The Open Source Green Vehicle

Detroit's auto manufacturers are struggling, but innovation is alive and well in others regions. For example, there's another open source project to design a car , this one with a green perspective. (See our blog post of May 30, 2007.)

The Society for Sustainable Mobility has launched an Open Source Green Vehicle project with the goal of creating a crossover SUV for the American market that achieves at least 100 mpg.

The Society plans to compete for the Automotive X Prize:

The Automotive X PRIZE will invite teams from around the world to focus on a single goal: design, build, and sell super-efficient cars that people want to buy.

Why an Automotive X PRIZE?

• Because today's oil consumption is not sustainable - our current use of oil endangers our health, our economy, and the political and social stability of the world.
• Because 40% of world oil output fuels the automotive industry - and, in the U.S., 65% of oil consumption is in the transportation sector.
• Because automotive emissions contribute significantly to global climate change.
• Because there are no mainstream consumer choices for clean, super-efficient vehicles that meet market needs for price, size, capability, image, safety and performance.
• Because the automotive industry is stalled - legislation, regulation, labor issues, manufacturing costs, legacy costs, franchise laws, obsolete technology, consumer attitudes, and many other factors have combined to block breakthroughs.
• Because increases in engine efficiency have been "spent" on increased vehicle power, acceleration, and weight, rather than on increased fuel economy.
• Because we believe there is great opportunity for technological change.

Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter identified capitalism as a process of creative destruction, and these open-source car projects and new technology prizes are part of this process.

If you were CEO of Ford, or GM, would you put a team on winning the X Prize? Or would the potential embarrassment of losing outweigh the potential benefit of winning?

In the world of open source, a team of free-lancers from around the world could quite potentially out-design and out-engineer Detroit's best.

Creative destruction indeed!

Globalization, Complexity, & Change

The San Francisco Bay Area is, of course, a magnet for immigrants from all over the world. This showed itself in an interesting way this week, when my local water company (East Bay MUD, Oakland, California) sent me its annual water quality report, and included some of the information in 23 different languages, including 8 European languages, and 15 Asian languages.

The report also mentions that the winter of 2006-2007 was one of the driest in the 84 year history of the agency, and if 2007-2008 is as dry, we'll be looking at a lot of dead grass next summer. They're even selling a landscaping book filled with drought resistant plants.

Speaking of droughts, there's one going on in Australia at the moment, which has reduced milk exports to Asia at the same time that demand is increasing in the rapidly developing economies of India, China, and Indonesia.

Contributing to the price increase is a reduction in the supply of corn. Where's the corn shifting to? To ethanol production, to replace oil consumption.

All this together has impacted milk prices, which are up 50% in California in the last year.

So here's a picture of globalization: Drought in Australia and California affects the supply of basic commodities. Increasing consumption of corn for energy production exacerbates the shortage.

Meanwhile, rapid economic development in Asia leads to increased demand for milk (and for meat, too). The same development forces accelerate the production of excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Meanwhile, more wealth leads to more immigration, and thus the local water board publishes in many more languages.

Wow.