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Electric Vehicles

What this industry is undertaking over the next decade or so is nothing less than the electrification of vehicles. Hybrids are a nice 1st step, but by relying primarily on a gasoline burning internal combustion engine to power the wheels, with a bit of braking energy recovery thrown in, they do not make our cut. Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) are the same as a hybrid except that they can be plugged in to recharge the batteries, which should help reduce the gas mileage. The type of Electric Vehicles (EV) we are talking about here are vehicles driven primarily by electricity. If the battery is dead it doesn't go. There can be so-called "series" PHEVs like the upcoming Chevy Volt. In this arrangement, still only the electric motors power the wheels but a small, efficient, internal combustion engine runs as needed to charge the battery and extend the range.

On August 5^th, 2009 President Obama announced $2.4 billion in grants to accelerate the manufacturing and deployment of the next generation of U.S. batteries and Electric Vehicles. This part of the Recovery Act will fund 48 new projects in over 20 states (you can review the complete list at .

As is often the case, the big money is not made on the end-product but in some of the critical components. This was the case for personal computers (which saw companies like Intel and Microsoft as the big winners for investors), and it looks like it is going to be the case for the electric car. For example, it is already apparent that electric cars such as the Volt are going to be loss leaders for car makers, but the makers of some of the critical components will be the big winners (i.e. the winning battery manufacturers).

Other promising developments we monitor include hydrogen fuel cells which could become the perfect adjunct to the electric car when they come to market in the next 5 to 10 years.

List of publicly traded electric vehicles companies and stocks
(note that the tickers are links to Yahoo!Finance quotes)

Electric vehicles stock ticker symbol	Electric vehicles company names	Electric vehicles company website addresses
	Advanced Battery Technologies, Inc.
	A123 Systems, Inc.
	Azure Dynamics Corp.
	BYD Co. Ltd.
	Electrovaya, Inc.
	EnerSys, Inc.
	Johnson Controls, Inc.
	Maxwell Technologies, Inc.
	NGK Insulators
	Polypore International, Inc.
	Tesla Motors, Inc.
	Ultralife Corp.
	UQM Technologies, Inc.
	Valence Technology, Inc.
	Exide Technologies
	ZAP
	Zipcar, Inc.

Note that this list of electric vehicles companies is not exhaustive, is not a list of stocks in The Green Investor Portfolio or represent a buy recommendation.

Electric vehicles information resources

Electric vehicles organizations	Electric vehicles organization website addresses
Electric drive transportation association EDTA

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