Since Petersen and Axion are joined at the hip I do consider it appropriate for discussion in this thread, since much of his nonsense is generated by his defense of Axion over lithium and EV's.
Let's be clear: If it wasn't for Petersen, none of us would be talking about Axion. It just wouldn't be on anyone's radar. Petersen was a director at Axion, and claims to have sunk over $1 million into the company's stock back when it was trading about 5-10X what it's trading at now. Petersen found that attacking Tesla gave him a larger audience in which to push his own personal wealth building agenda, which is propping up Axion's stock. It has worked so far, probably saving Axion from folding completely.
From the company's own 10K and 2012 yearly conference call:
1) Axion's auditor's have put a "Going Concern" note on the 10K.
2) Axion is going to run out of money on April 30, 2013. That's less than a week away.
3) Product sales were under $10 million, and 81% of that comes from one customer. Similar numbers for the previous year, too.
4) Cash flow was a negative $8.6 million last year, and negative $11.4 million the previous year.
5) All of the questions on the Conference Call were posed by individual investors that are all on the SeekingAlpha blog. Institutions own less than 7% right now.
With a market cap of $28 million, losses each year that amount to more than 1/3 of that, and an EPS of -0.08, it's sure hard to think of Axion as "undervalued."
The entire premise of the company is a variant on the lead acid battery, that doesn't get as damaged as traditional lead acid or AGM batteries when discharged relatively deeply and then charged quickly (called Dynamic Charge Acceptance). If true, that's a reasonably good thing, but unfortunately, the cost has been too high. Petersen doesn't tell you that. Some math shows that Norfolk Southern purchased batteries from Axion at about $800/kWh, which is roughly double the price that Tesla sells its lithium batteries for at retail. Add in the enormous weight penalty, and its no wonder no company has yet committed to buying Axion's product despite years of looking into it.
The claim that these companies have long testing cycles just doesn't hold water. BMW, for instance, is coming out with new hybrid technologies every year under the marketing name "Efficient Dynamics." And, the claim that
all previous institutional investors sold all their Axion stock due to reasons not related to the company's future success also doesn't hold water. Petersen publicly moaned about these investment companies selling at a loss because they had to, but it turns out that they sold for more than they could today - so they probably did the smart thing by not letting their money ride even further down. There's just excuse after excuse from Petersen on why Axion hasn't turned the corner.
Petersen has tried everything he can think of to prop up Axion and therefore his own personal portfolio. He has acknowledged in presentations at lead-acid battery conferences that lithium batteries are competition. He attacks Tesla and lithium batteries in general, often by stroking fears of safety or specious mineral resource constraints. He attacks plug-in cars, but not plug-in trains. The obvious reason is the plug-in cars are using lithium and one plug-in train company is looking at Axion's batteries.
No-one outside the company knows whether it'll complete its financing within 6 more days, or what the terms of that financing will be. No-one anywhere knows if any of the companies that have been testing for years and years will finally make a purchase, nor for how much. Buying Axion stock is literally gambling.