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Carl Watkins is a very calm man. There's no tension in his voice as he responds to questions I throw at him over the course of three or four phone interviews. He's definitely not in a rush to do anything very quickly when it comes to EEStor. You almost get the feeling that Watkins is already enjoying a sort of retirement from conflict now that he and his team own the exclusive rights to EEStor technology for all three wheeled vehicles and a portion of the two wheeled vehicle market. Where does that peace of mind come from?

First, Watkins and team are very comfortable with the progress EEStor is making towards ramping up production in 2009. What's left to do is described by Watkins as having been done elsewhere before and well understood. Just a matter of execution. Secondly, Watkins is basing his marketing efforts on the un-hyped logic that flows from simple demonstrations of technology that he will allow his prospects to experience prior to signing a deal with LightEVs.

Do you have anything to show them now? "No."

Then how are you going about things prior to being able to do that?

"Well, at this point we are saying here is the technical information about why this is going to work. We'd like you to know we are here and are doing this. When you want to talk about it based on the fact that we are not going to have unlimited production in the beginning and only a certain number of people are going to be able to get this and introduce a product, let us know. "

I drill into this point with Watkins. Essentially, it boils down to this. In the early going, LightEVs will not have unlimited production capacity. Everyone who is a serious player in the e-bike or scooter space will not be able to be serviced in the beginning. So, if you're one of those who feels it's best to wait and see, don't wait too long because your competitors may get in ahead of you.

"We would like to have discussions with anyone who is interested sooner rather than later because we are going to start figuring out who we want to work with in the beginning in each market segment so we get the best coverage of all the markets. You gotta understand this is going to take two or three years. Now, if a few manufactures can achieve this, that's basically better for us. It just comes down to who can present a viable product suite that would address the various mobility issues around the world. "

I signal that I follow his train of thought here. The message is plain. If you're talking to LightEVs now about your EESU needs now, you are simply ensuring that you won't be left behind once initial rounds of production are put together. Watkins adds that "nobody has what I consider to be a dominant position in any of these markets. But this will be a game changer."

"I mean whoever is the first company to get this technology would have a tremendous advantage over any lithium ion based solution. I mean sure there are short term advantages based on distribution but anyone who can google bike specs is going to find this technology. There would be a tremendous advantage."

It comes off as very matter of fact. Watkins explains to me that they want to sign up companies for a portion of their production but won't be expecting payment until after the customer has tested one of their own units off the production line. I ask if maybe there's some enormous price strategy issue here for the early adopters. Watkins hasn't completely settled that question for now but he cites Toshiba's recent announcement of an ebike package which amounts to a cost of $2000 or $3000 per KHh. "We expect to be very competitive i nprice with lithium iron phosphate."

LightEVs isn't interested in setting up territories or exclusive licenses unless it involves "a very persuasive price." I press him about this a few times and he only reluctantly came to that conclusion. That's not how they want to tackle what they have here.
What do they have here? Watkins points out that the Electric Bike World Report says in 2008, there will be 26 million ebikes sold up from 20 mil last year. Watkins tells me,

"We think it's the best market there is for EEStor technology... There's distribution in place. Regulations are simple. Bikes are commonly accepted modes of transportation all over the world. Worldwide, it's a vigorous market."

He talks about the growth of ebikes in Sweden and Europe and then compares them to the markets in Asia which are absolutely enormous. He cites single manufacturers who are selling hundreds of thousands of units every month. Watkins recognizes the obvious issues of cost of living etc but still feels that even China has a healthy high end market with many who would be willing to pay what they intend to charge.

Watkins' team is planning to target initially a 1KWh ebike which is thought to be the ideal power pack for a bike. "It could give you 100 miles of non-pedaling range depending on a set of well known factors." They have plans to offer a package including the EESU, a controller, motor as well as charger. Watkins adds, "We have a very sophisticated controller that we are planning to use with this that will give our customers all sorts of advantages in terms of performance and range. Change your top speed, range, etc."

In all my conversations with Watkins, I wonder if he's ever going to break down and start hyping his solution. Never happened unless you count how he calmly explained to me that it will be impossible for anyone to win the Automotive X prize without EEStor technology.

"Anybody who wants to win the X prize is going to have to be using the EEStor units. I think the likelihood of some other battery technology being able to compete with the EEStor unit in terms of the X Prize would be....probably not possible."

So who is LightEVs talking to lately? Everybody or at least a significant set of large players in the ebike markets. Watkins is comfortable pointing out that they are doing well so far but he he won't tell me anyone in particular they are talking to. I ask about Aptera and Segway (which is incidently still a Kleiner investment), but Watkins says no, no yet.

Throughout the conversation, I draw Watkins back to his due diligence efforts. He tells me his team stayed abreast of Dick Weir's progress over the last four years including utilizing my two blog sites over the past year to learn "what people were saying" about EEStor. Some of this information formed the basis of questions Watkins' team asked Dick Weir about prior to signing the deal. So, I ask Watkins if he ever came across an aspect of the science that Dick Weir wasn't aware of or didn't understand. Voltage, Temperature, Fragility, Cost, etc? The answer is no to all of the above. He addressed all of the concerns. I point out to Watkins that many look at the LightEVs contract as adding no new credibility to EEStor.

"Why does EEStor need any credibility? If I were Dick Weir, I wouldn't do anything different than he is doing right now which is he's not talking about his technology. And why should he? So a bunch of guys can get excited about this new innovation which really has no relevance to what happens to him? He has a specific task and goal and that's what he's working on. And as far as I am concerned that's exactly what he should be working on. The less he talks about it, the better. "