Future of electric cars

by on 20/11/08 at 7:49 am |  

Rock and roll legend Neil Young writes a terrific summary of the state of the electric car at Huffpo. Turn out some renegade engineers have turned a 59 Lincoln Continental, the heaviest car made that year, into an all-electric plug-in, challenging the notion that electrics have to be small and light. Good overview, interesting opinions.

Glen Hiemstra is a futurist speaker, consultant, blogger, internet TV show host and founder of Futurist.com. To arrange for a speech contact Futurist.com.

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One Response to “Future of electric cars”

  1. Brian T

    Nov 21st, 2008

    What a few days.!

    Glen Hiemstra and Co.,

    Thanks for the great posts of the last few days and your very interesting website. (nice upgrade)

    You can see things moving in the right direction. Could our near future actually see Neil Young’s super heavy car powered by Martin Roscheisen’s super light Solar Panels? Let’s hope so! Add to that Shai Agassi’s Better Place launching the development of an electric car charging infrastructure in San Francisco at the same time Henry Waxman replaces John Dingell at Energy and Commerce in the House. Detroit is in trouble and San Francisco can help show them the way out. Even sitting here in Virginia, I know that idea alone is enough drive a few people crazy.

    If these types of developments are taken into account and made part of the solution, this crisis can be made into the opportunity we have been waiting for to begin making a systematic change away from Big Oil. You know how people say that the Chinese use the same symbol for Crisis and Opportunity. Well lets hope we opt for the opportunity part or the Chinese will end up owning GM.

    Renewables vs Oil/Coal, Transportation, Infrastructure, Economic Distress/Recovery, National Security, Climate Change. I really think that the incoming administration is going to attempt to move forward boldly on all of these fronts knowing that they are so tied together and that improvement in one area begets improvement in the others. The challenges are so big, that the solutions need to be system-wide. Hopefully, system-wide solutions can bring about near and long term employment opportunities.

    This is shaping up to be an amazing situation. The vision Pres. Obama puts forward to change the energy system could really make things different in this country. If we can move quickly towards renewables, put a floor on the price of oil, build a unified electric grid, and promote the massive production and adoption of electric transportation and demand conservation and building efficiency, we can get out of this mess. Best of all, nobody has to get shot in the process. No kids have to come home in wheelchairs. Daddy will be home for Susie’s 7th birthday, instead of chasing the foot-long scorpions out of his foxhole.

    Eight years ago, if I got five dollars for every time I heard “It does not matter who wins the recount in Florida, they are all the same” I would be a rich man. If the last eight years have taught us anything, it has taught us that YES it does matter. I am looking forward to seeing how much.

    Glen and Co., you have a great website and do good work. Very interesting. Keep posting, I am/we are reading. I would invite others who read to go ahead and post, the future is now.

    By the way, Going to see Neil Young in Philadelphia on Dec. 12th. They need to figure out a way how to package his energy from one of his electric shows, you could power a small city. Not bad for a 62 year old hippie.

    All the Best

    Brian T.