"The reliability, intrinsic safety and recyclable attributes are what attracted me to RFX in the first place...."
Yup. Me too. I had one installed. It worked reasonably well for a couple of years... and then I noticed its performance deteriorating, to the point where it eventually did a maintenance cycle and didn't come back - even with prodding by Redflow staff. (When I say "deteriorating", the thing is supposed to be able to sustain 3 kW down to zero stored energy. Towards the end, it wasn't even sustaining 800 watts at a 30% state of charge.)
This "negativity", as you put it, doesn't come out of nowhere. It comes from direct experience with the product, and it's compounded by the story put out by management about their warranty issues not aligning with my experience, suggesting that they were sweeping details under the carpet and hoping we wouldn't notice.
I'm willing to accept a lot of things. As you say, these things take time... but the lack of transparency and honesty is what caused me to lose confidence in the company and product. Because of the way my solar setup is designed, I needed to get something on the ground to replace the Redflow battery to get any energy out of it - hence my having lithium iron phosphate battery modules installed; I didn't have enough confidence in Redflow to accept their offer of a replacement unit (instead accepting their offer of a buyback). And bluntly, those modules are working far better than the Redflow module ever did, even making allowances for the periodic maintenance cycles.
It's been a litany of problems for Redflow with all of their batteries over the past decade, and I'm not willing to simply trust management's word that they've fixed those issues this time, really they have, honest. Not when what they say fails to match up with what I experienced, and what I've been hearing on the quiet from people who are in a position to know.
If they've fixed the reliability problems; if they can scale up (as they've been promising to for how many years now?); if they can get the large scale orders; if they can get production costs down to the point where the product is cost competitive with lithium batteries of all chemistry types, then yes - the company will do well. I'm not disputing that. What I'm disputing is whether the story is aligning with reality. The economical aspects of the batteries are simply the most obvious concern right here and now.
I do genuinely hope the company makes it, and shareholders do well, for a multitude of reasons. But hope is not enough. If you don't go in with your eyes open, aware of the downside risks and problems that the company has, you're just as liable to lose your shirt in the process. To dismiss somebody's concerns and commentary as "negativity" is... well, let's just say that I sincerely hope for your sake that you haven't bet everything you have on this one company.
RFX Price at posting:
10.5¢ Sentiment: Sell Disclosure: Not Held
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