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Is the Future of the Electric Car Industry in Silicon Valley?
fiannaFailMan writes "The San Jose Mercury News is speculating about Silicon Valley's potential for becoming the Detroit of a future electric car industry. Among the valley's strengths is an ability to adapt to rapidly changing business environments and develop new business models, something that the Big Three can hardly be accused of. On the downside, it's a capital-intensive business and isn't like raising $40 million and having an IPO. Apparently there are five companies in the valley already pursuing electric car technology, most notably Tesla motors."
In some markets nuclear power is an option. If the NIMBY folks could only be placated, expansion would be rapid.
regardless of how much pollution is generated at a power plant somewhere, there will be a hell of a lot less pollution blowing in our faces in the street, in the cities. This means better health for citizens.
I think centralization of power production (that is, not produced in car) is the key. Get the electric car tech sorted, and have other solutions for producing the power dealt with else where. It's abstracted away, a power input at the service station works regardless of where/how the power is generated.
Now, if only we could get John Carmack working on fusion reactor technology...
Yes, it's interesting how Silicon Valley may be where new car tech breakthroughs will happen, but the comparison here is misleading. The reason Detroit was the automobile mecca of the US was because that's where all of the cars were made. That's where hundreds of thousands of people toiled to send car after car off the assembly line. Do you think that the same is going to happen in Silicon Valley? SV will be the same thing it's been for the past several decades . . . a place where ideas and technology are born. And like a lot of the technology invented in SV, it will get manufactured in Taiwan, China, etc.
An all electric car is quite a paradigm shift that is very difficult for existing auto makers to pursue.
While similar in form and function, electric cars are monumentally different from gasoline and/or diesel powered vehicles. It's much easier for a company such as Tesla to start their production model making cars numbering in the hundreds and ramp up their scale than it is for a huge manufacturer to go from the large scale and start small.
However, it's still a matter of who meets the magic numbers. I submit that the first company to develop an all electric car that will travel 300 miles on one charge, can recharge in less than 30 minutes plugged in, will recharge slowly in the sun on its own and costs less than $40,000 will sell like hot cakes.
Whether that's an old and established manufacturer or a new one like Tesla remains to be seen.