At the recent Paris Auto Show it wasn’t only the Ferraris or beautiful models that were getting the attention of the crowds as the latest greatest technology-advanced car.
As sustainability becomes a greater theme not only in the solar industry, but across the automotive industry as well, I expect we’ll see more and more vehicles like this Venturi car showcased in Paris or this solar car (Canadian eh?) exhibited at the recent Wired Nextfest in New York. And to make a nice link to solar, the Venturi vehicle features roof-mounted solar panels which can extend the driving range of the car. While 30 miles isn’t going to permit you to run around as much as you may wish, others are researching battery technologies which will now permit up to 100 miles before recharge.
Now like every other technology in its infancy, the vehicle is not yet that dragster that can take you from 0-60 in under 5 seconds. Yet in this category, there IS a new entrant which can do just that! Ian Wright, is the inventor of the X1 roadster. Imagine an electric speedster that blows away a Ferrari 360? Seem impossible..think again.
Its very exciting to me that we can use business to change the world. With a global effort to uproot oil’s dominance of our power supply from so many angles (power generation, power storage, power management) I think that energy is to this century what the microchip was to the last, a defining technology focus that will change the way we live. Like a hockey stick, we are just on the brink of the upward curve. We may be several decades away from stopping those oil fields from pumping, yet at least it seems like the light is in sight.
Sass