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But there's still that incredibly valuable animation company...
(at least according to the thing that got them [briefly] lited on NASDAQ)
Yes, I saw that. An opportunity to buy Freedom Motors shares at half price ($0.75 versus the $1.50/share offering price at Startengine), but you have to buy at least 2500 shares.
The Startengine campaign seems to be flagging somewhat. I haven't been keeping track of the specific numbers day to day, but it does seem like they have made most of the big sales that they're going to make through that channel. And if the losses in the financial report for Freedom Motors are representative of the company now, then I would expect that the sales via Startengine won't even cover the losses over this time.
Given that this offer isn't being publicized more widely, I guess it's targeted at the "Moller Millionaires".
These new people *do* have very impressive resumes.
I would note a few things about these people:
* They're all retired from their original careers.
* They all seem to be involved in multiple ventures at present, according to their Linkedin profiles.
The question that arises from this -- how involved are these people actually going to be with Freedom Motors? (Moller is pretty much in hibernation just at the moment...).
Of the three, only Subhash Paluru actually lists Freedom Motors on his Linkedin profile.
Consider the case of Ed De Reyes, formerly listed as Moller's test pilot (for flights that never actually occurred). He *was* a legitimate test pilot, but it appears that his involvement with the Skycar program was more because Paul Moller was a friend of his, rather than because the Skycar was a particularly high profile program.
Interesting video, and unlike a lot of prior stuff that Moller/Freedom Motors has done in the past, it doesn't look amateurish or half-assed.
Paul harps a lot about the effects of acid (from the combustion of hydrogen sulphide) on the lubricants of a more conventional engine, but this is something that can be addressed by the choice of lubricants. If you're running an engine on sour gas/biogas, you choose a lubricant for that application, which is designed to counter this acidity. (At least in this video, they acknowledge that such engines actually exist).
With regard to "catching cow farts" -- what actually happens is that the cattle manure (which also emits a lot of methane) is gathered in an anaerobic digester. This breaks down the manure and generates methane at the same time. (Unless Paul is planning to make portable units with the 27 cc rotary engine for attachment to individual cows). The methane that results is usually burned off in smaller operations -- they propose a Rotapower-powered genset to consume this methane generating electricity.
I suspect the reason that this crowdfunding is doing better is that it isn't targeting "the Moller millionaires". Instead, they've come up with a good pitch (on video) that works on a wider audience, as well as having a smaller and more realistic objective than past crowdfunding attempts. To be fair, I'm probably unduly jaded about the website material compared to someone seeing it for the first time. Combined with the video presentation, it may look pretty good to someone that isn't familiar with Moller/Freedom Motors less-than-distinguished track record.
Yesterday, David updated the Freedom Motors blog, with two updates. One is that Freedom Motors has launched a new fundraising opportunity.
It doesn't sound all that impressive -- an opportunity on a crowdfunding site to buy up to 71,333 shares of Freedom Motors at $1.50 each. The rest of the very long entry is just more of the usual stuff rehashed from past Moller International and Freedom Motors promotional material. (Mind you, I think the idea is that at the crowdfunding site, it will be exposed to a somewhat less jaded audience). It seems to be working -- they have sold $12,732 of shares so far.
If you dig into the supporting material, there are some interesting things. Such as the fact that $225,000 of the $250,000 loaned to Freedom Motors earlier this year was loaned by David himself. There is also a glimpse into the finances of Freedom Motors -- In their most recent financial year (I assume that these financial results are up to date -- unlike Moller International's...), Freedom Motors had a long term debt of $4,559,915 and was losing $1,228 a day.
David also announced that Freedom Motors was pulling out of the Cleantech Open thingie they announced with great fanfare a while back. It doesn't seem all that surprising to me. These accelerators are clearly aimed at new businesses, and Freedom Motors has been around for seventeen years on its own (and even longer as a subsidiary of Moller International).
For example, the claim that the Rotapower engine was able to produce 3 HP/lb. This might very well be real. However, the claim has never stated what impact the necessary changes had on the reliability of the engine.
For example, the engines in dragsters are (heavily) modified passenger car engines that can produce several times as much power as the originals. The drawback is that at full power, the time between engine rebuilds can literally be measured in seconds.
A more familiar example to me personally is electric motors. When I was in High School, we used to mess around with 12 volt motors and a variable power supply, gradually turning up the voltage to see how long the motor would last. They could get up past 100 volts, but the would only run at this level for a minute or so.
I don't know -- there are still a lot of ifs...
1) Will the engine perform as advertised? (By David's admission, they have never actually run it on real sour gas, and real world testing can sometime expose surprising issues that never appear in bench testing).
2) How long a period of trial will it take to confirm that the engine can run reliably for the longer term? This isn't something you can sort out in days or weeks -- more like months or even years.
3) Related to the above -- Are they in a position to keep the company operating (from a financial perspective) while 1) and 2) are determined? In the last financial reporting released by MI (three years ago), their daily operating expenses were $8000/day, and they at that point they had free rent and their employees weren't being paid. What does it cost to operate the company now when they're trying to actually look credible? $250,000 (the amount they loaned earlier this year) doesn't seem like a lot of money in that light.
4) Assuming that they demonstrate that the engine works as advertised -- How do they manufacture it in quantity? What happens when the remaining stock of parts for the OMC engines from the seventies runs out?
What they really need to do is demonstrate that their engine fills some kind of niche for small scale installations that isn't met by existing sour gas engines.
I suspect that the surge to 12 cents a couple of years ago was the pump-and-dump crowd having some fun after the original plummet to sub-penny values. I'm kind of surprised that there wasn't something similar in the wake of last year's sell-off.
I'm amused by the posters on the Facebook page who pooh-pooh an electric powered craft that has "merely" demonstrated a controlled 25 minute flight with a 200 pound payload.
...As opposed to what? Drunkenly lurching around for thirty seconds with *no* payload, and no flights of any kind in fifteen years?
I recognize that electric power has limitations, and that batteries don't have anything like the energy density of hydrocarbon fuels. Still, lots of electric powered craft have demonstrated performance far in excess of anything that Moller's vehicles have ever *demonstrated*. As opposed to the fantastic specifications for said craft. (To be clear - I mean fantastic in the sense of "fantasy", rather than "outstanding").
A note regarding test flying -- Supposedly the safety line was *also* required because with the configuration of these vehicles at the time, a single engine failure would cause either vehicle to invert instantly.
This makes perfect sense with the M400 prototype, which only had four engines at the time (one at each corner). I'm sure this (along with power limitations/lack of availability of two rotor engines) is why the M400 was never flown manned.
The issue isn't quite so clear cut with the saucer, but then again it was also flying with what was probably a much more primitive control system. So a single engine failure would still have been pretty hairy.
Of the patents that they hold, most are expired.
Of the remainder:
U.S. Patent 6,164,942 (Rotary engine having enhanced charge cooling and lubrication) -- Expires on December 17th.
U.S. Patent 6,325,603 (Charged cooled rotary engine) -- Expires June 24, 2020.
U.S. Patent 6,450,445 (Stabilizing control apparatus for robotic or remotely controlled flying platform) -- Expires October 12, 2021.
U.S. Patent 6,808,140 (Vertical take-off and landing vehicles [Covers the current configuration of the M400, more or less]) -- Expires February 7, 2023.
So, of the four patents that remain valid:
* Two pertain to rotary engines, and are thus not of interest to anyone using any other kind of power.
* One is relevant to control systems for drones (which seem to exist off-the-shelf nowadays).
* One just covers the current configuration of the M400 vehicle.
* One expires in four months, and they all expire in the next 4.5 years.
I'm not denying that David (eventually) made the statements that you highlighted. But *before* that, he made the ones that I highlighted.
He didn't start saying that there was no need for a spring shareholders meeting. He said that one was planned in the April - June timeframe. And then, when it didn't happen and people called him on it, he backtracked and said that there wasn't any need for a meeting.
There probably wasn't a need for a meeting -- nothing to report, as you said. But if so, why say previously that you're going to have one, and then not do it?
David also said that there would be an ICO, that the PSC deal was still a go, and that there would be a spring shareholder's meeting.
Regarding the pacing of Freedom Motors work on engines for sour gas application:
A year ago (in the July newsletter), they said that they were "two weeks away from proving that our Rotapower® engine can efficiently use sour gas to create electricity".
Subsequently? In the intervening year, all they appear to have done is run their engine on mixtures of methane and carbon dioxide. They have never run the engine on actual sour gas (where it would have to contend with siloxane, hydrogen sulphide, and other interesting things). A month or so ago, they were rebuilding an engine (a reconditioned 530 cc rotary left over from the M400 demonstrations in 2002) to be sent off to have the generator part added on.
So, 56 weeks beyond the point where they said they would have proof of their engine being suited for use with sour gas, they have gotten partway through assembling a engine/genset to test it out.
Any further questions about the likelihood of Moller International accomplishing anything in the next decade?
Additionally, Moller International's corporate bylaws call for an annual shareholders meeting.
I agree that there wasn't anything new to discuss, but that's not the point.
Incidentally, Paul is 81, and will turn 82 in December.
Keep in mind that the new guy (according to his profile in Linkedin) is also involved in three other ventures as of July 2018. So it doesn't look like Freedom Motors is a full time thing for him.
Presumably David, like Zack and Ed De Reyes, is finding out the reality of what he's dealing with, and how unlikely it is that his own efforts will be able to change anything.
The stumbling block is likely Paul Moller himself, and the legacy of years of trying to "fake it till you make it" destroying any credibility Moller International/Freedom Motors had in the industry.
Oh dear. Delisted. What a shame.
Well, whoever wrote this press release isn't too knowledgeable about what they're writing about.
The contaminant of concern in biogas is siloxane, not silica.
The statement "It is uniquely able to generate electricity from highly contaminated biogas." is puzzling, when David Sastry admitted on the Freedom Motors blog that they have never actually run one of their engines on biogas.
It's also somewhat amusing that if you want information, you're supposed to write a snail mail or make a telephone call. I'm surprised that they don't list Telex or request telegraphs. Perhaps Paul wrote this himself?
Well. That must have been an interesting day for OMNT shareholders. It was pretty apparent that the stock only ever got listed on NASDAQ as a result of financial hocus-pocus. I guess that they weren't able to get an accounting firm that was willing to sign off on this, and for a few months now it's been apparent that delisting would happen sooner or later. And today was later.
Now, about that big bonus Michael Hanson received for getting the company listed on NASDAQ -- Is he planning to give it back?
Do you mean the generators based on the one rotor engine that has never been tested on actual sour gas, or the generators based on the two rotor compound engine that only exists on paper?
Seems like same old same old -- ICO dead, no further talk about the laughable PSC deal, nothing more about the machinist and technician they were supposed to be hiring -- just the occasional update about the grants they didn't get, the conferences they aren't attending, and the deals they aren't making.
It sounds to me like this:
https://jalopnik.com/this-might-be-the-weirdest-engine-rolls-royce-ever-made-1797954082
...is something along the lines of what Freedom Motors is trying to accomplish with their compound rotary engine, except running on sour gas.
Where did you read this?
And the newsletter says that the engine was tested on mixtures of carbon dioxide and methane. Not actual sour gas. No hydrogen sulphide or siloxane.
Both Caterpillar and General Electric/Waukesha produce natural gas engines that can be used to run on sour gas. You might need to use a special lubricant, but it's entirely practical.
These are large, expensive engines, and they may not be practical for smaller sites. If Freedom Motors can produce a genset that can run on sour gas that is suitable/economic for smaller sites, it might have a niche. But the idea that there is currently nothing on the market that can run on sour gas is untrue.
A few points:
1. There are multiple manufacturers that make engines capable of running on sour gas. Freedom Motors claim is that they have a smaller scale engine that will work in smaller installations where a larger engine would not be practical/economic. However:
2. Today, in the blog, David Sastry admitted that that Freedom Motors rotary engine has *never* been run on sour gas. So all of those claims about how well the Freedom Motors engine will work on sour gas are untested. Additionally, the variety of engine that they would recommend for this application (their compound engine) not only hasn't been run on sour gas, but at present only exists on paper.
Making a flying car is not that complicated a business. There were a number of military projects back in the fifties/sixties that produced *something* along these lines. The challenge is to produce a flying car that is:
a) Affordable
b) Safe
c) Practical
Affordable is significant because a vehicle with the properties of the Skycar could be done (and *has* been done – look up the Bell X-22) using turbine engines. But turbines are expensive, and small turbines aren’t much cheaper than larger turbines. If you want the prospect of a vehicle that will ultimately be affordable to more than a tiny segment of the population, then turbines aren’t a solution. Hence the rotary engines in the Skycar.
Producing a safe flying car adds further layers of complexity. If the craft is going to spend any time hovering, then engine reliability must be absolute. As this isn’t possible, you need backup engines. The X-22 did this by having two turbine engines and a cross-shafting system that allowed power from these two engines to be routed to all four ducted fans. But this involves complicated, expensive gearboxes and transmissions. The Skycar solution is to have two engines in each nacelle as a backup, which offers redundancy but also dead weight at any time in the flight where both of the engines in a nacelle aren’t required.
Both affordability and safety have an impact on practicality. In addition, there are other concerns impacting practicality – noise, air traffic control, emissions, performance, regulation etc.
Sea-Doos have Rotax engines.
They are conventional piston engines.
...and has since lost 99% of its value.
Moller's last salaried employee left after not being paid for months.
An enquiry on the Freedom Motors blog as to whether the new employee was actually going to be paid went unanswered.
Presumably, then, they're looking for someone that will work for free. Good luck with that.
Moller and Freedom Motors have had products coming out "next year" for more than forty years. Check out http://www.downside.com/scams/moller/
It's dated October 1974. It features a craft that is essentially the Neuera. And it's supposed to be in full production as of December 31, 1976.
The actual timeline for this craft -- it made its first flight in 1989 (and Paul apparently stated that he felt lucky to be alive afterwards). If flew about 200 times -- all brief hovers. I don't know when it last flew, but during the time that I have been following Moller (since 2003 or so), they haven't flown anything.
Recently, Moller and Freedom Motors have been a fair amount more open, with David Sastry being involved and more information being available. That's a good thing, but I think that they have a long way to go before they are in any way credible. David apparently realizes this, to his credit, and seems to be working hard to try and burnish their profile. However, when your corporate plan is apparently based on things like ICOs (2018's "big deal", already abandoned only three months into the year) and the so-called PSC deal, credibility is not going to be an easy sell.
The problem with the stuff on this list is:
1. Most of the patents have expired.
2. Most of the ones that haven't expired, expire soon.
3. The unexpired patents only cover specific configurations of VTOL craft, drone stabilization systems, and design improvements to rotary engines. There are lots of other configurations out there, drone manufacturers seem to be able to do fine with what is already out there, and no one else seems especially interested in rotary engines. So there isn't much here that is of value to anyone else.
In the last period that MLER reported financials (year ending June 30 2015), the company was losing $8500 per day, and had been losing $4700 to $8500 every day for the previous five years.
I'm not sure where all the money was going (since it doesn't seem that any kind of actual development work was in progress during this time), but it seems to me that skipping less than two days of expenses to save the cost of filing with the SEC is false economy in the extreme.
I also wonder if the quarterly report really cost them $15,000. Moller's quarterly and annual reports mostly contained the same boilerplate statements from one quarter/year to the next. The only actual changes were the specifics of how much money they lost doing nothing that particular quarter.
Regarding the lack of SEC filings for almost three years (and remember, Moller did file financials before this) - There are two possible conclusions:
1) They are now so disorganized that they are incapable of filing their financials.
or
2) The financial results are so awful that it's better to not file at all and be condemned to the sketchy "No Information" category on the OTCBB rather than admit the actual numbers.
I lean towards 2) myself, but either conclusion is pretty damning.
The short answer to the question about rights to the rotary engine is that Moller only bought rights to the seventies vintage rotary engine designs developed by OMC (Outboard Marine Corporation) for use in marine power and snowmobiles. They don't have any connection with Mazda beyond using the same general design of engine.
"MI has already shown they can lift the M 400, the motors produce 3 hp for ever Lbs of motor"
Some comments:
The M400 has never flown with the engines intended for it (four of the two rotor 1060 cc engine). The only flying demonstrations were done with four 530 cc engines, without a pilot, and likely a minimum fuel load. Backyard tinkerers can easily exceed this performance, see Youtube.
3 HP per lb of motor - Perhaps this was accomplished, although I've never seen this independently confirmed. But for how long, and under what conditions? From a given motor, power output and reliability are inverse -- you can boost a motor to provide a lot more power than usual, but the time to failure drops dramatically.
As a joke, we used to test 12 volt electric motors on a 0 - 300 volt power supply. The motors would run at much higher voltages than they were rated for - but not for very long, and the failure was usually pretty dramatic.
...And of that long list of patents (excluding the two design patents, which just cover the look of an item), all but four are expired. Of the remainder:
Patent 6,164,942 - Rotary engine having enhanced charge cooling and lubrication (Expires December 17, 2018)
Patent 6,325,603 - Charge cooled rotary engine (Expires June 24, 2020)
Patent 6,450,445 - Stabilizing control apparatus for robotic or remotely controlled flying platform (Expires October 12, 2021)
Patent 6,808,140 - Vertical take-off and landing vehicles (Expires February 7, 2023)
Given that no one else seems especially interested in the rotary engine, the two patents relating to the engine aren't particularly valuable and they expire soon anyway.
Lots of stabilizing systems for drones are already available on the market, so the next one doesn't seem to be particularly valuable.
And the final one covers a variation of Moller's Skycar with two engines and two small stabilizing engines, rather than the four engines of the M400.
Without knowing the content of the so-called additional inventions, their value is unknown. But based on what is known, the intellectual property doesn't look particularly valuable, and most of it expires within a few years.
According to David on the Blog:
"I’ve been talking to a few companies that were successful in ICOs. Many of them are incorporated overseas in ICO friendly countries, and will not accept investment from the US, China, Singapore, and South Korea (just to name a few) so they will not have to deal with security laws in those countries."
Based on this, it sounds like an ICO would not be able to accept investment from the United States, which might make it difficult to get money out of the so-called "Moller Millionaaires".
It also seems pretty apparent that the only purpose of ICOs is to circumvent securities regulations that are in place for a very good reason. Moller already has a history of not living up to their promises, and have had no financial reporting of any kind for the last two and a half years. They're already highly suspect financially, and the proposed ICO makes them look even more dubious.
I would also note that the photo of the engine in the 2001 article is identical with the picture used in a recent blog article. So over seventeen years, the engine design apparently hasn`t changed visibly.