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Perfect Storm for Innovation Gathers in Washington
A Perfect storm for innovation is gathering in Washington. With the government's recent financial assistance to GM and Chrysler, the Big 3 now have until the end of March to make the case that shows how they will survive. Survival is not enough though.
America now has a chance to lead the world in power and fuel efficiency. The Big three will still be looking for help at the end of March. As the major shareholder, the US government would have an opportunity to DEMAND the type of cars that will lead the world toward saving the planet for future generations.
If the Big three cannot agree to make only cars that are fuel efficient enough to get at least 50 MPG by 2011, 75 MPG by 2013 and 100 MPG by 2015, then they should go into bankruptcy and fend for themselves like all the other businesses that are having trouble. The truth is this can be done and innovators know the way to do it.
Better Place is a new model for power distribution to replace the old model of gas stations that supported the evolution of the automobile to this point. Better Place is taking hold in countries around the world and in some areas of the US. Better Place's revolutionary concept for distribution of power to vehicles actually lowers the price of the vehicle by making the battery free to the consumer and automaker, while a subscription allows the user to only pay for miles traveled. There is a great opportunity for innovative solutions with Better Place.
The Automotive X Prize is a race of 100MPG vehicles across America in 2010 sponsored by the Progressive Insurance Company. There are many entries. These cars must be safe and have a business plan that allows for at least 10,000 units per year. Automotive X prize contenders need to share their knowledge with the Car Czar. How will they get their cars to the magic 100mpg? There are some good ways to do it. Now is the time to share.
Innovators should swarm like locusts on Washington in January, February and March to show the Car Czar how to make fuel-efficient cars.
A Car Czar who knows how it can be done, and a government in control of the automakers while they stabilize will be key to demanding all autos made in the USA have a minimum mileage rating of 50MPG. This includes cars, SUVs and pick-up trucks. Now it is time for America to take back the reins of innovation and show the true wave of the future. It is a window for a sea change and a new opportunity for America to lead the world.
Lincvolt, an X Prize contestant, is a 2.5 ton, 19.5 foot American classic now attaining 65 MPG utilizing electricity and domestic fuel. The converted 1959 Lincoln Continental MK IV demonstrates that today's big sedans SUVs and pick-up trucks can get at least 50 MPG if they are fuel-efficient and use electric power, making it obvious that smaller cars could do even better than that. Ultimately, the Lincvolt team aims to demonstrate a Lincvolt hydro bio-electric series hybrid that will attain 100MPG with domestic fuels and very low emissions.
In February, Lincvolt will begin an historic drive to Washington to showcase "the people's fuel," and show the President, the Car Czar, Congress and the Senate how innovation happening right now in America can be a beacon of change to the world.
The Lincvolt team invites the other contestants in the Automotive X Prize Race, Better Place, and innovators from around the world to join us in Washington during the first 100 days of the new administration.
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Neil,
How do you get people to wake up?
I just think the average American doesn't understand the impact of their own waste. Wasted energy, waste from over indulgence, wasted energy on purely selfish pursuits. Maybe I'm too hard on us?
There is a real lack of global thinking among Americans. The christian right especially is disturbing to me because you would expect the kind of stewardship of the earth and others to be the very thing they are known for. Instead its all get rid of the gays and abortions. I think this just makes it easier not to make the real sacrifices by focusing on hot button issues.
It seems incongruous but I really believe that the corporate power center enjoys watching the simple minded focus on that nonsense while they rip us all off and destroy the planet.
I'm glad your out there Neil it helps me feel like I am not alone.
Please help with the economic and global problems created by oil company greed and the resulting pollution caused by the use of this resource. A far better solution than an electric Hybrid is available.
There is a car that is getting ready for mass production. It runs on AIR. That's correct, AIR! This car needs to be brought to America. It is manufactured by MDI in France. It is referred to as the Air Car.
http://zeropollutionmotors.us/?page_id=46
It's important that the Big Three don't make the same mistake and invest in a permanent manufacturing infrastructure limited to electric powered automobiles. The new approach needs to take into account new and evolving technologies such as this. If they don't allow for flexibility they will set up the US economy for these two scenarios:
1) sentenced to *only* ectric car technology.
And, thus:
2) financial failure again in the up-coming decade as other world car manufacturers turn out better and better technologies.
But, the auto companies already know how to make super-efficient cars. This problem has nothing to do with innovation.
The more fundamental problem is with cars themselves and our suburban-commute lifestyle. We took a seriously wrong turn after ww2 when we gutted our cities and paved over the countryside. Most of our biggest domestic and foreign-policy problems stem from that.
The good news is that we can solve our biggest problems to the extent that we reverse those trends.
Innovators were in the White House the last 8 years...the Bush Administration lead in financing technologies like fuel cells, hydrogen and nanotechnologies.
The incoming crowd are the biofuel and agribusiness subsidy types that want to keep the oil based economy running as long as possible. Biden (duPont) and Obama (Corn Lobby) are the reaction to the innovations of the last 8 years. The losers and dinosaurs of the Democrat Party who cannot accept change have reared their heads to bray, loudly, as they eventually sink into the tar pit...
That would be the "Democratic Party," of you don't mind. Please show some respect.
Your simplistic apologia for the Bush administration is pathetic, wrong, and ill-informed. Fuel cells and hydrogen are decades away from any commercial-scale use, and nanotechnologies are as well. They may be promising, but are well over the horizon.
Meanwhile, our economy is in a deep ditch and needs a jump-start in the fuels and transportation sector. Biofuels in all forms are the best and most promising way ahead to create jobs, reduce use of petroleum, reduce GHG emisssions, and stimulate economic activity.
Keep in mind too, slick, that it was the Bush administration that did far more to launch biofuels than it did for fuel cells, hydrogen, etc. Have you ever heard of the renewable fuel standard (RFS), whcih requires that 36 billion gallons per year of biofuels to be used in the transportation sector by 2022, a nearly four-fold increase over today's usage?
No? Well, it was supported by Bush & Co., passed the Congress, and signed into law by George W. Bush.
Yes, there were innovators in the White House, few and far between though they were. And they put biofuels development and expansion on the front burner.
Go ahead, look it up.
One of the things I especially love about Obama and the incoming administration is that, 'nerds rule!' No more of the geeze, gosh, good-old-drunk-southern-boy-at-a-bar-be-cue mentality. It harkens back to John Kennedy and the space race when the slide rule folks were admired like rock stars. Back when we built things.
We were once a great country and can be so again again.
I'd much rather have a beer with Nobel Laureate and DOE secretary-designate Dr. Steve Chu who heads up Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories than Dudya any day. At least I know I'd probably learn something.
Guess that makes me an old-school, slide-rule, reverse engineer kinda guy, right?
I hope you are right but ... looking at the appointees and the back peddling by Obama himself on what he ment during the campaign, I am expecting more of the same "good cop bad cop" routine that we had since Bush 1.
If the car czar is a political appointee, then expect the auto industry to be as successful as the Oakland Bay Bridge that went from $150 million to $6.1 billion and counting.
Great post Neil. Keep up the excellent work. And thank you for you efforts.
The U.S. needs a price floor on gas and we need it now. While the price of oil is around $40 per barrel now (and was near $130+ during the peak last summer), the Saudis can get it out of the ground for about $2 per barrel. This means they can keep swinging the price in a way that maximizes profit while destroying alternative energy investment. If we don't put a price floor on gas (and lower people's income tax proportionally, so that we encourage people to work more and burn less energy), then all of the clean energy investments of recent years will go down the toilet and we'll go back to gas guzzlers and the same cycle of apathy about energy while the ice caps continue to melt and the world plummets toward catastrophe.
Go Neil!
I hope this all works out. I don't even know why we bailed them out, what a waste of time and energy, These guys have been doing what ever they wanted for years know and you can't tell me they didn't see this coming. Wait a minute , Could it have something to do with the oil companies? I'm sorry to say, until some has more power or money or influence than they do it will be a battle. The lawers and the lobbiest that are bought and paid for. It will change and the time is NOW. So, hold on people and lets do what should of been done years ago!!! But what do I know, I'm just an unemployed fat guy sitting at a computer. Trying to fix the world one key stroke at a time.
As long as we're assigning blame, how about if we consumers pick up a mirror and look into it with a bit of critical thinking.
Say what you want, but the Big Three have given us what we wanted when gasoline was cheap and seemingly inexhaustable -- massively huge mobile living rooms with every creature comfort possible on four wheels that would more than accommodate the ever-expanding size of our posteriors.
We don't walk, run, or cycle anywhere anymore, if you haven't noticed, especially if you are of a "certain" age.
So don't go blaming the automakers (all of them!) for selling us what we asked them to make.
Could they have done a better job? Perhaps. Could they have competed had our government been as generous as those of their offshore competitors? I think so.
By the way, we haven't "bailed them out" -- we've provided them a relatively modest bridge loan with tough conditions. They will get over it, and pay the beleaguered taxpayer back with interest. Meanwhile, over 3 million jobs will be protected, keeping our economy from sliding further into oblivion.
It will work out, so don't worry. Let's just make sure that responsibility for the present situation is properly and fairly apportioned.
bbbut but bbut
what if
jeb bush becomes president
god help us all
and he left in 2004
One problem with this is the same problem that the automakers have been facing for years. Ford, for example, has created several different diesel engines in the last five years and as soon as they're to bring one to market, the laws change making the engine obsolete. So they have to retool and rebuild, come up with another one and again, same thing. I don't see the problem in making cars more efficent, as this article states plainly. However, its not a cheap process and completely depends on customer input. The unwelcome fact behind the rise of the SUV is that American's wanted to buy them and pay the premium for them. I hope that that has changed.
Secretary of Humanity and Good Sense... I like the sound of that!
I wish we also had an official Secretary of Industry and Innovation in Washington, who could coordinate all these efforts. There is fantastic know - how in the US in the aerospace, defense, etc --- all kinds of super advanced technologies that could be put to good use for the car industry. This would be such an important new position to be created by the new administration
cheers ! well done Neil !
Sort of like the Pythonesque "Ministry of Silly Walks," don't you think?
Go Neil go! If there was a Secretary of Humanity and Good Sense job you'd be the man! The greed party is about over and hopefully the optimism we're all feeling isn't chimera. I strongly suspect Mr Young will be keeping an eye on things if they veer.......
This is an excellent article. I am certain there are people within these companies that could make the goal you set attainable and probably have solutions in their desk drawers to do it. Hopefully the incentives that are now in place will help the management of these companies get beyond the politics of their empire building managers and dig deeper into the guts of the company where the real innovation exists. It is time for North America to lead through innovation again as it always has when it is up against a wall. Better mileage, better national power distribution, better sources of power, better schools, better materials all equal better lives for the whole planet.
Agreed -- we need the whole deal, and we need it now. That's what Obama's ~$800 billion stimulus proposal is all about.
Call it "shock and awe" for economic revitalization after too-many-years of GOP neglect and staunch opposition, starting with Ronald Reagan almost 30 years ago.
Meanwhile, take heart. Have a look at this from today's NYTimes.com. Pay particular attention to the embedded streaming video about Ford's new electric vehicle they will bring to market in a very short time:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/business/11electric.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1231678826-nGiQ1ycixXEM5F+nSae8Uw
Feel a little bit better now?
Thanks Neil for proving it can be done. We need more people to step up and get media play with the fact that it can be done, the only thing stopping it from happening is the willingness to do so. (and corruption of course)
why hasn't someone picked up the MYT engine? It seems like a no brainer;
http://www.angellabsllc.com/mytengine.html
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