My meager notes:
The Auto-industry is undergoing an innovation transformation.
There are over 100 entries for the Automotive X Prize.
New competitors from India and China as well as 20 VC funded start-ups are forcing the top dogs to get off their butts. The big three will change their ways, even if it requires a change in management, or they will cease to be.
Even while the new exotic materials are more expensive, carbon fiber composite cars can be made today such that they do not cost more than steel cars.
How can they be cheaper? A carbon fiber car can be made with one 20th of the parts.
This means that there is significant less tooling that is needed. The colors can be laid into the materials, this removes the need for a separate paint facility.
Parts are actually light enough that they can be lifted by (get this) people. Robots can still be used, but they can be cheaper bots and break down less often.
For each pound of weight removed, the power needed to move the car is reduced. This means the engine can be smaller (further lightening the car), or the performance can be better.
Are they safe? Carbon fiber can absorb 12 times the crash energy per pound. Even a car that is half the weight can be more than twice as safe.
Look at the Toyota 1/X concept.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Toyota: Prius plug-in gets 65 mpg - Automotive News
Toyota: Prius plug-in gets 65 mpg - Automotive News: "U.S. sales of a Toyota plug-in hybrid will begin sometime after 2010.
'It would make sense that we would do it with a Prius, but we haven't announced anything as to which vehicles' will offer plug-in technology, said John Hanson, a Toyota spokesman. But any hybrid model is a possible candidate, he said.
Reinert said fuel economy for plug-in hybrids depends on the battery pack's capacity and how the car is driven. Both factors determine how many miles can be driven in electric mode."
'It would make sense that we would do it with a Prius, but we haven't announced anything as to which vehicles' will offer plug-in technology, said John Hanson, a Toyota spokesman. But any hybrid model is a possible candidate, he said.
Reinert said fuel economy for plug-in hybrids depends on the battery pack's capacity and how the car is driven. Both factors determine how many miles can be driven in electric mode."
Zero Point Energy (ZPE)
Zero Point Energy (ZPE): "Zero Point Energy (ZPE)
A cost-effective, abundant, renewable, never before commercialized, energy resource is on the near-term horizon.
Mark Goldes
The March 1, 2004 issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology featured an article headlined 'Aerospace Giants Eye Zero Point Energy'. The piece went on to say aerospace applications of ZPE being explored by BAE Systems and a large domestic aerospace company supported by the Department of Defense: 'might enable Mach 4 fighters, quiet 1,200 seat hypersonic airliners that fly at 100 mile altitudes as far as 12,000 miles in about 70 minutes, and 12.6 hour trips to the moon.'
Discovery consists in seeing what everybody else has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.
Albert Szent-Gyorgyi - awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of Vitamin C
While these future applications all now seem possible, our much more pressing problems involve freedom from the need to import oil, as well as the rapid reduction in the use of fossil fuels. Since most well-qualified scientists believe they threaten dangerous climate change.
Seemingly empty space, known to physicists as the quantum vacuum, is chock full of energy. The density of this energy per unit of volume is “comparable to (that) of nuclear energy - or even greater. Consequently, its potential as an energy source is absolutely enormo"
A cost-effective, abundant, renewable, never before commercialized, energy resource is on the near-term horizon.
Mark Goldes
The March 1, 2004 issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology featured an article headlined 'Aerospace Giants Eye Zero Point Energy'. The piece went on to say aerospace applications of ZPE being explored by BAE Systems and a large domestic aerospace company supported by the Department of Defense: 'might enable Mach 4 fighters, quiet 1,200 seat hypersonic airliners that fly at 100 mile altitudes as far as 12,000 miles in about 70 minutes, and 12.6 hour trips to the moon.'
Discovery consists in seeing what everybody else has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.
Albert Szent-Gyorgyi - awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of Vitamin C
While these future applications all now seem possible, our much more pressing problems involve freedom from the need to import oil, as well as the rapid reduction in the use of fossil fuels. Since most well-qualified scientists believe they threaten dangerous climate change.
Seemingly empty space, known to physicists as the quantum vacuum, is chock full of energy. The density of this energy per unit of volume is “comparable to (that) of nuclear energy - or even greater. Consequently, its potential as an energy source is absolutely enormo"
Greentech Media: Texas Gov. Rick Perry: $5,000 Credit for Plug-In Hybrids to get EPA Off Our Backs
Greentech Media: Texas Gov. Rick Perry: $5,000 Credit for Plug-In Hybrids to get EPA Off Our Backs: "Texas Gov. Rick Perry doesn’t much care for the “increasingly activist” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and he’s willing to put Texas in the forefront of promoting plug-in hybrid electric vehicles to get the federal agency off the state’s back."
www.spectrawatt.com
www.spectrawatt.com: "Harnessing the full potential of the sun to help meet tomorrow's global energy needs today"
Spectra Watt
Spectra Watt
3402 - TORAY INDUSTRIES, INC. - Google Finance
3402 - TORAY INDUSTRIES, INC. - Google Finance: "TORAY INDUSTRIES, INC. is a Japan-based company that has six business segments. The Textile segment manufactures, processes and sells textile and apparel products. The Plastic and Chemical segment offers plastic, films and various chemical products. The Information Communication Material and Equipment segment offers plastic, films, electronic circuits, copy materials, color filters for liquid crystal and optical fibers. It also provides information processing services. The Carbon Fiber Composite Material segment manufactures and sells carbon fibers and carbon fiber composite materials. The Environment and Engineering segment offers functional film and machines, as well as materials for housing, construction and civil works. It is also engaged in the real estate, engineering and precision machine manufacturing businesses. The Life Science and Others segment offers medical, pharmaceutical and optical products. It fully acquired its subsidiary, TOWA ORIMONO CO., LTD. on December 1, 2008."
Coulomb vies with Better Place to build electric car charging stations » VentureBeat
Coulomb vies with Better Place to build electric car charging stations » VentureBeat: "Coulomb’s plan to roll out 40 of its charging devices along major California highways and at regular fueling stations before the end of the quarter"
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