December 16, 2008
· Filed under business, development, economics, green living, public transporation · Tagged build your dreams, BYD, china, Electric cars, gujarat, India, oreva super, warren buffet
December 15 marks the first day of mass-produced electric car sales IN CHINA, sticker price $21,900 (reasonable, I think) and done by a company called BYD or Build Your Dreams. The car can run 100km per charge, the battery can be recharged 4,000 times, a full recharge takes 7 hours but 10 minutes at a regular power outlet will recharge the battery 50%. Not bad for the first electric car out on the streets.
Smart American investors already know that Warren Buffet holds a 9.89% stake in the company.
The Oreva Group of Gujarat, India plans to introduce the Oreva Super electric car on schedule*. Oreva’s parent company is the Ajanta group which produces clocks and the Oreva Groups currently makes electric scooters. The Orvea Super is to be the group’s first car and perhaps the world’s cheapest. Some scholars find the project untenable as Oreva is pricing the lithium-battery or nickel-metal hydride car at $2,500, projecting it could run 124-155 miles on a single charge and fewer than few details beyond those presented are floating around the internet at this point. I will keep looking into this one.
*what the schedule actually is remains unclear
Obviously, I’m obsessed with Shai Agassi’s Project Better Place which is gaining ground in Hawaii, Austrailia, testing in Israel and Denmark and on the brink of changing the entire personal transportation business model by troubleshooting the single biggest holdup electric car takeover- the battery. Agassi is genius.
December 13, 2008
· Filed under business, development, economics, green living, politics, public transporation, renewable energy · Tagged Better Place, business, denmark, depression, Detroit, development, DONG energy, Electric cars, energy secretary, ladysmith black mombazo, nobel laureate, shai agassi, steven chu, wind farms
I know Detroiters are depressed right now. The Titanic is sinking and there aren’t any lifeboats, or life preservers, or lifesavers (go Ladysmith Black Mombazo)… The region is running scared. Just remember, cockroaches still run around post nuclear fallout. Maybe bloggers are like cockroaches…
Developments abound! Seriously folks. After a forest fire, all the new life that springs up from the earthy floor (watch Planet Earth Forests) … or after a long winter, spring happens. I know all that gooey positivity doesn’t pay January rent, but let’s set up the mindset. Attitude is altitude.
Steven Chu, Nobel laureate in Physics, pro environmental veteran, new Energy Secretary and coordinator of climate policies. We’ve got a green thumb in the white house. This is sweet because new ideas will be heard, good ideas will be picked up, the more ideas the better, and then we’ll get to pick (let America decide, call in and vote). New ideas = more ideas = better.
DONG Energy and Wind is opening a huge addition to their windfarm. Ten more turbines have been added to an existing farm of twenty allowing Denmark to power 35,000 homes with wind power. DONG Energy and Wind are putting up an offshore windfarm in 2009. Get in on that goodness.
And finally, smart people unite. The Detroit auto model is so 20th century. (Which is why it’s failing in this, the 21st century.) There’s hope. I’ve already written about Better Place but I’m going to again because the idea is so big and amazing that I’ve become an electric car grid evangelist already. Shai Agassi worked as a software exec in Silicon Valley and along with his crew of smart people has come up with a fantastic idea to change the world. One hold up to the electric vehicle concept was the battery- how to recharge, how long would it take, where would this happen etc. Agassi changed the entire question. Understanding that everyone would need to recharge, he figured that recharging stations should be quick and easy- so he decided that at every station, the battery could just get swapped with a new full battery. Brilliant. In and out fully charged. His company, Better Place, has contracts in Hawaii, will test in Israel and Australia and is getting bigger and bigger by the minute. Agassi sees a future for us all in new ideas using this technology stuff that we all love. Shaken, not stirred. And the result will be a profitable cocktail for us all. Sustainable mobility guys, sustainable mobility.
December 11, 2008
· Filed under business, development, economics, green living, politics, public transporation, renewable energy · Tagged Better Place, big 3, car companies, denmark, Detroit, detroit business, Electric cars, future, new car models, new york times, Palo Alto, tel aviv, vision
Thomas Friedman strikes again. He wrote a fantastic op-ed in NYT, as he tends to do, about a possible future for the auto industry. Forward thinkers unite. (Even Huffington is picking it up, that’s how awesome he is.)
“…someone in the mobility business in Denmark and Tel Aviv is already developing a real-world alternative to Detroit’s business model.”
Someone was bound to do it.
Check out Better Place, from Palo Alto, California, they’re building an electric car network and it’s gonna happen in Hawaii first. (I already wrote about how amazing Hawaii is looking about now with Gov Lingle’s green energy collective negotiating strategy for change…)
All I have to say to all the depressed, scared, oh woah is me Midwesterners- stop freaking out and get involved. Change gonna come. We all hope for sooner rather than later. If you don’t have the Vision to see, talk to someone who does. We’ll bat away all of your excuses and nay saying. (I practiced over Thanksgiving, I’m really good at it.) There are better ways of doing everything and while you might be too old to switch gears, we have a whole energized movement of younger, capable individuals who are ready and willing to collectively step to the plate and figure all this crap out. The best thing you can do, Bush et all, is get out of our way and let us get to work. It’ll happen sooner and more quickly thank you think.
Don’t bail out the dinosaurs. Give 34 great ideas a billion dollars each. Let America decide.
