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5 Trends That Will Shape Small Business in 2010 - John Jantsch view!
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66 Comments
- thelastcivilian, on 09/23/2008, -0/+16That's a helluva way to get people thinking about minivans again.
- greensky, on 09/24/2008, -1/+16For one electric cars are WAY more efficient than internal combustion engines (I think it's like 80% efficiency for electric vs. 15% for ic). Also there are a lot of diverse ways to make renewable energy, but not nearly as many ways to make large quantities of renewable oil.
- RipleyIsDead, on 09/24/2008, -0/+10Don't forget, the pollution we generate as we create the electricity can be contained at a single source. Today our cars' emissions end up wherever the car is, and we're stuck breathing it. For anyone with asthma, this is a blessing.
- auer1816, on 09/23/2008, -0/+9What the hell is that thing in the first picture? Prius, Smart Car, and now this thing?
- ripple123, on 09/24/2008, -0/+7well thats nice. you know whats even better? existing. and not looking horrid. the tesla does both those things.
- skellener, on 09/24/2008, -0/+7Put the soft top on the Jeep EV so I can put it down and I'm sold. I'd much rather drive that than a Prius. Here's another video...
http://blog.chryslerllc.com/blog.do;jsessionid=07D ... - republikdh, on 09/24/2008, -0/+7Dodge EV FTW. Kind of looks like the Dodge Demon. Come to think of it, what the hell ever happened to that car?
- tim11198, on 09/24/2008, -0/+6If you invest in solar, wind, and water, you're not investing in the sun, the wind, and the sea, you're investing in ways to get electricity from those sources. Electricity which could be used to power things like cars.
- JQP123, on 09/24/2008, -1/+6"This just transfers the problems of oil over into the electrical grid."
There is some truth to this, the electric grid will undoubtedly have to undergo some changes but it is not as bad as you seem to think:
1) Most electric vehicles will be recharged at night, when electricty use has traditionally been at it's lowest.
2) Thus, electric vehicles should help even out the demand on the grid. This helps avoid the need to "demand cycle" large generation facilities which is a big problem for power companies. These large power plants don't like being cycled up and down; it reduces efficiency and increases maintenance costs.
3) Power generated at a central facility offers greater efficiency and flexibility with less environmental impact. Don't like oil? Then use natural gas, coal, nuclear or solar. The generation methods and techniques can be changed out, upgraded, or environmentally scrubbed with little or no direct impact on the consumer.
All things considered, electric vehicles are far from perfect but they are the best available option to displace oil. - Jektal, on 09/24/2008, -0/+4...you know that sports car is the EV they talk about all through the article, right?
- palehorse864, on 09/24/2008, -0/+4Happy whale.
- DeathRay2K, on 09/24/2008, -0/+4In some places (Manitoba, for instance) electricity is already generated using natural methods, such as water.
You seem to contradict yourself saying that we shouldn't look at electricity, we should instead look at solar, wind, and water power. These are just ways of generating electricity, not Something Different. - EntangledPhysx, on 09/24/2008, -0/+4Looks like a smiley face to me.
- fireburner23, on 09/23/2008, -0/+4Does the test drive video work? I could not get it to play.
- Lane, on 09/24/2008, -0/+4because gas never expires and businesses love losing money on obsolete technology
- apeweek, on 09/24/2008, -0/+4There's plenty of grid capacity right now, for cars that charge overnight. Here's a study:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/06121 ...
Mileage From Megawatts: Study Finds Enough Electric Capacity To 'Fill Up' Plug-in Vehicles
"Science Daily — If all the cars and light trucks in the nation switched from oil to electrons, idle capacity in the existing electric power system could generate most of the electricity consumed by plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. A new study for the Department of Energy finds that "off-peak" electricity production and transmission capacity could fuel 84 percent of the country's 220 million vehicles if they were plug-in hybrid electrics."
EV's on the grid also result in far less pollution. Here's another study:
http://www.electric-cars-are-for-girls.com/electri ...
actual study: http://www.energy.ca.gov/papers/CEC-999-1996-015.P ...
"...in a study conducted by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, EVs were significantly cleaner over the course of 100,000 miles than ICE cars. The electricity generation process produces less than 100 pounds of pollutants for EVs compared to 3000 pounds for ICE vehicles." - Lunarbunny, on 09/24/2008, -0/+4Internal combustion engines are their own power generators. Electric motors on the other hand are run from stored energy sourced from a power plant - obviously some energy is lost in transfer and storage, but the single large source is more efficient than many small sources.
- willrs, on 09/24/2008, -1/+5we could build more nuclear plants, but some people think that's scary
- jackwk, on 09/24/2008, -0/+4It's a cheap Lotus Europa with a different engine
http://www.sweetauto.net/gallery/files/1/2007-Lotu ...
Just like the Tesla took the Lotus Elise as the canvas for its car.
I think we can all agree that Lotus is the biggest winner here :P - aydoubleyou, on 09/24/2008, -1/+5Good job Chrysler... maybe Ill actually consider buying an electric car in the next couple of years.
- Lane, on 09/24/2008, -1/+4The "Dodge EV" is clearly a Lotus Elise.
- apeweek, on 09/24/2008, -1/+4I'm not aware of any electric car ever using Nickel-Cadmium batteries. The rest of your comment is just as inaccurate.
Profitable electric cars can indeed be made, and are being made right now. Example:
http://www.alanizcorporation.com/
Every new car costs more to develop than you will get back in sales in the first few years. The Ford Mondeo cost $6 billion to develop. Development cost is something you amortize over decades, not the first year or two. The GM EV1 had demonstrated demand (at least 5,000 people on a waiting list, more than many conventional models sold in California in the same time period.) If the car had been seriously marketed, if cars were actually available when people wanted them, and if the car were actually for sale (it was lease only), demand would have been even higher. - apeweek, on 09/24/2008, -1/+4None of the problems we may expect from the grid are as bad as the oil problems we will leave behind. Remember solar is getting cheaper by the day.
- carpespasm, on 09/24/2008, -0/+3You'd need panels big enough to cover an acre of land to charge a car in the amount of time it'd take to run it down. I'd like to see it happen, but it would likely cost more than the car itself.
- cmf2, on 09/24/2008, -1/+4It is still more efficient to generate power at the power plant (whatever it may be) than it is to burn gasoline in an engine. Clean power (at home or elsewhere) will become more prevalent in time. My biggest concern would be the huge spike in electricity demand with all these cars being plugged in after work, and who pays for the electricity when you charge your car away from home?
- mofw, on 09/24/2008, -3/+6Where's my hovercar, dammit?!
- RipleyIsDead, on 09/24/2008, -2/+5Yay! American car companies are trying to keep up with Japan and Germany! I hope they'll keep it up, I'm getting tired of us falling behind before the race has even started.
- chadsmith729, on 09/24/2008, -0/+3Yeah everyone is taking it all wrong. I am happy and excited to have an electric car that can do 0-60 in 5 seconds. That's awesome, one thing that I question is that if the focus shifts to electric then where do we expect to get the energy to create electric. That was my point, not that I think electric cars are bad in any way. Doesn't matter to me though, I've been dugg down before nothing to get all up in a tizzy about.
- JQP123, on 09/24/2008, -0/+3Excellent set of references.
Consumers, car manufacturers and hopefully government are slowly starting to recognize and acknowledge the electric vehicle as the most practical and sensible alternate to oil and the studies you reference show some of the reasons why. In comparison, hydrogen and bio-fuel appear to be nothing more than diversionary tactics being promoted by various "special interests". - palehorse864, on 09/24/2008, -1/+4The Chrysler Beluga?
Why does it look like a whale? - EntangledPhysx, on 09/24/2008, -0/+3With everything factored in (including getting the electricity to the car from the powerplant) its only a few percentage points higher in efficiency than the ICE.
- EmileVictor, on 09/24/2008, -0/+2Our engineering first year co-ordinator made us look into this; in short, the good thing about these cars is that they centralise the energy distribution point (meaning most if not all of the energy is derived from one place). That point (the power station) can be upgraded with time, changed to nuclear (which is a pretty clean system), or made into a "renewable" energy source.
Meaning, if we all start driving electric cars, we have the flexibility of making them all renewable at the same time by switching the mains over to renewable energy. No more gasoline from the middle-east (a ridiculous idea, considering how old the technology is; we haven't made it that much cheaper at all).
Also, if we all become more dependent on electricity more funds can be injected into research for high-volume low-emission generation, the energy grid could become nationalized (imagine paying to upgrade roads with the money you spend on your car, instead of paying for some fat cat's caviar bills).
Keep in mind everything on an electric car could theoretically be upgraded with time. They could be modular, allowing you to replace batteries with newer, more efficient kinds. Plus, you could fill up your "tank" anywhere there is a power socket. - angers, on 09/24/2008, -0/+2Only the first 40 miles are electric powered...
- Phisolo, on 09/23/2008, -0/+2I still want an Aptera, but glad to see more companies going electric!
- acknotSW, on 09/24/2008, -0/+2I just hope my little 130,000 mile ranger lasts long enough for the prices for electics or plug in hybreds to drop into my price range.
- thelastcivilian, on 09/23/2008, -3/+5Chrysler should be marketing home solar kits with their cars.
- fooljoe, on 09/24/2008, -2/+4i'm getting so tired of all this 'news' about EVs that might be out in 3-4 years, especially since perfectly good EVs were already out 10 years ago but automakers refused to keep making them or sell them. this is just greenwashing PR; it'll be news when i can go out to a dealership and actually BUY one.
- catbeller, on 09/24/2008, -0/+2Rangers are damned good candidates for electrical conversion. Lots of space on and under the bed for batteries, lots of room under the hood, too. Can carry a lot of weight. Has a relatively simple transmission, if it's a manual and a RWD.
- 3377777, on 09/24/2008, -0/+2Chrysler electric car Video Information
http://i.map8.org/Video/200809/Chryslerelectriccar ... - epj3, on 09/24/2008, -0/+2The biggest difference is that 100 gallons of petroleum used to create electricity is far more efficient than what 100 gallons of petroleum will do in a car's engine.
- timusca, on 09/24/2008, -0/+2The Tesla is out of 99.9% of American spending budgets... these will be expensive at first too, but not that expensive. And the Jeep Wrangler is not ugly...
- timusca, on 09/24/2008, -0/+2These aren't concepts... they're running. the Volt doesn't even run yet.
- fooljoe, on 09/27/2008, -0/+2way to pull out a bunch of untruths that make you sound completely ignorant.
1) the batteries were not NiCad, there were first lead-acid and then NiMH. the only cars I'm aware of using NiCad are toys. NiMH batteries, 10 years ago, weren't too bulky to power cars like the EV1 and Rav4-EV over 100 miles per charge, and they were (are) durable enough to keep doing so even after 100,000 miles of driving. Of course they were expensive as they were new technology and no manufacturer committed to producing them in quantity. Even still, they're far less expensive than the lithium batteries hyped by today's automakers but as yet undelivered. And they're not too expensive to be found in all of today's hybrid vehicles.
There are exactly two reasons you don't see NiMH in electric vehicles today: a) Major automakers simply don't want to make electric vehicles of any kind; b) Chevron owns the patent rights and sued the last manufacturers of these batteries, Toyota and Panasonic, forcing them to cease production, while refusing to produce their own batteries or license the technology. Note that neither of these reasons has anything to do with the technical capabilities or cost of the batteries.
2) "if consumers cannot buy your car", you said... Indeed, consumers could not buy the electric cars produced by automakers 10 years ago, but not because consumers could not afford them, but because they were all LEASED, not even offered for sale. Every single one that was offered to lease was leased, and every single one of the 328 Rav4-EV that were ultimately offered for sale (after years of protest) was sold. And guess what, virtually all of those 328 cars, sold in 2002-2003, are still on the roads, running strong, proving my point that the technology exists and has existed, but automakers, oil companies, and politicians simply refuse to ALLOW cars like these to be made available for sale.
3) You suggest I might grow wiser with time, but you're the one sounding like an ignorant and close-minded child, while I'd venture that, at 30 years old, I'm in the 95th percentile on digg. Whatever your age, you're incredibly naive if you think we have anything close to a free market in this country, especially given the recent events on wall street. the fact is that government is needed to bring about the kind of change needed to solve our energy and climate crisis. it took a government mandate in california to get those EVs made 10 years ago, and despite the success of the vehicles themselves, automakers and oil companies fought the mandate every step of the way and eventually won (thanks in part to a certain mr bush). even today, GM publishes ads about how they're supposedly going to make the Volt, yet at the same time lobbies congress to avoid increases CAFE mileage standards, the same standards that should give them a huge competitive advantage were they to actually produce the Volt.
you're repeating the talking points of the two-faced GM, while all I'm saying is that there are cars ON THE ROAD TODAY proving my point, and proving GM and others wrong. think about it. - e4digg, on 09/24/2008, -0/+2My electric car:
http://www.ZeroGasoline.com - zip000, on 09/24/2008, -0/+2The guy shouldn't be getting dugg down - we do need to look at alternatives to the way that most of us are producing electricity. Right now most electricity is produced in very Earth unfriendly ways, and switch over to electric cars will make that problem more important.
The switch is good and necessary, but we have to be prepared for the huge increase in demand for electricity that will come with it. - Jektal, on 09/24/2008, -0/+2You know there will come a time when gas becomes more expensive because too few people are buying it, right?
- sndream, on 09/24/2008, -0/+2It will suffer the same fate as the GM Volt, the production model come out and somehow they manage to make it ugly as ***** despite having a nice looking concept car.
- knuckles, on 09/24/2008, -0/+2The only dent in the electric *armor* is the disposal of batteries. However, at least we can *store* these batteries until someone figures that out leaving only clean air.
Unfortunately we'll still have gas powered vehicles running around for another 100 years. I don't see military and commercial aircraft running on electrical power ever. - urothane, on 09/24/2008, -0/+2I have been waiting to see a Jeep Wrangler with 4 doors and 40+ MPG. I hope it is priced reasonable.
- n3demonic, on 09/24/2008, -0/+2Stop with the egg shaped cars!
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