May 13, 2008 by Rob.

Nissan played a gutsy card today (story on NPR) with an announcement to have a viable (if ugly) EV on the market by 2010, about 5 years ahead of other majors. I’m glad to hear the news, but am more surprised by their CEO’s motive:

According the the NPR story: Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn says. “The number of people buying cars around the world is increasing, while the need to reduce emissions is becoming more urgent. There is a perceived conflict between the demand for more cars and the demand for a cleaner planet — 10, 20 or 30 percent lower emissions cannot be the only answer. The goal should be 100 percent lower emissions.”

This supports one of my favorite themes: while the US lives high on the hog and is looking for incremental efficiency, the real markets for products is the developing world. Competition for energy will be ferocious in those markets while in the US we can “create” energy by just conserving what we waste (see MIT article on our enormous carbon footprint).

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May 13, 2008 by Rob.

Oh, I did. Here’s a link to an NPR story about monitoring drivers to improve their driving efficiency. It turns out that you can boost mileage 10-20% if you give people feedback about the cost of their bad habits.

As part of my thinking about EVs, I’d considered starting a company around this idea. It turns out that putting useful computers into people’s cars is both painful and expensive. You’d have to save a lot of gas to make this work. That doesn’t mean I’ve given up on it though…

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May 7, 2008 by Rob.

I was re-ranting to Laura, my EV enduring spouse, about that kitten killing Hummer driver from our trip to Breed Hardware.  She said that the driver was buying compact florescent light bulbs (CFL).

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May 7, 2008 by Rob.

<pet peeve>Why do all these SUV drivers leave their engine idling when they leave their car!  I was at Breed Hardware yesterday and someone left their Hummer spewing CO2 all over the parking lot while they went inside to buy kitten maiming equipment.  Is turning the car on and off really that much effort?  It’s not even summer so what’s your excuse?  Gas still too cheap?</pet peeve>

So on Cinco de Mayo I was talking to an environmentally minded friend over lunch at Maudi’s and chewing on weighty problems.  He suggested that the Free Rider Problem from Game Theory may be part of the struggle for conservation movements to get rolling.  The FRP states that when a populate is large enough members can easily opt out of paying their share.  By assuming that the majority will contribute they get a free ride.  If enough people do this then the market collapses or fails to advance.

I look at all these Hummer drivers and can’t help but think that they are using up MY SHARE OF THE GAS!  It seems like we have plenty, but it’s going to run out.  Well first it will get really really expensive and then it will run out.  These drivers are Free Riders!  They are not playing along with people who conserve because the population is large enough that they can opt out without people noticing.

And on nearly completely unrelated rant.  My friend also was talking about WWII.  He said that Nazis preemptively invaded Russia to ensure their supply of fuel and the Japanese preemptively attacked US because we threatened their supply of fuel.  It seems like world war and controlling the supply of oil may be preceded by a preemptive attack.  Good thing there have not been any preemptive military actions lately (excluding our invasion of Iraq, of course).

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May 4, 2008 by Rob.

It appears that Aptera is poised to start selling their unique EV / Hybrid.  Of all the EV companies out there, I like that Aptera took a completely fresh approach.  It’s hard for people to compare the to a traditional car, but that also makes it harder for people to accept as a legitimate alternative.  While the Tesla (also a 2 seater) commands a lot of car-geek testosterone, the Aptera will command more green-geek superiority.  BTW - they are 1/2 the price of a Tesla.

I hope that they can avoid Tesla painfully slow road to production and get the the first ones on the road quickly.

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