Vinod Khosla: Hybrid-electric cars won't make a difference
venturebeat.com
venturebeat.com
What if we built a track system, like a single rail roller coaster. The single rail would be fairly cheap to make, take up minimal space, eliminate the need for everyone to have their own cars, intersections, speed limits, snow plows, collisions, gasoline, human drivers, traffic, etc.
I think it would be an awesome solution all around. There would probably need to be some significant engineering behind designing that single track system that allowed so much track hopping and to handle cars smart enough not navigate the web. But I think its nothing we can't do with current technology.
Is this stupid? Most non-tech people seem to think so.
First thing, and I think the largest issue, is that it's an "all or nothing" system. Until all of the infrastructure was in place, the 'cars' would be crippled relative to our current vehicles. Almost all large society changes have an organic method of adoption or they don't gain any momentum. So until you've 'paved' rural Texas, no one who has ever considered visiting rural Texas will ever buy one. Worse still is that you'd probably have to bulldoze existing roads for the tracks (at least in cities where space is tight).
If you could overcome that obstacle, I feel the other issues would be easy (like how to pay for such a system, getting people to buy the cars, etc). It would be an interesting solution, somewhere between mass transit and autos, but a tough sell to everyone. Notice I didn't say impossible :-)
Consider a place like Manhattan. Getting around in a car is already extremely impractical. Because it's easy to suspend a rail in the air, compared to a traditional road, it could be built right over the existing infrastructure. Population density is high, so you don't have to build very much of it before it becomes convenient. And few people in Manhattan would care that they can't get to rural Texas in their sky-car.
Now, if you supply electricity through that rail, it makes the cars much easier and cheaper to make. They would also be much lighter, which means the rail itself doesn't have to be as strong and so can be cheaper to build. And they would be more compact, which means people won't pay as much for a parking space.
Can somebody give me half a billion dollars, I have an idea for a startup...
Take the Ford Escape hybrid, for example. It's currently considered the most efficient SUV on the market ... getting a whopping 30mpg. 30mpg! Big friggin deal! You can get better mileage in a regular gasoline Civic.
The worst part about hybrids is that THEY STILL USE GASOLINE! Sure, maybe a little bit less, but as long as we are driving hybrids, we're still dependent on burning fossil fuels, contributing to CO2 in the atmosphere, and making the oil companies richer.
Hybrids are a marginal improvement in fuel efficiency. Marginal is not good enough to make any difference worldwide. We need to focus on orders of magnitude of increased efficiency. I believe that one day, hydrogen will be our answer. Solar electric is on a good path, too ... but still far from being feasible.
What can you do right now? Save your money on the fancy-shmancy hybrid, and buy a diesel car, and fill 'er up with biodiesel. It's carbon neutral, totally renewable, and requires no special modification to your car.
If only it wasn't destroying the rainforests: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18825265.400
Just like you wouldn't buy paper or wood products that came from rainforests, don't buy biodiesel that comes from rainforests. Much of the biodiesel that's available in the U.S. is made from domestically grown soybeans, or even better, used restaurant oil from deep-fryers.