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Ballard Power being a classic example of this, though there are many.



Can you share more on how this applies to Ballard Power? It's a name that just came up on my radar this weekend and I was planning on doing research on them, so thought I'd ask in case you have something specific to share


Ballard's been getting government grants and subsidies for over 20 years, and produced very little in terms of saleable product on the other end. They make fuel cells and related products, but their business model seems to be mostly taking government and investor money, and using it to produce units which they 'sell' at below-cost to companies trying to look green by 'testing' alternative fuels.


One of the worse offenders is North which is previously thalmic labs; Not a single product has reached the market with any revenue to show but remains a poster child for a successful organization.


That sounds like the conventional VC model of pumping money into obviously bad companies. The only difference is that this is government funded.




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