User 317038

Why Silicon Valley Should Take Over the Auto Industry

Every industry has a point of punctuated equilibrium, often times not due to new technology but because of unsustainable environment to support it.

The migration of people from rural to urban megacomplexes around the world dictates rethinking how people move about. The role of a car in places such as Mumbai, Bejing, New York, London, Rio becomes less useful over time. Owning a car in such urban areas makes little sense if alternatives exist.

The idea of car-sharing like the zipcar or more efficient mass transportation models require that car manufacturers rethink the dynamics of their markets.

I foresee a situation where every driver has access to a non-fossil fuel local area mobile unit, perhaps electric or in the future, magnetic or thermoelectric power. These small "podcars" are the only vehicles allowed in an urban area, apart from vehicles that transport and distributed goods.

When you want to travel to other areas, you drive your podcar to a rental lot where you have access to another long range vehicle for that longer trip.

This model is less disruptive and more efficient than plowing money into rail or bus based transportation networks which are effective in peak periods but costly to run during offhours.

The challenge is to convince people that owning a car that costs a lot of money, which travels less than 25 miles a day on average and tends to sit unused 80 percent of the time, is not the right way to ensure freedom of movement.

I suspect that this experiment will find its birth in China and over sufficient time will transform their nascent auto industry into some mix of mentioned transportation models. Losing GM tomorrow is like losing the carriage industry when vehicles with engines replaced horse drawn carts. Things change and new ways appear.

Goodbye GM, Chrysler, OPEL, Fiat et al. It was a good run but now we have to "move on".

Solar Grid Parity: The Great $1 Myth

on/off grid solar means one thing: you become a power supplier and the utility becomes a distribution vendor. You can establish an appropriate price point.
If you set it too high, utility does not buy your power so in effect you are off grid until the sun goes down (new storage battery technology may fix that soon). If you set it too low, they will buy all that you can spare because you are generating power below long run marginal cost for them. Any price in between is a function on how much you want to invest in your PV system. If you have 5 acres you could easily generate 5MgW in peak. Now you are a power company. Enjoy!