So is RED going to Design a CAR anytime soon??? solar powered of course.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

That's a highly optimistic characterization, Jeff. The oil companies are only marginally invested in these technologies, at best -- more so than in the past, but the totality of their investment in alternatives to oil represent less than a drop in the bucket.

That is true. But we also have to consider that the majority of hydrogen fuel and fuel cell technology patents are held by these oil companies. Sadly, even as Honda is the current world leader (supposedly) in commercial fuel cell technology, they have licensed much of their base technology from other sources. Exxon corp was recently granted several patents for flexible organic film batteries and electrical conductors -- they even like to run TV commercials that talk about their battery tech that's targeted at hybrid vehicles.

My point is that as evil and controlling as the big oil companies may be, they are not stupid. They know the oil supply is finite and have been setting measures in place for years for when the day comes that wells dry up, they are already on top of the next big thing. This goes back many, years... Off the top of my head, at least as far back as 1935 when oil companies and automakers alike clamored to buy Charles Garrett's patent on a water-fueled carburetor design. The patent was purchased from Garrett, by Ford Motor Co., I believe, but at a fraction of initial speculations after Garrett could never actually duplicate the engine supposedly working.

The reason that GM is in the toilet is their marriage to the oil companies that shitcanned any of their efforts at innovation. GM's EV-1 electric car could have been the salvation of this company and a road map for future innovations. Instead, they were all destroyed.

Hmmm... I disagree. The EV-1 (Chevy Impact) was scrapped in favor of newer designs and promising new technology. The EV-1 had so many things wrong with it that there was little to justify a lease of one (they could not be purchased). The EV-1 only had a range of 60~75 miles with a single passenger and no cargo and a 13-hour average full recharge time. That was 12 years ago and much has changed in terms of business, technology and political climate.

The leaders in alternative energy have been smaller, nimbler companies with no vested interest in oil. They are leading. The oil companies are only now following along in the wake of the public's disgust at their willingness to propogate America's oil addiction and and sell the country off to foreign oil interests, piece by piece.

Smaller, nimbler companies are always faster to adapt, in any industry. But I'm not disagreeing with you on this point. Oil companies are slow to follow and are doing so unwillingly... My point is that, even to oil companies, alternative energy has now become a lucrative investment. Until the recent high gas prices, alternative energy sources have just not been cost effective to develop and implement. At least not from a big-business point of view. This has changed and you can bet that the oil companies are throwing their financial muscle around as much as they can. They are going to milk the current oil supplies (and what can be tapped in the future) for all it's worth, no disputing that, but they are also going to do everything they can to corner other energy technologies on the market. Several of these smaller, nimbler companies you have mentioned have already been bought up by the giants in the oil industry in an effort to control intellectual property and hedge their bets on which future technology will dominate in place of gasoline.

 

[Joseph Ward]

Oil companies want hydrogen, biofuels, natural gas that way they still have a role but not batteries, capacitors, solar, or any real energy savers for electric vehicles!

 

[Meryem Ersoz]

Hmmm... I disagree. The EV-1 (Chevy Impact) was scrapped in favor of newer designs and promising new technology. The EV-1 had so many things wrong with it that there was little to justify a lease of one (they could not be purchased). The EV-1 only had a range of 60~75 miles with a single passenger and no cargo and a 13-hour average full recharge time. That was 12 years ago and much has changed in terms of business, technology and political climate.

agree with a lot of what you wrote but this!! You've got to be kidding me. So where are these "newer designs and promising new technology."?? It was introduced in 1996 - that was 12 years ago!~

...replaced by a hydrogen car boondoggle that they sold to a willing George Bush, who mouthpieced for it the minute he set foot in office, and of course, nothing every materialized. It was an excuse to do nothing!

Very predictable. And eight years have passed since that very moment, and now we are being told by this very same car company (if the patient, now on life support and government hand-outs lives...), that alternatives are currently 10 years out.

Had they re-introduced this technology when the Prius caught fire (speaking of an under-developed technology...), they could have sold a bundle of these instead of losing market share to a foreign company. It wasn't just the Prius that Toyota was selling, it was a perception in the public marketplace. And GM refused to react to that perception, focusing instead of building bigger trucks at exactly the wrong moment. That is exactly why they are in the mess that they are in.

I mean, people in our neck of the woods are willing to shell out $30K for SmartCars, and you are calling the EV-1 dated technology? That doesn't make sense. The market totally would have supported this initiative.

It was canned from the top down, because of oil interests, not because the market wasn't ready. Quite the opposite, it was a perceived threat *because* it would have succeeded.

And now it may be too late to turn the Titanic around, unless they buy themselves some time by buying Chrysler's pile of cash. That, and government hand-outs, is the totality of their survival strategy. Not innovation. Lame. Un-American, really.

 

[Zakaree Sandberg]

they should make a bigass satellite which captures solar energy (24/7) and then beems it down radio frequency/wireless.. and we can have have receivers here/on cars....

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

agree with a lot of what you wrote but this!! You've got to be kidding me. So where are these "newer designs and promising new technology."?? It was introduced in 1996 - that was 12 years ago!~

More promising technology that never emerged. Sad to say it, but battery technology has gone essentially nowhere in the last 12 years. It has on the consumer side of things, as in various technologies getting to be more plentiful and cheaper to manufacture. But the latest and greates Li-ion batteries are still made of the same materials that were used in the EV-1 12 years ago. In fact, the battery system in the new Chevy Volt is nearly identical to the design used in the EV-1. :sad:

...replaced by a hydrogen car boondoggle that they sold to a willing George Bush, who mouthpieced for it the minute he set foot in office, and of course, nothing every materialized. It was an excuse to do nothing!

I'm not sure what the deal was with all that... I think the announcement was premature, there's nothing to show for it it. I have family members who are actively involved in hydrogen fuel research. I think hydrogen will play a role in future vehicles, however the technology just isn't here yet. The engines are possible, been done, and it's even possible to convert many of the latest composite ceramic and aluminum engines from gasoline to hydrogen! Burning hydrogen is highly corrosive to iron / steel. The problem with hydrogen is effective storage without liquifying it. As of right now, hydrogen actually has a much higher power to mass ratio out of fuel cells than trying to store and combust gaseous hydrogen. Liquid hydrogen is highly corrosive and volatile and would prove difficult to transport in massive quantities. It also would take too much resources to generate liquid hydrogen on site at filling stations all over the place. The missing link technology is the storage containers and it's only a matter of time until someone finds the right solution. At that point, it's up to automakers to thumb their noses at the oil companies and run with it. IMO, I'm really surprised that car makers are not jumping on hydrogen now for small cars. Even gaseous hydrogen is still good enough to drive a car the size of a Toyota Prius 100 miles on the equivalent of five SCUBA tanks with metal hydride buffers and 3000psi H2 gas.

IMO, hydrogen is also the only real solution so far that has presented itself for replacing fossil fuels / diesel in larger commercial vehicles and heavy equipment.

I mean, people in our neck of the woods are willing to shell out $30K for SmartCars, and you are calling the EV-1 dated technology? That doesn't make sense. The market totally would have supported this initiative.

People will buy anything, I guess. The only thing smart about the SmartCar is the name and marketing. Speaking of which, I saw the aftermath of a SmartCar vs. deer accident just the other day off 6th Ave. While the deer didn't survive, it definitely won the fight. I'm not so sure the SmartCar driver lived either -- all I could see in the back of the ambulance was their feet with paramedics frantically working over the top of the poor guy. I've read that SmartCars are supposedly good in accidents... Obviously, they're not so good at 60mph in a collision with 550lbs of Bambi.

And now it may be too late to turn the Titanic around, unless they buy themselves some time by buying Chrysler's pile of cash. That, and government hand-outs, is the totality of their survival strategy. Not innovation. Lame. Un-American, really.

We'll see... Electric cars are already on the market from other makers like Tesla. IMO, they have the best electric right now and initial reviews are mixed. It's sporty looking and quite fast. But a lot of early adopters are wishing they had read the fine print, some even feel lied to. Range isn't as good as claimed and is impacted drastically at speeds over 40mph or with lots of stop n' go driving. But it's still a viable concept and as the price comes down, will be an attractive option to a larger audience. If I could buy one for $35K rather than $100K, I'd probably do it. The writing is on the wall, the gas combustion engine has numbered days. However, I think there's still a good chance that alternative fuel production could be a stop-gap solution. Tech like genetically engineered e-coli, yeast or algae could start producing enough ethanol or biodiesel to quench the thirst for foreign oil.

If GM moves too slowly and falters, then that's their problem, I won't shed a tear for them. As a taxpayer, I don't want to spend a dime to bail out a company that can't keep up with its own market. I'd sympathize with the workers who would lose their jobs, but I see a lot of new jobs coming our way, regardless of who the new president becomes. Our country and our world is at the threshold of a big change. I only hope we all make it a good change.

 

[Meryem Ersoz]

The window for auto innovation is slammed fairly shut right now, anyway--dropping oil prices and frozen credit markets aren't favorable conditions for developing new auto ideas, anyway.

The big problem with GM failing is the dig into employees' pension programs, one of the largest in the country. Not an issue that is discussed much, but some of these old-school pension plans failing could be a(nother) huge breakpoint to the overall economy. It's a race against the clock, and time is not on GM's side, not while they are burning through $1 billion/month in cash reserves, with no end in sight.

Just this morning, a news announcement was made that GM and Chrysler weren't able to put a deal together because they couldn't find the money to put it together, no lenders could be found to make it happen. No one believes that buying an extra year's worth of cash from Chrysler's stockpile will save GM.

They announced that they were going to try to put together another deal which forms a third company and sells a stake in it to the US government. The government will soon own the banks, the auto makers, and a whole lot of empty houses.

Fare thee well, capitalism. Hello, socialism.

How ironic that socialized medicine has been such a topic of debate among ideologues for the past 16 years...what a red herring that proved to be, hm? We can't afford that, let's put the money towards socializing our entire capital market system instead. Brilliant!

Maybe Jim does need to build that solar car, after all. Something, anything to save us from ourselves!

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

How ironic that socialized medicine has been such a topic of debate among ideologues for the past 16 years...what a red herring that proved to be, hm? We can't afford that, let's put the money towards socializing our entire capital market system instead. Brilliant!

This is what has me more worried than anything. Combine this with what we see on the state and county level in terms of property taxes, property use restrictions and further use taxes. I'm convinced that federal and state governments have been working for the last 100+ years to regain ownership of all the land in this country. Soon we will be no different than many other places in the world where it's impossible to own property -- there is no such thing as a "property owner", only those who lease it from the government.

At the rate we're going, everything is going to be socialized except for healthcare.

Fair point about the pension plans though. Although, that is (IMO) a system that is bound to fail and has to break at some point. I have family members who are in a similar situation -- pension plans, retirement benefits, issued by large companies. Everything is hunky-dory until you read the fine print. No way to roll most of those benefits over into something private that you can control. No guarantee that they will be there if the company falters or even if the administrative powers and/ or labor unions involved agree to terminate those benefits. I think these pension and benefit funds are going to be seriously tested over the next couple years too with all the economic changes, combined with the increasing number of retiring baby-boomers.

I know several people who have been dumping their money by investing in retirement communities and assisted living businesses and related properties. This country is about to have the largest number of elderly in need of assistance ever and it will come in a massive surge over a few short years.