Toyota recently announced that it's passed the 1 million mark in the sale of hybrid vehicles worldwide.
Such nice big round numbers sometimes have psychological significance, and perhaps this marks a threshold, where the hybrid is no longer an innovation, but a normal part of the auto markets.
Of course, Toyota is no longer alone in bringing them to us, although Detroit still seems rather clumsy in this matter. The real challenge to Toyota in the hybrid end of the market is from another japanese giant, Honda. Here's the URL for an enthusiastic assessment (by a Brit, Steve Nelson) of the latest from Honda.
http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/display.var.1543980.0.0.php
And here's a discussion of the differences between the two Japanese corporation's approaches in this area.
http://www.vicnews.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=36&cat=46&id=1021078&more=0
To my tastes, frankly, that second article, from a paper in British Columbia, Canada, sounds a bit too patly partisan, as if the reporter was simply putting his own name to a Honda hand-out. Still, I'm in no position out of my own technological ignorance to argue with it.
Showing posts with label hybrids. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hybrids. Show all posts
13 July 2007
20 April 2007
The Shanghai Auto Show
The Shanghai Auuto Show opens this Sunday, and runs through April 28.
Shanghai is important to carmakers because they realize that the Chinese consumer market has outlived its bicycles. There are lots of Chinese with the money and the desire to buy cars.
The auto show is using the motto, 'Technology and Nature in Harmony.'
General Motors, Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Ford will offer their battery-powered and hybrid models in accord with that theme. But its Volkswagen that seems to be going all out presenting a wide range of cars with what it calls "vanguard" technology. It says the gas consumption and emissions from VWs sold in China will decline by more than 20% by 2010.
Let a thousand flowers bloom.
(Did I just quote Mao Zedong?)
Shanghai is important to carmakers because they realize that the Chinese consumer market has outlived its bicycles. There are lots of Chinese with the money and the desire to buy cars.
The auto show is using the motto, 'Technology and Nature in Harmony.'
General Motors, Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Ford will offer their battery-powered and hybrid models in accord with that theme. But its Volkswagen that seems to be going all out presenting a wide range of cars with what it calls "vanguard" technology. It says the gas consumption and emissions from VWs sold in China will decline by more than 20% by 2010.
Let a thousand flowers bloom.
(Did I just quote Mao Zedong?)
13 April 2007
Two Lessons in Capitalism
This will be my first and last comment on the Don Imus matter.
Imus has lost his job over ill-advised words uttered in reaction to the women's basketball championship game. I was never a fan of his, but since he has always been rather easy to avoid, I can't say I have any aversion to him either and won't feed the frenzy by citing the phrase he used here.
The only value to the whole thing is as a quick lesson in capitalism as a self-policing system. Imus was apparently confident he could ride out the storm so long as he attracted large numbers of listeners/viewers (his program was initially a morning radio show, though in recent years its been simulcast by a television network). The viewers would attract advertisers, and advertisers would defend him to the network bosses as needed.
But advertisers don't only want the raw audience numbers. They want to know what a show is going to do to their brand. They want to know whether their association with your show is going to help them or hurt them in the eyes of potential customers.
For a very few days after the initial comment, Imus' network bosses stuck by him, suggesting that a two-week suspension would be sufficient. It was only when the show's sponsors started pulling out (not because numbers dropped -- but because of the idea of a brand) -- that the network brass changed their mind.
If I had any reason to believe that the FCC was behind Imus' fall, I'd be ticked off. But it appears that this was simply how freedom works. Imus had his run -- now somebody else will get that airtime in the everlasting whirl of "creative destruction." Let it whirl.
Second lesson: batteries. There's a story in today's Wall Street Journal about car batteries, hybrids, etc. Of course, there are plenty of engineering geniuses in the US, but there's been little incentive for them of late to concern themselves with pushing the frontiers of battery performance.
Two years ago, General Motors executives decided to look for a new battery that would power a new generation of gas/electric hybrids, letting them leapfrog Toyota. The search led them to Toyota's back yard, in both national and corporate terms. Several GM honchos had a meeting in Japan with their counterparts at Panasonic EV Energy Co., Ltd.
There was, they found, a limit to how much their hosts would tell them about how their new products work. Why? Well, because Panasonic is a subsidiary of ... Toyota. It isn't clear from the article whether the GM execs were aware of that corporate affiliation before they made the trip.
Anyway, now that US based car makers have got the message that this is an important subject, there ARE incentives for the development of a US-based leading-edge batteries industry.
Some of the homegrown experts work for this outfit: http://www.a123systems.com/html/home.html
Imus has lost his job over ill-advised words uttered in reaction to the women's basketball championship game. I was never a fan of his, but since he has always been rather easy to avoid, I can't say I have any aversion to him either and won't feed the frenzy by citing the phrase he used here.
The only value to the whole thing is as a quick lesson in capitalism as a self-policing system. Imus was apparently confident he could ride out the storm so long as he attracted large numbers of listeners/viewers (his program was initially a morning radio show, though in recent years its been simulcast by a television network). The viewers would attract advertisers, and advertisers would defend him to the network bosses as needed.
But advertisers don't only want the raw audience numbers. They want to know what a show is going to do to their brand. They want to know whether their association with your show is going to help them or hurt them in the eyes of potential customers.
For a very few days after the initial comment, Imus' network bosses stuck by him, suggesting that a two-week suspension would be sufficient. It was only when the show's sponsors started pulling out (not because numbers dropped -- but because of the idea of a brand) -- that the network brass changed their mind.
If I had any reason to believe that the FCC was behind Imus' fall, I'd be ticked off. But it appears that this was simply how freedom works. Imus had his run -- now somebody else will get that airtime in the everlasting whirl of "creative destruction." Let it whirl.
Second lesson: batteries. There's a story in today's Wall Street Journal about car batteries, hybrids, etc. Of course, there are plenty of engineering geniuses in the US, but there's been little incentive for them of late to concern themselves with pushing the frontiers of battery performance.
Two years ago, General Motors executives decided to look for a new battery that would power a new generation of gas/electric hybrids, letting them leapfrog Toyota. The search led them to Toyota's back yard, in both national and corporate terms. Several GM honchos had a meeting in Japan with their counterparts at Panasonic EV Energy Co., Ltd.
There was, they found, a limit to how much their hosts would tell them about how their new products work. Why? Well, because Panasonic is a subsidiary of ... Toyota. It isn't clear from the article whether the GM execs were aware of that corporate affiliation before they made the trip.
Anyway, now that US based car makers have got the message that this is an important subject, there ARE incentives for the development of a US-based leading-edge batteries industry.
Some of the homegrown experts work for this outfit: http://www.a123systems.com/html/home.html
30 March 2007
Hybrids and diesels and shares. Oh my.
JD Power and Associates has come out with a new report on the future of the auto industry. The title gives away the thesis. It's called, "The Steady -- but Slow -- Rise of Hybrids and Diesels in the U.S. auto market."
The bottom line is a prediction that hybrids and diesels will reach a 9% share of auto sales by 2009, and that Toyota will continue to be the leading player in this market segment.
That's heartening news. I'm seldom in at the start of anything big in terms of technology shift. I'm not a gadget kind of guy. As I remember, though, I was one of the first on my block to buy a Nehru jacket back in the late 1960s when that was hot for a week or so. I was getting worried that my Toyota Prius would seem, in retrospect, a lot like that.
Yes, fellow fans of South Park, I've seen the episode. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smug_Alert!
Something will replace the internal combustion engine as the chief way in which people get around. I doubt that the "something" will be a move to mass transit in the U.S. We're accustomed to spread-out living patterns and go-when-you-want habits. Though buses and trains could conceivably amount to a larger share of the transportantion market ten years from now than they do today, I'd be willing to be heavily that it would be more than a doubling. And if they 'only' double those they carry, this wil still leave a lot of room for a revolution in the world of personal transport.
The two alternatives in the JD Power study are in effect jockeying in position to become the next Big Thing. There is also the possibility that engines will stay more-or-less the same, but that the big change will come in the area of fuel: ethanol.
Unfortunately, so long as the fuel use of ethanol involves taking corn away from food-related uses, there are limits to what could be done in that line. We can hope for a breakthrough in the area of cellulosic ethanol, which will mean we're re-cycling garbage into fuel. Here's a primer,
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2007/03/29/new-kid-on-the-farm-cellulosic-ethanol.aspx
The news in that Motley Fool article is that a very respected figure in the Venture Capital world, Vinod Khosla, now seems to be on board the cellulosic-ethanol bandwagon.
Let a thousand entrepreneurial flowers bloom.
The bottom line is a prediction that hybrids and diesels will reach a 9% share of auto sales by 2009, and that Toyota will continue to be the leading player in this market segment.
That's heartening news. I'm seldom in at the start of anything big in terms of technology shift. I'm not a gadget kind of guy. As I remember, though, I was one of the first on my block to buy a Nehru jacket back in the late 1960s when that was hot for a week or so. I was getting worried that my Toyota Prius would seem, in retrospect, a lot like that.
Yes, fellow fans of South Park, I've seen the episode. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smug_Alert!
Something will replace the internal combustion engine as the chief way in which people get around. I doubt that the "something" will be a move to mass transit in the U.S. We're accustomed to spread-out living patterns and go-when-you-want habits. Though buses and trains could conceivably amount to a larger share of the transportantion market ten years from now than they do today, I'd be willing to be heavily that it would be more than a doubling. And if they 'only' double those they carry, this wil still leave a lot of room for a revolution in the world of personal transport.
The two alternatives in the JD Power study are in effect jockeying in position to become the next Big Thing. There is also the possibility that engines will stay more-or-less the same, but that the big change will come in the area of fuel: ethanol.
Unfortunately, so long as the fuel use of ethanol involves taking corn away from food-related uses, there are limits to what could be done in that line. We can hope for a breakthrough in the area of cellulosic ethanol, which will mean we're re-cycling garbage into fuel. Here's a primer,
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2007/03/29/new-kid-on-the-farm-cellulosic-ethanol.aspx
The news in that Motley Fool article is that a very respected figure in the Venture Capital world, Vinod Khosla, now seems to be on board the cellulosic-ethanol bandwagon.
Let a thousand entrepreneurial flowers bloom.
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