Exide Technologies Chairman Endorses Swift World Trade Organization Admission for China

          Makes Remarks Upon Accepting Global Trade Award in Beijing
            And Discussing Exide's Strategy for Expansion in China

    BEIJING, July 10 The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
of Exide Technologies , Robert A. Lutz, today called for China's
swift entry into the World Trade Organization.  Lutz made the remarks in
Beijing during his acceptance of the Marco Polo Award, a global trade
distinction presented by the China Association for International Exchange of
Personnel and the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs.  Exide
Technologies is the world leader in stored electrical energy solutions.
    "We at Exide Technologies strongly support World Trade Organization entry
for China," Lutz said.  "We feel that trade between China and other countries
of the free world, including the United States, will only speed up the reforms
that many in the West are calling for."
    Lutz added, however, that trade with China must be a win for all parties
involved, and that China must do its part to be a full participant.
    "Some people feel that trade with China isn't always a win-win, which is
why, some believe, the U.S. government has been going slow on China's entry
into the WTO.  "We call upon China, for its part, to live up to the promise
that globalization holds for us all -- the promise of all people everywhere
living in a world of peace and justice and freedom," Lutz said.
    Exide has a 15-year business history in China as a leading supplier of
products and services for critical power-supply requirements across several
industries, including key segments such as telecommunications, public
utilities and electrical power generation and distribution.  Exide
Technologies' customers in the People's Republic of China include China
Telecom, China Mobile, China Netcom, data centers of the Bank of China and
power utilities customers throughout China.
    Lutz also was in China to announce Exide Technologies' first-ever local-
production venture in the PRC, a new joint venture with Shenyang Dongbei
Storage Battery Co. Ltd., one of the largest battery companies in China.
Their joint venture, Exide Shenyang Industrial Battery Co. Ltd., will
manufacture and market a range of advanced valve-regulated lead-acid-
technology batteries for network-power applications in China, under Exide's
premium brand-name portfolio for the upper-end market and under the Dongbei
brand name for the Chinese mass market.  The joint venture, which is 65-
percent owned by Exide Technologies, is currently projected to involve a total
investment of $25 million over the next five years, with an estimated
production of 100,000 medium and large network-power batteries in the first
year, growing to 300,000 within the first five years.
    Exide Technologies' strategy in China includes capitalizing on the rapid
growth in China's wireless communications (China will have the world's largest
number of mobile phone users by the end of 2001), Internet and e-commerce
sectors, as well as in critical operations such as data centers, industrial
controls and other uninterruptible power supply (UPS) markets.
    "Globalization is sweeping today's markets like wildfire and resulting in
global partnerships like ours with Shenyang Dongbei Storage Battery Company,"
Lutz said.  "We think that in the era of the Internet, the telecommunications
explosion and all of the other trappings of this modern day phenomenon called
globalization, the Exide Shenyang Industrial Battery Company is the kind of
internationalization that Marco Polo would approve of."

    Note:  Exide Technologies is the global leader in providing electrical
energy storage solutions.  The company has operations in 89 countries, serving
the industrial and transportation markets.
    Industrial applications include network-power batteries for
telecommunications systems, fuel-cell load leveling, electric utilities,
railroads, photovoltaic (solar-power related) and uninterruptible power supply
(UPS) markets; and motive-power batteries for a broad range of equipment uses,
including lift trucks, mining vehicles and commercial vehicles.
    Transportation uses include automotive, heavy-duty truck, agricultural,
marine and other batteries, as well as new technologies being developed for
hybrid vehicles and new 42-volt automotive applications.  The company supplies
both aftermarket and original-equipment transportation customers.
    Further information about Exide Technologies, its financial results and
other information can be found at http://www.exide.com .
    Certain statements in this press release may constitute forward-looking
statements as defined by the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.  As
such, they involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors
that may cause the actual results of the company to be materially different
from any results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.
These are enumerated in further detail in the company's Form 10-K.

    CONTACT:  media, Jeannine Addams of Tarkenton & Addams, Inc.,
              404-231-1132, or cell, 404-375-1801, or jfaddams@taradd.com , or
              Joy Lo of Burson-Marsteller Beijing, 8610-6505-6363 ext. 227, or
              joy_lo@bm.com , both for Exide Technologies, or investors,
              Thomas J. Smith of Exide Technologies, 609-919-4946, or
              tsmith@exideworld.com