Course I could be wrong and maybe I am misunderstanding how the platform sharing thing works.

Nothing crazy here, although I had to deal with someone "selling" (and by that I mean lying about it) my birthday gift out from under me. Do Share the Details, Love a good story about selling out something from under someone. So did you bitchslap them?

LTS? That's the letter combination they trademarked IIRC... LTS = Luxury Transport Sedan??????

Fact is for anyone in their 20's to 40's, this is our current day Depression. Sorry but we did not crawl out of this in 2009 like the gov said, Since 2007 America and now the world is in a Major Depression due to INSTANT GRATIFICATION DEBT. Until debt gets under control, we will be in static to meager growth. depends on who's debt you are referring. True, but the two major kinds of debt, Government and Personal are right now the biggest harbingers of keeping us from investing in new technology. When the Gov and People cannot really afford to buy new stuff, then companies slow down investing and creating new things. Some of us are very responsible, but we have just finished the biggest Personal Self Gratification period ever for Humanity. 1990 to 2007 was one of the biggest growth periods and until we right the issues facing near bankrupt gov and personal bankrupt cases, it will be a slug slow crawl.

So did you do anything exciting and crazy?

The bread does sound yummy

Hicky from Nicky!

You Love It!!! When you pick a name like that you end up leaving yourselves wide open to the Butt End of all Jokes!

Watch it, once you get a hole in the head strange things seem to enter!

Big things come to those that wait!

It would be nice to bring back some of the wheel styles with a modern take for new models.

Very exciting, I wonder if they have any alternative fuel C7's running.

Just think of the stock price increase it would drive in Lubrication sales. FullMoon should be invested in these companies!

The problem is not a single Currency or open free market, the problem is that each country is not following the agreement to control spending and this is where they have gotten into trouble. One Currency and travel regulations is good for everyone as it makes it easier to buy and sell and travel. The politicians need to stick to the agreement on how much spending they can do. Sadly due to the overly large amount of Socialist retirement programs, the countries are getting themselves into trouble. You cannot have people work till 50 and retire and expect the gov to pay you an equal income along with medical benefits till you die. This socialist thinking bankrupts countries. Greece is a perfect example. If they can cut spending and get things changed enough and survive this rough period, the Euro Union and Ero Dollar will come out very strong. Free trade is good for all as it allows the lower cost of goods from all over the world to come in and make life better for all. Cheap assembly of electronics from China, Cheap food from the US, etc. In a perfect world, every country should be able to reduce the cost of goods and increase the quality of life if they focused on doing what that country does best and sell around the world. Not everyone can do everything really well. This is why Asian countries fear US product, we automate and produce in large quantities compared to the amount of manual labor certain Asian countries still use. Example is what the US produces in Rice in 1 acre compared to what China produces in 1 acre. We get a ten fold in production due to machines and automation of planting and better growth control compared to the manual labor way that China does it. Yet they protect their farmers by enforcing high tariffs on our rice which does not help to improve their own quality of life for their people. China could change that if they spent as much on military as they did to bring in tractors and automation equipment to modernize their farmers.

I understand the TadPole comment, but over all it is still an appealing small truck. GMC having a more Masculine look will grab a fare share of market like the Terrain. It can polarize some, but you have to stand out from the rest and GMC needs to do this with their whole product line. Chevy can be Feminine in style but GMC needs to stay Butch. Never understood the female style of the current Yukon, that should have been the Chevy look and the Chevy Tahoe should have been the GMC look.

The D-Max is OK looking, I think Chevy has a far better body style.

Agreed... Still need to through this in the face of the idiots who thing GM is still going to fail. Seems FORD is having some rough times since they choose to not take a Gov Loan and purge themselves of old debt and union legacy costs.

I have to say Fullmoon reading this is pretty freakin funny!

Interesting concept this wheat belly. Have to research it some more. Thanks for sharing.

I like your thinking and have to agree with what you say here.

What a sad way for such a noble car to die!

I am wondering what happened to the half of the $249 Million grant from the Gov that supposedly was not used yet.Is the company sitting on it, did the gov not give that half to them yet. How does a company that has been building battery packs for Toyota for so long not know how to keep at least a break even business plan? Where did the money go that caused them to do this?

Bummer, sorry you had the accident, thankfully no one hurt and you live to learn from the experiance. Good Luck with the repairs, Since you had no accident in 10+ years, the insurance hit should not be that bad. If you get a moment post some pics for us to see.

Lithium ion battery maker A123 Systems today said it has sold its automotive business to Johnson Controls and is filing for bankruptcy protection. The moves are a change in strategy for the ailing Waltham, MA-based company, which in August said it will sell an 80 percent share to the auto parts division of Chinese conglomerate Wanxiang for $450 million. Johnson Controls will acquire a significant set of assets for its $125 million investment, some of which were paid with federal aid. A123 Systems’ auto business includes its technology, two battery factories in Michigan, a cathode powder manufacturing facility in China, and A123’s stake in two auto parts suppliers in China. Johnson Controls also will put up $72.5 million so A123 can maintain operations during the sale. http://www.forbes.co...-sell-off-next/ So how will this affect the auto makers who use their batteries such as Toyota, Ford, Nissan...... Sounds off on how you see this shaking out in the auto industry! View full article