Exide Technologies Sponsors Junkyard Wars; Thinking Person's Reality TV

PRINCETON, N.J., March 25 -- Exide Technologies (BULLETIN BOARD: EXDTQ) (www.exide.com ), a global leader in stored electrical-energy solutions, has expanded its marketing effort to cable TV with a sponsorship of Junkyard Wars, which airs nationwide on The Learning Channel (TLC).

During this season's programs, the first of which premiered on March 19, contestants will use Exide Select Orbital(R) Deep Cycle marine batteries and Champion(R) motorcycle batteries as part of their tool kits.

Junkyard Wars is a highly successful reality TV program that migrated to the U.S. after nine successful seasons in the UK, where it is known as Scrapheap Challenge. It is described as a challenge for teams who think they can build anything out of junk. On each episode, two teams have one goal: to turn heaps of scrap materials -- such as old parts, discarded gears or hunks of corroded steel -- into fantastic apparatus such as cannons, human-carrying flying machines or amphibious vehicles. The teams, working in a junkyard, have only one day, from sunrise to sunset, to produce their mechanical creations.

Contestants need a broad range of skills, but good mechanical engineering knowledge and welding ability are most important. Their tools include unlimited imagination, power equipment, duct tape -- and now, Exide batteries. The new season of the series began airing March 19, 2003 in the Wednesday 9-10 p.m. EST timeslot.

"Junkyard Wars is the thinking person's reality TV, whose viewers enjoy an intellectual and mechanical challenge," said Craig H. Muhlhauser, Chairman and CEO of Exide Technologies. "The use of Exide Technologies batteries in the competition is an innovative way to demonstrate to this discerning audience the reliability and flexibility of our stored electrical energy technology outside of the traditional applications in transportation, network power and motive power."

Junkyard Wars enjoys critical and audience acclaim: it has been nominated for an Emmy Award and renewed for two more seasons. Each season consists of seven one-hour episodes, two two-hour specials and one three-hour, cross-state special. Last season, TLC's Junkyard Wars reached an average of 2.6 million households per week and an average of 1.1 million adult men per episode.

About Exide Technologies:

Exide Technologies, with operations in 89 countries and fiscal 2002 net sales of approximately $2.4 billion, is one of the world's largest producers and recyclers of lead-acid batteries. The company's three global business groups -- transportation, motive power and network power -- provide a comprehensive range of stored electrical energy products and services for industrial and transportation applications.

Transportation markets include original-equipment and aftermarket automotive, heavy-duty truck, agricultural and marine applications, and new technologies for hybrid vehicles and 42-volt automotive applications.

Industrial markets include network power applications such as telecommunications systems, fuel-cell load leveling, electric utilities, railroads, photovoltaic (solar-power related) and uninterruptible power supply (UPS), and motive-power applications including lift trucks, mining and other commercial vehicles.

Further information about Exide, its financial results and other information is available at 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.