Is It Too Late To Invest In EV Related Stocks?

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Valuations for electric vehicle (“EV”) stocks have skyrocketed, boosting Tesla (TSLA) over $1T+, as well as newer entrants like Rivian (RIVN) over $150B, and Lucid over $80B as well as the EV charging companies like ChargePoint (CHPT) at $8B+, EVGO at $4B+ and Blink Charging (BLNK) at close to $2B. We urge investors to be cautious of engaging in the “Fear of Missing Out” (“FOMO”) trade, as this can be disastrous if these high flyers get re-rated.

With the stratospheric multiples to revenue that some of these companies are trading, investors may be reluctant to acquire EV and EV charging stocks at these levels while at the same time they want to profit from the macro trend in the green tech space as internal combustion engines (“ICEs”) are phased out. These newer EV OEMs also face entrenched auto behemoths like Volkwagen (VWAGY), Toyota (TM), Daimler (DAI.DE, DDAIY), Ford (F), General Motors (GM) and others.

While we are in the growth phase of EV adoption, the proliferation of EV companies has been and will continue to be expected. However, not all of these EV companies, whether new entrants nor established automakers will be winners. It is reasonable to assume that some will be losers (or under performers) and others will be acquired down the road as we transition to a consolidation phase.


How to pick from the winners and losers?

The opportunity we reveal today allows you to invest in the EV trend without having to pick a specific winner among the plethora of companies in the EV and EV charging sector. Our “Under the Radar” pick has a disruptive technology addressing critical needs for all EV and EV charging companies. This technology allows EV makers to increase driving range without any additional advancements in battery tech necessary. It permits EV charging companies to provide smaller, lighter charging station equipment with less power conduction losses. Additionally, this disruptive tech not only solves inefficiency problems within EV’s and EV charging stations, it has solid-state circuit breaker applications within energy storage systems for wind and solar installations, data center UPS systems, military, utility and a variety of other industrial applications.

Ideal Power, Inc. (NASDAQ: IPWR) is an Austin, TX based provider of a patented, breakthrough, and highly efficient power semiconductor switching technology. Their disruptive new Bi-Directional Bi-Polar Junction Transistor (B-TRAN) improves conduction losses five-fold (5 X) vs. traditional insulated gate bi-polar transistor (IGBT) power switching devices. The total addressable market (TAM) for B-TRAN is expected to reach $10B by 2024 and IPWR is poised to capture a key portion of that business.

Our research group has conducted a significant amount of research and due diligence on Ideal Power over the last few years and we are comfortable in predicting that the IPWR opportunity will surpass (in a much shorter period of time) the tremendous success we realized on our Monolithic Power Systems (MPWR) investment we made in the $10/ share range 15 years ago and which is now up over 5,000% at approximately $500+/ share. 

Ideal Power also employs a capital-light fabless semiconductor business model by leveraging already established semiconductor fabricators for B-TRAN production. They currently employ two manufacturing partners: Teledyne (TDY), a $20B military electronics contractor in California, and a new U.S. west coast fabricator to be announced after their first successful qualifying production run. Ideal Power has $24MM in cash, a low burn rate of approx. $1MM+/Qtr., no debt and 65 patents (and counting) on their B-TRAN technology

This new technology’s breakthrough design provides up to 75% reduction in components within a legacy bi-directional power switch. A traditional bi-directional power switch currently uses two (2) IGBT's and two (2) blocking diodes. Ideal Power's B-TRAN replaces these four (4) components with one (1) intelligent power module; so, it's smaller, faster, a great deal more efficient and most importantly, it generates less waste heat which in turn significantly reduces the need for costly and bulky thermal management systems.

 

Ideal Power’s current list of potential adopters include:

1) A top ten (10) global automobile manufacturer is evaluating B-TRAN for applications that will improve the drivetrain efficiency and driving range of its electric vehicles (EV's),

2) A provider of electric vehicle chargers is evaluating the critically important benefits of B-TRAN's greater efficiency, bi-directionality, smaller size and reduced thermal management for its DC fast charger with a swappable battery system and a modular design for scaling of the solution.

3) A top ten (10) global provider of power conversion solutions to the solar industry is expanding its portfolio of power converter solutions. It is evaluating B-TRAN for its compelling advantages of bi-directionality within uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems for data centers with the potential to seek applications in renewable energy, and EV's,

4) A manufacturer of solid-state circuit breakers is building 12kV DC breakers as part of the U.S Navy's ship electrification program; B-TRAN's efficiency benefits vs. conventional power switches is expected to result in lower cooling complexity and fewer components while delivering a reliable and safe shipboard DC power distribution system with extremely fast fault interruption, low fault currents, flexible programmable coordination and mechanical isolation,

5) The same manufacturer of solid-state circuit breakers is building a 13.8kV AC breaker under a Dept. of Energy (DOE) grant for use in medium voltage power distribution and renewable energy / microgrid connection to the U. S. main power grid; these solid state B-TRAN breakers are expected to limit fault energy by orders of magnitude compared to conventional mechanical breakers.

6) A Forbes 2021 Global 500 Leader in diverse power management markets will be evaluating B-TRAN for use in bi-directional direct current solid-state circuit breaker (SSCB) applications for solar and wind energy storage systems.


Ideal Power has a fully diluted share count of only 7.4MM common shares with approximately 6MM shares outstanding (approx. $100MM mkt. cap.). So, with no debt and a small, finite amount of in-the-money warrants unexercised, the upside for IPWR is extraordinary as they move towards commercialization of this super energy efficient technology in late 2022.  In the next couple of quarters should be some significantly positive developments towards B-TRAN's commercialization progress including: the first shipments of B-TRAN devices to established evaluation partners, new announcements of major evaluation partners, new fabrication partners, third party independent B-TRAN validation results and the addition of some experienced executive leaders to the board of directors. Ultimately, we believe that if Ideal Power's fabrication partners are successful at manufacturing B-TRAN devices economically at scale, our valuation target is $2 Billion.

Finally, Ideal Power is a company that is “flying under the radar” for a reason as they have not yet successfully sold B-TRAN commercially. This a speculative investment, so please invest accordingly.

Disclosure: Winslow Asset Group and its partners are long IPWR.

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Bill Johnson 2 years ago Member's comment

Interesting, thanks.  I'll check out $IPWR.