ch4 (05/24/00)
What's GM really up to ... the majority of Delphi Auto share holders rejected a 'poison pill' at their last general meeting. ... The same day GM announced their interest in a Boston scientific company, Nissan released this statement. Would it possible GM's trying to soften up GLE price as a back-up plan and accumlate before next week.
'Nissan reviewing use of precious metals'
TOKYO, May 22 (Reuters) - Japan's third-largest automaker Nissan Motor Co said
on Monday it was reviewing the use of expensive precious metals after a recent
surge in the price of palladium.
The company also hinted it would cut its use of palladium in autocatalysts that clean exhaust fumes -- the metal's most common use.
``We are reassessing the use of precious metals, of which prices have been skyrocketing lately,'' Nissan's Chief Operating Officer Carlos Ghosn told reporters.
Ghosn said Nissan had a team working on a review of the use of precious metals and to consider substituting them with other materials.
Some decisions had already been made, but the automaker needed time to check conclusions, Ghosn said. He declined to comment further, citing the need for confidentiality.
Honda Motor Co said it had not yet decided whether it would change the use of precious metals. Toyota Motor Corp declined to comment.
The comments came after General Motors Corp.(NYSE:GM - news) of the United States, the world's No 1 automaker, said last Friday it expects to cut palladium use by 30 percent by 2002 because of instability in the metal's supply and price.
Purchasing director David Andres said the target would be achieved through improved technology and increased platinum use.
The news boosted platinum prices to three-month highs on Friday in New York, strengthening expectations for increased use of the metal by automakers to clean exhaust fumes.
On the Tokyo Commodity Exchange on Monday, benchmark April 2001 platinum futures jumped to a three-month high of 1,583 yen per gram.
Platinum is the best catalyst for cleaning diesel engine emissions. Once favored in passenger cars, it has been displaced in recent years by more-efficient palladium because of tougher emissions laws.
British precious metals refiner Johnson Matthey estimates carmakers last year used about 5.9 million ounces of palladium, about 63 percent of all the metal purchased in 1999, with a substantial amount accumulated in inventories. Due to robust demand and unstable supply from Russia, the world's largest supplier of the metal, palladium prices surged to a record high of more than $800 an ounce in February.
Under a three-year restructuring plan unvailed last October, Nissan aims to reduce its purchasing costs by 20 percent by cutting off nearly half of its suppliers.
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/000522/t101129.html
Don't forget that GLE's cells can be used to make reformate gas.
Interesting eh is GM waiting till the last minute, and by the way expect GM to make a internal combustion engine plant announcement soon. Snap a a DPH reformer GLE cell combo as a 'smog eater' onto a 3 banger engine and we're off to the races.
Points of interest: palladium is also used as an electrode to electrolyze water for hydrogen gas seperator. Platinum is used in a p.e.m. and is not required in a solid oxide cell.
Palladium and platinum are very close in
price.