Sharpe's Opinion
Sunday, 14th Dec, 2008
Thomas L Friedman writes in the New York Times about a new business model for cars:
The Better Place electric car charging system involves generating electrons from as much renewable energy — such as wind and solar — as possible and then feeding those clean electrons into a national electric car charging infrastructure. This consists of electricity charging spots with plug-in outlets — the first pilots were opened in Israel this week — plus battery-exchange stations all over the respective country. The whole system is then coordinated by a service control center that integrates and does the billing.
Sounds really fascinating, and I agree with him that it sounds like it is “building a car company off the new industrial platform of the 21st century, not the one from the 20th — the exact same way that Steve Jobs did to overturn the music business.“ At the same time, it seems to be using the good bits of the petrol car infrastructure – like the idea of recharging/replacing batteries on the go at (presumably petrol) stations rather than when you get home. I’m sure it will start off both expensive and proprietary. Sooner or later, though, prices will fall and standards will emerge. We could be looking at the way of the future…
Anyway, I’m off to watch Top Plug.
Comments
I noticed that one, too 
Also, the clean electrons.
Still, he’s a journalist – it’s not his job to understand the concepts involved so he can relate them in an accurate yet understandable manner or anything…
As you will have seen on Top Gear, nothing as complicated as this is needed!
All we have to do is use renewable sources to generate hydrogen.
That was interesting, wasn’t it. The bit I couldn’t believe was that it would be cheap. We’ll have to see. Also, if it’s patented and proprietary then only Honda owners would get the benefit. I’m all for free markets, but it’ll take a generation to iron out the kinks in something like that.
…And here we see again, my argument that it matters not a jot how much electricity we use, the important thing is investment in new technologies that will reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. When will ‘Plane Stupid’ realise that trying to push society back into the Middle Ages won’t work – we need to move forward, not back!
Grrrr.
Stu, the specific implementation adopted by Honda may well be patented, but the idea of using hydrogen fuel to generate electrical power via a fuel cell is old and well known. So other manufacturers could be prevented from using the Honda implementation (unless Honda licensed them), but would be free to develop a different one.
Of course, Honda may well have licensed the technology from a small research firm (I have no idea!).
The Tesla car was interesting, but the problem (as ever) would be the 16 hour charge. Hypothetically, I get home at 7pm, put it onto charge, and it is ready for me to go back to work at 11am the next morning. Ooops.
I like the Tesla. I first heard of it a few months ago when Jason Calacanis (Tech entrepreneur) received his and was effusive in praise about it. As for the battery charging issue, that, as far as I could surmise, was the point of the linked article – the idea is essentially to have ‘on-the-go’ charging/battery swapping stations.
I hope you’re right about the fuel cell. Market forces may prevail yet!
My own innovative addition to the Honda Fuel Cell Car idea is this: pipe the water produced by the fuel cell into a tap in the car (possibly through a filtration system. Running water on the go. English variation: use the heat from the motor to heat the water – tea on the go.
>> The Better Place electric car charging system
>> involves generating electrons
Ooops. Someone doesn’t understand electricity, but wants to sound as if they do …
patently
December 14, 2008 at 8:13 pm