Ford Pushes Electrics. GM imagines the future of Urban Transport.
July 10, 2011
Ok, it’s a little lame — just lame enough that I know their serious about reaching the vast middle.
Having seen the dashboard displays, I kind of wish they’d lose the butterflies, but that’s just me. I’m sure it’s been focus group tested.
And yes, I get it that we need to move away from dependence on cars, but hybrids and electrics will be part of the solution, an important one. This is a key reason that observers like Deutschebank predict that electric vehicles will have greater impact, sooner, than most people think – which I’ll be discussing in the new “Solutions”
video, which should be out soon.
Meanwhile, below, GM imagines the future of urban transport.
I guess this video is doing what it’s supposed to do. For a fleeting second, I thought, “Gee, it’d be cool to work for GM.”
Climate Denial Crock of the Week 
July 11, 2011 at 7:17 am
CTV Journalist Kai Nagata has quit his job — and he wants you to know why
One Conservative campaign ad told us Canada is a “courageous warrior,” and yet we lost our seat at the UN Security Council. The Canada whose values I thought I was signing up to promote and defend is increasingly unrecognizable from an international vantage point.
We have withdrawn from humanitarian projects because aspects might offend Evangelists back home. We have clung so tightly to our U.S. allies overseas that we figure on lists of terrorism targets where we didn’t before. We are deporting people to be tortured and closing our borders to the family members of foreign professionals. We have become, in Mr. Harper’s characterization, an island. A sea of troubles lapping at our shores. In other words, we are closing the harbours when we most need to be building bridges.
On climate change, the conclusion I am forced to draw is that the current federal government has completely abdicated its responsibility. The message to my generation is: figure it out yourselves. The dogmatic refusal to accept that people have created this crisis and people must do what they can to avert it reminds me of the flat-earth crew. Except this time, we really are going to sail off the edge. We need to be recruiting international scientists, funding research, stimulating the green economy, legislating disincentives to fossil fuel use, and most importantly, reaching out and building alliances with the countries who are already taking a proactive stance. As an Arctic nation — a country of inventors, diplomats, and negotiators, we should be taking the lead in brokering global accords that might save the world as we know it. Instead we are closing ourselves off, alienating our neighbours, and looking inward, to our past achievements. In the interests of short-term political gain, and medium-term profits for energy companies, Conservative politicians are abandoning my generation and any that hope to come after.
Meanwhile, the people who are supposed to be holding decision makers to account are instead broadcasting useless tripe, or worse, stories that actively distract from the massive projects we need to be tackling instead of watching TV.
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/media-watch/2011/07/journalist-kai-nagata-has-quit-his-job-and-he-wants-you-know-why
July 11, 2011 at 7:29 am
Electric Vehicle technology and an electric vehicle network is for most Energy Security. Today blackouts and power plant shut down are happening for several reasons. Because storm force winds damage electricity cables or during heatwaves when demand is not sufficient or drought conditions threaten the cooling of power plants.
Or because you want the best security to sustain energy supply during war conditions. http://www.betterplace.com/global-progress-israel
Todays energy infrastructure is setup centralized, thus any disturbance threatens supply and the well being of people. With the growing threats from climate change i believe we have no other choice then to setup decentralized energy infrastructure.
Basically each single EV’s (Electric Vehicle) battery is a storage point for electricity and thus can be used for load balancing or during “tuff times”. Together with renewable energy generation on roofs and near neighborhoods,communities are able to generate and distribute energy for them or others.
July 11, 2011 at 7:36 am
[…] Ford Pushes Electrics. GM imagines the future of Urban Transport […]
July 11, 2011 at 7:39 am
(Updated)The future of mobility – small cars for urban transport and a large electric vehicle network
http://climateforce.net/2011/07/10/the-future-of-mobility-small-cars-for-urban-transport-and-a-large-electric-vehicle-network/
July 11, 2011 at 10:32 am
Interesting related article in guardian today:
“Their detractors say are they too pricey and tricky to charge. But a select fleet of drivers in Oxford and London has been testing a prototype electric Mini. Were they won over?”
The thing I still don’t get: from rough calculations on the required power and land surface, it’s a very tall order to power the amount of mileage petrol-fueled cars currently go. There’s a related issue: if you electrify transport, electricity demand is now competing for e.g. industry, office, home, which it currently overlaps with only partially – so there’ll be cost knock-on effects for the whole economy as transport and production fuel becomes more substitutable.
Cripes, it’s complicated.