New interview with John “Plasma Boy” Wayland.

An unassuming electric car that can not be beat at the drag strip… leaving the oil sucking muscle cars in their own smoke.

PRESS RELEASE: 11/12/08

Three initiatives to dramatically decrease reliance on oil at Automotive News Green Car Conference in Detroit

Rocky Mountain Institute to convene a summit to bring together high-profile “off-oil” plans, launch “Project Get Ready” a 20-city initiative created at RMI’s Smart Garage Summit, and establish a clean mobility project in India.
Rocky Mountain Institute announced three initiatives today, including a summit to find common ground among the best features of several plans and foster consensus on national policy recommendations. Other initiatives will help lead the automotive industry’s transition towards lightweighting and electrification.

In his keynote address to the Automotive News Green Car Conference in Detroit, RMI Vice President and Practice Leader of RMI’s MOVE team, Michael Brylawski described the automotive industry as being on the verge of its fourth major shift—a shift toward lightweighting, electrification, and advanced digital technology that will fundamentally change the industry.

“The automobile industry dramatically shifted to mass production in Henry Ford’s day and then dramatically shifted again to manufacture tanks, planes, and other materiel during World War II,” Brylawski noted. “Later, in response to oil shocks and global competition, the industry shifted toward smaller cars—despite a brief SUV respite in the 1990s. The auto industry is about to witness another dramatic shift—to lightweighting and electrification. This shift, though, is fundamentally different for the industry because it will involve other large industrial sectors, notably our utilities and our buildings.”

Brylawski told conference attendees that this fourth shift is being driven by high oil prices and carbon dioxide emissions—two looming challenges that he said are pushing harder on the auto industry than any other sector. The outcome, he suggested, will include lighter products (for greater fuel efficiency) and electrified or partially electrified vehicles that will connect to the grid via homes and offices.

At the conference, Brylawski also announced three Rocky Mountain Institute projects aimed at reducing U.S. dependence on oil: The RMI/Brookings Oil Solutions Initiative, Project Get Ready, and RMI’s India Initiative.

The RMI/Brookings Oil Solutions Initiative is an effort to find common ground among the best features of several plans and foster consensus on national policy recommendations. “Project Get Ready” will work with a number of cities to break the barriers and build the alliances necessary to accelerate the adoption of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV), and create an electrified, grid-tied infrastructure. RMI’s India Initiative is an effort to work with stakeholders in India to address the next generation of mobility problems with innovative design-based solutions—which would be ultimately applicable in the United States.

“The important thing to remember about this fourth shift in the U.S. auto industry is that it’s going to have some truly positive outcomes—reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, reducing dependence on foreign oil, and creating an entirely new American industry: green cars,” Brylawski added. “Americans are watching Detroit go downhill at the moment, but there could be a very bright lining to this economic crisis if the American auto industry can make the fourth shift.”

[url=http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid573.php]source[/url]

This is a must see video if you are at all interested in electric cars, climate change, the economy and solutions.

It is a conversation with Shai Agassi and Tim O’Reilly at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.

We live in amazing times.

Peace,
Bruce

Better Place is working to build an electric car network. using technology available today. The goals? Sustainable transportation, global energy independence and freedom from oil.

BetterPlace.com

1832-1839
Scottish inventor Robert Anderson invents the first crude electric carriage powered by non-rechargeable primary cells.

1835
American Thomas Davenport is credited with building the first practical electric vehicle — a small locomotive.

1859
French physicist Gaston Planté invents the rechargeable lead-acid storage battery. In 1881, his countryman Camille Faure will improve the storage battery’s ability to supply current and invent the basic lead-acid battery used in automobiles.

1891
William Morrison of Des Moines, Iowa builds the first successful electric automobile in the United States.

1897
The first electric taxis hit the streets of New York City early in the year. The Pope Manufacturing Company of Connecticut becomes the first large-scale American electric automobile manufacturer.

1899
Believing that electricity will run autos in the future, Thomas Alva Edison begins his mission to create a long-lasting, powerful battery for commercial automobiles. Though his research yields some improvements to the alkaline battery, he ultimately abandons his quest a decade later.

1900
The electric automobile is in its heyday. Of the 4,192 cars produced in the United States 28 percent are powered by electricity, and electric autos represent about one-third of all cars found on the roads of New York City, Boston, and Chicago.

A Ford Model T

1908
Henry Ford introduces the mass-produced and gasoline-powered Model T, which will have a profound effect on the U.S. automobile market.

1912
Charles Kettering invents the first practical electric automobile starter. Kettering’s invention makes gasoline-powered autos more alluring to consumers by eliminating the unwieldy hand crank starter and ultimately helps pave the way for the electric car’s demise.

1920
During the 1920s the electric car ceases to be a viable commercial product. The electric car’s downfall is attributable to a number of factors, including the desire for longer distance vehicles, their lack of horsepower, and the ready availability of gasoline.

1966
Congress introduces the earliest bills recommending use of electric vehicles as a means of reducing air pollution. A Gallup poll indicates that 33 million Americans are interested in electric vehicles.

1970s
Concerns about the soaring price of oil — peaking with the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973 — and a growing environmental movement result in renewed interests in electric cars from both consumers and producers.

1972
Victor Wouk, the “Godfather of the Hybrid,” builds the first full-powered, full-size hybrid vehicle out of a 1972 Buick Skylark provided by General Motors (G.M.) for the 1970 Federal Clean Car Incentive Program. The Environmental Protection Association later kills the program in 1976.

Vanguard-Sebring’s CitiCar
1974
Vanguard-Sebring’s CitiCar makes its debut at the Electric Vehicle Symposium in Washington, D.C. The CitiCar has a top speed of over 30 mph and a reliable warm-weather range of 40 miles. By 1975 the company is the sixth largest automaker in the U.S. but is dissolved only a few years later.

1975
The U.S. Postal Service purchases 350 electric delivery jeeps from AM General, a division of AMC, to be used in a test program.

1976
Congress passes the Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Research, Development, and Demonstration Act. The law is intended to spur the development of new technologies including improved batteries, motors, and other hybrid-electric components.

1988
Roger Smith, CEO of G.M. , agrees to fund research efforts to build a practical consumer electric car. G.M. teams up with California’s AeroVironment to design what would become the EV1, which one employee called “the world’s most efficient production vehicle.” Some electric vehicle enthusiasts have speculated that the EV1 was never undertaken as a serious commercial venture by the large automaker.

1990
California passes its Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Mandate, which requires two percent of the state’s vehicles to have no emissions by 1998 and 10 percent by 2003. The law is repeatedly weakened over the next decade to reduce the number of pure ZEVs it requires.

1997
Toyota unveils the Prius — the world’s first commercially mass-produced and marketed hybrid car — in Japan. Nearly 18,000 units are sold during the first production year.

1997 - 2000
A few thousand all-electric cars (such as Honda’s EV Plus, G.M.’s EV1, Ford’s Ranger pickup EV, Nissan’s Altra EV, Chevy’s S-10 EV, and Toyota’s RAV4 EV) are produced by big car manufacturers, but most of them are available for lease only. All of the major automakers’ advanced all-electric production programs will be discontinued by the early 2000s.

2002
G.M. and DaimlerChrysler sue the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to repeal the ZEV mandate first passed in 1990. The Bush Administration joins that suit.

Crushed EV1 electric cars
2003
G.M. announces that it will not renew leases on its EV1 cars saying it can no longer supply parts to repair the vehicles and that it plans to reclaim the cars by the end of 2004.

2005
On February 16, electric vehicle enthusiasts begin a “Don’t Crush” vigil to stop G.M. from demolishing 78 impounded EV1s in Burbank, California. The vigil ends twenty-eight days later when G.M. removes the cars from the facility. In the film “Who Killed the Electric Car” G.M. spokesman Dave Barthmuss states that the EV1s are to be recycled, not just crushed.

2006
A few pure electric cars and plug-in hybrids are in limited production and new ones are on the horizon. Experts differ on how soon rising oil prices, peak oil forecasts, changing fortunes at car companies, and public demand for cars that run without gasoline will resurrect the mass market for electric car in the twenty-first century. The success of the gasoline hybrid Toyota Prius is a promising sign.

Sources: Hybridcars.com: History, Electric Auto Association: Electric Vehicle History, IEEE Power Engineering Society: “Electric Vehicles In The Early Years Of The Automobile” by Carl Sulzberger, About.com: The History of Electric Vehicles, Econogics: EV History, Smithsonian Institution: Edison After Forty, Who Killed the Electric Car?

I just found my new green ride!… car?…. motorcycle? …road jet?
A very cool, green and simply FUN!

This revolutionary green vehicle allows you to “Fly The Road”.
Check this out!

•100 + mpg
•100-120 mph
•120 to 350+ mile range
•0-60 in 7 seconds or less
•Hybrid or full plug in electric
•45 degree tilt
•Airbags, steel roll cage, side impact rail
•Holds two people, fully enclosed, windows all round and above, like a jet cockpit

This Dutch based company has been working on this design for the last few years but in late 2008 - and 2009 California is going to be offering the new design. I can see myself in one of these fun vehicles…
a fleet of these driving all around our new manufacturing plant…
and smiling ECO’s all around the country having a good time driving them and explaining to all the onlookers how they are powering their VehicleOne from their REnU solar system!

Lov’n it!
In-joy,
Bruce

VentureOne on TreeHugger

The New VentureOne

VentureOne on CBS

VentureOne website

offical video

BBC on Carver