Executive Conversion

Speaking about converting cars, one of the fascinating conversions that happened in recent weeks is the conversion of some of the car industry's key executives. It seems as though some fundamental shift happened beyond just popular pressure related to climate change research - and my speculation is the shift has to do with the amount of Toyota Prius cars sold in car dealerships around the world. Just to give you a bit of sampling from a great article by Greg Hoffman -

Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally said Monday that global warming is real, man made and caused in part by auto emissions - in an email to Ford employees he said

"I firmly believe we are at an inflection point in the world's history as it relates to climate change and energy security. The time for debating whether climate change is real has past It is time for a conversation about what we, as a society, intend to do to address it,"

General Motors Corp. Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said the U.S. government needs to take a Manhattan Project-like approach to creating a national energy policy, bringing the best minds in the country to bear on the issue of energy sustainability and independence. GM's spokesperson, Greg Martin, said

"As we've said from L.A. to Capitol Hill, we see it as both a business necessity and as our obligation to society to develop advanced technologies that run on diverse sources of energy to lessen the automobile's impact on the environment."

To complete the Big 3 American car makers, you have to really go to the source - Lee Iacocca himself. He just released his new book on lack of leadership in American business.  While I have not read the book, so don't take this as a recommendation to read it, but he had a great quote in Fortune on a topic that I can relate to

Iacocca says "...I live in L.A. now. [Former DaimlerChrysler chairman] Jürgen Schrempp asked me to come work for him, and I said, "Where do I have to live?" When he said, "Stuttgart," I said, "Forget it."..." [sorry, I went on a tangent]

but the real quote he has is about the solution for the car industry

[Fortune] What can the auto industry do?

[Iacocca] Plug-in hybrids. I think they're virtually here now. We've still got to get better batteries, of course, but hybrids are good. Expensive and complex, but they do the job and get good gas mileage. That's the wave of the future.

[Fortune] Some people are betting on hydrogen-powered fuel cells.

[Iacocca] I think that's way off. Where are you going to get all that hydrogen? How are you going to store it in the car? How are you going to distribute it? That's a long-term problem.

Given that the car industry seems now to convert into the hybrid wave that generated a lot of consumer demand, It probably means that the next wave of technology is right around the corner - which is great news for the environment. If the next step gets closer to zero emissions - we are going to be in great shape.

Comments

[Rick Bullotta]

The hydrogen question is an interesting one - the gas separation process is a very, very energy intensive one. Without a "long tail pipe" that ends up with nuclear, high efficiency solar, or other sources of .

I heard an interesting speaker yesterday who proposed (a while ago) a really off-the-wall idea, which was to create floating, autonomous biofuel factories in the oceans that raised modified kelp as the source.

"In theory", the CO2 consumed in the growing process could mitigate or equalize that generated from burning the biofuel. Energy to power the factory could be a combo of solar and wave motion.

Any way, the vehicle aspects are only part of the equation of solving this problem...

[ewH]

A couple of colleagues and I had a conversation regarding electric only vehicles and the recharging time hurdle that could keep it from becoming a viable option for long distance traveling. Perhaps standards could be created to allow people to pull up to a "gas" station and quickly swap out drained batteries for fully charged ones. We compared it to the way propane tank refills work. Once you are out of propane, you turn in your empty tank, pay some money, and take a new one....quick, efficient, and hassle free.

-ewH

P.S. Can we replace "Stuttgart" with "Walldorf" to read between the lines? :)

[Benjamin Bakhshi]

Shai, here is a question: Do you think 'big ideas' in the world manifest because of large corporations, or because of smaller entrepreneurial businesses?

[Shai Agassi]

Benjamin,

From my experience in large corporate environment the big ideas usually start along one of three paths:
- Emergence of market demand (usually manifested through one of your smaller competitors proving that the market wants a new product) - see Prius
- Bottom up innovation - a few engineers (usually a handful at most) come up with a breakthrough idea, and build it in their after hours. If they have enough momentum to survive, the idea gets viewed by corporate leaders who are either strong enough to approve it or strong enough to protect it until approval.
- A disruptive technolog that meets a strong visionary leader who knows how to apply the technology to solve an age old problem the company struggled with in the past. Once the problem is re-addressed and solved the big question the corporation needs to solve is how to scale production and go-to-market - which is where the large corporation can beat the small up and comers, even if they have a time advantage over corporate.

finally, if you allow me to cheat, one of the main path through which innovation happens in large corporate is through acquisitions - either of ready products or of 'big idea' people...scaling from there is pretty easy for corporate - all you need is to integrate well and let the start up thrive inside while slightly reducing chaos over time.

[Sandro]

Why to ignore the motorcycles?
Here a model that can work with battery or with fuel cell:

http://www.vectrix.com/default.aspx?portal=2&page=1

Expensive but high-performance, surely attractive for a part of market.

[Ioan]

In answer to [Iacocca] I think that's way off. Where are you going to get all that hydrogen? How are you going to store it in the car? How are you going to distribute it? That's a long-term problem.
I had a discussion at a customer's site, where the customer was working on a new house somewhere outside the city every week-end. We were att the independence from energy sources for his house (he was getting some of the water warmed up by the Sun). Electricity could also come from Sun it is now cheaper with the development of lower quality solar cells. The surplus of electricity could be used to convert water into Hydrogen and Oxygen, which would be stored and could later be used in a Hydrogen compatible car (BMW7). For a car only used in a city might be enough.

[Ross]

Ioan's comment about the home refueling station is an idea that's getting some traction. It goes well with Vaitheeswaran's idea in his book "Power to the People" about home power generation. Once we can generate electricity cleanly and safely at home, it either will reduce our consumption from the grid, or completely reverse the process.
This is a good reason why governments need to own or regulate the power grid. A for-profit company will do whatever it can to not have to pay mini-power producers for their energy. {tangent over}
Back to the point of Autos -- I absolutely love the fact that Toyota comes out with a Prius, and a handful of individuals say "that's not good enough" and convert their own cars to PHEVs to be able to drive the first 50 miles solely on electricity -- the consumer will always be a big factor in driving market change, and the comments from the Auto CEOs above does really give me hope for the future.
Shai, good talk at Stanford the other day, cheers!

[Chat]

I’d be interested in an updated GoogleAnalytics chart (may be two with about six weeks coverage), just to see if the effect did wear off after a while and also, did others link to your new name with the same link-text (allinurl:…). I hope you will publish a follow up.

[reut rabi]

Shai hellow,

I am an environmental consultant working for TA municipality in this feild.
we have some questions regarding the electrical cars program, and how it can be combined in our program.
I would be gratfull if someone from your teem can be in contact with us.
Reut Rabi
ESHL Environment and Acoustics
02-6427729
reut@eshl.co.il

[indir]

thanks Good for you