Skip to main content

Future Cars

Saw an episode of the Discovery Channel show Future Car and my jaw was dropping the whole time. In dealing with the sustainability issue of energy for transportation, you have to look at both sides of the problem - the source of the energy and the use of the energy. Two particularly impressive design concepts that we'll likely see in the coming years to use energy and resources better were the following:


  • Loremo - a car that gets 157 miles per gallon of diesel. It could drive from Denver to L.A. (1000 miles) on around 7 gallons of diesel. That would take about 42 gallons of unleaded gasoline in my car. Unbelievable. The core idea here is that there is no point in driving a 150 lb human around in a 1.5 ton vehicle that is specifically designed in a way to be resistant to the wind. There is no need for the vehicle to be that big. So, make the vehicle as light as possible (while maintaining sturdiness) and make it as aerodynamic as possible. Great idea. Could be a bit scary driving it around with all the SUV's out on the road, but you have to start somewhere. It's planned to go into mass production in 2009 for around $20k USD.

  • Tweel - a wheel that combines the tire and the wheel, using just a tread with polyurethane spokes connecting it to the actual wheel. The design uses far less material than the traditional tire.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Biofuels May Hinder Anitglobal-Warming Efforts

Read an interesting article a couple weeks back in the WSJ on how biofuels may actually increase carbon emissions in the medium to long-term. Apprently the shifts in land-use necessary to support the production of bio-materials like soybeans, corn, or palm could in fact release more carbon emissions. The time it takes to get carbon-neutral on some of these projects is pretty crazy - 319 years for soybean biodiesel from Brazil (assuming you're clearing rainforest), 93 years for corn ethanol from the U.S. (assuming you're clearing grasslands), 86 years for palm biodiesel from Indonesia (assuming you're clearing rainforest). I suppose biofuels really aren't meant to reduce carbon emissions, but just crazy that they potentially exacerbate the problem so much.
3 comments
Read more

Nine Prescriptions for Building the Duke Entrepreneurial Community

I think Duke can have one of the strongest entrepreneurial communities in the world. Are we there yet? Well, not yet. But there's a tremendous amount of momentum that I saw build in just the past two years while I was getting my MBA at Duke. While leading Duke's 10th annual business plan competition, the Duke Start-Up Challenge (DSC) , last year, I witnessed a near doubling of participation on campus in just a single year. The interest on the ground was clearly there and building rapidly. But now that I'm an alum, I'm looking back and wondering ... how do we rev-up the Duke entrepreneurial community even more? I read a great article by Daniel Isenberg, a professor of management at Babson, called " How to Start an Entrepreneurial Revolution " in the June edition of the Harvard Business Review. Isenberg outlines nine prescriptions for governments that want to create entrepreneurship ecosystems in their countries. Although he was focused on governments an
3 comments
Read more

Bloomberg for President?

We can only hope. I read an article in the WSJ about how business people across the country, from entrepreneurs to bankers, are all hoping for Bloomberg to run. The economy thus far seems to have taken an unusual backseat in this years election but seems to be emerging as an important issue. An interesting excerpt: As the economy has emerged as a dominant issue in the 2008 campaign, candidates have struck populist notes, from Republican Mike Huckabee's boast that he is not a "wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street" to Democrat Barack Obama's visit to Wall Street to chastise finance executives for failing to protect the middle class. I can see the approach these guys are taking and I'm sure they have really smart campaign strategists. But I really wonder if this type of message of polarizing the "working man" vs. "big business" really resonates with voters anymore? Is the middle-class really that disgruntled with big business and income dispa
2 comments
Read more