Manufacturing – Page 12610 – I wish I had more to offer

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Tesla Successful In Buying Maxwell Technologies

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Published on May 16th, 2019 |

by Maarten Vinkhuyzen

Tesla Successful In Buying Maxwell Technologies

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May 16th, 2019 by Maarten Vinkhuyzen

The news of the day is that Tesla bought around 79% of Maxwell’s shares on May the 15th, 2019, after the acquisition offer was extended twice. The original proposal was from February 4th, 2019, and was discussed well by our authors in “Tesla Inks Deal To Acquire Maxwell Technologies In Stock Deal” and “The Ultracapacitors, Electrodes, & Battery Manufacturing Tech Tesla Gets With Maxwell Technologies.”

To make it clear that this is a 100% merger, the stock not offered is converted to a right to get Tesla shares and cash on the same conditions as the shares offered and accepted in the acquisition. They are not shares any more — they are essentially IOUs.

It is a short but very important announcement. Now let’s look a bit more closely at what Tesla bought.

Maxwell Technologies.
Maxwell Technology was a company specialized in high-quality supercapacitors. A supercapacitor is a kind of electricity storage device that can charge and discharge very fast and many thousands of times without any wear and tear. But the density of energy is very low, making supercapacitors unusable as permanent storage. It has been speculated, though, that use of supercapacitors could enable better storage and reuse of braking energy, making EV’s better track cars.

Perhaps, but that is not what made Maxwell a target for Tesla. Maxwell developed a way to improve battery production. The company’s own estimate was that, in time, Maxwell could grow to a many-billion-dollar company, multiplying their stock value at least tenfold and perhaps a hundredfold. If only they could bring the patents to production. An excellent description of the technology is in an article by Randy Carlson, “Tesla and Maxwell: Assessing the deal.”

To become so valuable, you need customers for your batteries and/or other battery companies willing to use your technology for a fee. Alas, only Tesla was a little bit interested. Tesla and Panasonic can likely realize the billions in saving on battery production that Maxwell predicted. Others?

This would give Tesla, currently having already the lowest cost batteries, an unassailable advantage over the competition for the coming years. The questions are how fast this can be incorporated into the Panasonic processes at GF1, and how big the savings will really be.

For the time being, Maxwell will continue with its business all over the world. Too many employees and customers and contracts to do anything else.

What the future will bring we can only guess. I would not be surprised if the capacitor business gets a management buyout after the battery technology is transferred to Tesla.

About the Author

Maarten Vinkhuyzen Grumpy old man. The best thing I did with my life was raising two kids. Only finished primary education, but when you don’t go to school, you have lots of time to read. I switched from accounting to software development and ended my career as system integrator and architect. My 2007 boss got two electric Lotus Elise cars to show policymakers the future direction of energy and transportation. And I have been looking to replace my diesel cars with electric vehicles ever since.

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Ford Sollers will maintain dealership network in all Russian regions

MOSCOW, May 22. / TASS /. Ford Sollers, a joint venture between the American car manufacturer Ford and the Russian Sollers, announced that it would maintain dealership networks in all Russian regions, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
“At the moment, more than 100 dealership centers, which is 85% of the total, have confirmed their intention to continue working with the Ford brand. We're continuing to accept applications, and the company plans to extend dealer contracts with 99% of the network,” said Ford Sollers said in a statement.
They added that maintaining the dealership network is a priority for the company. “More than half of Ford Sollers dealers will be engaged in both selling and servicing Ford Transit, and repairing and servicing Ford cars, the rest – solely maintenance and repair,” the press service said.
As previously reported, the new joint venture Ford Sollers, will be created at the existing Ford Sollers Yelabuga plant, and will begin operation starting o..

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Ford’s layoffs fit with Hackett’s vision for fitness – The Fabricator

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Workers of Volkswagen Tennessee plant to refile petition for union vote

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