The press conference which Aptera Motors held on Wednesday achieved its goal.  The Aptera 2e story has all the elements the media desires.  It visual, exotic and cutting edge with an aura of economic suspense.  On top of which, the vehicle is about to be shipped-off to compete for the $10 million Automotive X Prize.  Popular Mechanics’ coverage of the media event hit the techie high-points of the all-electric vehicle which looks like a cross between an albino lobster and George Jetson’s commuter car.  The fact that the two-person transporter has “a coefficient of drag that’s below 0.15” supports Aptera’s claim that the car is an energy miser. 

Charlie Neuman has some great photos on SignOn San Diego of the local solution for energy-efficient transportation.

This is a cell-phone quality video, but an interesting inside view of the the Aptera prototype.

Click here for link.

My parents never sought my approval as a child.  That was not part of their generation’s mission statement.  Nor did they seek my opinion. That I might have some input on what we were going to eat or when was not a consideration let alone my thoughts on the selection of a family car.  My friends and I never had any expectation that our parents sought our approval in their decisions.  That things are different today is obvious, although not inherently good or bad.

Excesses which result from elevated attitudes of entitlement are all around us.  There are also significant positive behavioral changes which emanate from the parental quest for approval.  The emotional hook of an 8 year old girl crawling into her father’s lap and saying “Daddy, I don’t want you to die” has had a broader and deeper impact on smoking than even the American Lung Association could have ever hoped.  Second graders have assumed the role of family recycling czars and energy efficiency auditors.  Last year I purchased a couple of cases of Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs (CFLs) to distribute to my co-workers.  Angie, my assistant, said her daughter had been bugging her for weeks to change the lights in their house to CFLs.  Another approval problem solved.

How can we ramp-up constructive opportunities to build upon this approval seeking phenomenon?  Are there viable strategies appropriate for business to embrace?  At the CleanTECH San Diego Showcase this week (see post below) the wide-ranging discussion on Smart Grid included some comments by the presenters about their children.  Lee Krevat of SDG&E described telling his 13 year old that perhaps the all electric Nissan Leaf would be a good choice for the family.  After doing her internet research his daughter expressed her approval and (more…)

The inaugural CleanTECH San Diego Showcase presents Smart Grid, Transforming the Energy Industry this Thursday November 12th at the La Jolla Marriott. Keynote speaker, Ellen Pao, is a partner with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the preeminent player in the venture capital universe.  Kleiner Perkins’ successes include Amazon.com, Compaq, Electronic Arts, Genentech, Google, Intuit, Lotus Development, Netscape, Segway, Sun Microsystems and scores of other ventures over a 37 year history.  A year ago the firm’s $500 million Green Growth Fund committed $75 million to smart grid start-up Silver Spring Networks.  Following Ms. Pao’s remarks will be a panel discussion by the CEO’s of three venture-funded clean tech companies, Aptera, Applied Solar and PCN Technology.  Each of these San Diego-based companies is approaching the smart grid future from a different perspective. 

The smart meter system which San Diego Gas & Electric is in the process of installing is only of portion of the smart grid.  As state-mandated renewable energy becomes a larger portion of the total base of energy supply, the energy network becomes far more complex and thus more difficult to control.  Smart grid provides the two-way communication necessary to manage a diverse base of power generation and use. 

In addition to SDG&E, other smart grid companies listed in CleanTECH San Diego’s database of cleantech companies include Balance Energy, IPS Group, On-Ramp Wireless, PCN Technology and EcoDog.  The smart grid opportunity for San Diego-based technologies fans out beyond this list when wireless applications and information security are taken into consideration.

In September SDG&E announced a major Smart Grid coalition formed with CleanTECH San Diego, UC San Diego and two dozen other entities including tech giants Qualcomm, IBM, Intel, Cisco, General Electric and local start-up On-Ramp Wireless.  The San Diego coalition is seeking $100 million of federal stimulus funds for smart grid development to benefit the region and to serve as a prototype project for the rest of the world to model.  The initiative is in addition to the GridComm wireless smart grid project for which SDG&E was recently awarded $28.1 million in stimulus funds by the DOE to match with $32 million from the utility. 

The networking hour before the CleanTECH San Diego Showcase is a unique opportunity to get face to face with the captains of industry, futurists, venture capitalists and propeller heads who play in the clean tech space.  Click here to make your reservation.

The following resources will add to your understanding of Smart Grid.

“It’s Your Smart Grid”, an interactive educational website by General Electric.

Glossary of Smart Grid Terms

The Smart Grid in 2010: Market Segments, Applications and Industry Players.  David J. Leeds of GTM Research  (145 pages)  Please e-mail your request to me at glenn@glennmosier.com and I will forward the PDF file.

Quick.  How many automotive firms are there in the United States?  Way more than I ever dreamed.  The Progressive Automotive X PRIZE attracted entries from 111 teams of which 88 are from the United States.  Competing for the $10 million jackpot are names we recognize  like Tesla Motors and those we do not including my favorite,7K Hamsters, which unfortunately did not make the cut.  On Monday the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE announced that 43 teams with 53 vehicles from 18 US States and 11 countries had made it through the stringent Design Judging phase.  Making the short list were two San Diego innovators, Aptera and SSI-Racing.  These teams will now be entering the final competition events that will be taking place from May 2010 with the announcement of the winners that Fall.  A no-show in the competition was Fisker Automotive.  I guess the opportunity to score $10 million looks like chump change compared to the $529 million loan the Federal government is sending their way. 

The goal of the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE is to inspire a new generation of super-efficient vehicles that help break our addiction to oil and stem the effects of climate change.   Click here for contest details. 

The X Prize Foundation is the brilliant vision of Dr. Peter Diamandis.  In May we were fortunate to have Dr. Diamandis share an evening with us at the MIT Enterprise Forum.  Click here for Bruce Bigelow’s article in Xconomy.

My October 12^_th post, Surf City as Motor City, noted that Aptera’s “quest for funds was stymied because the Aptera 2e’s design is one wheel short of the standard four”.  A Senate vote on Thursday expanded the scope of qualifying vehicles to include Aptera-like designs.  If the bill is signed into law by the President, Aptera can apply for funds under the Department of Energy loan program for green cars just like their four-wheeled competitors.

The frequent references to San Diego as a global leader in clean tech are often illustrated by regional activities in solar, wind, water, smart grid and energy efficiency.  A perusal of the CleanTECH San Diego company database also reveals a mini-Mo Town of 25 ventures in the Transport Technology category.  Five of the companies have made the headlines recently.

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is the living legend in the venture capital universe.  Their successes include Amazon.com, Compaq, Electronic Arts, Genentech, Google, Intuit, Lotus Development, Netscape, Segway, Sun Microsystems and scores of other ventures over a 37 year history.  Their lead in the launch of San Diego-based V Vehicle Company is just one piece of their huge commitment to invest in clean tech and transportation.  Kleiner Perkins is joined in their investment by the VC arm of Google and part-time San Diegan T. Boone Pickens.  Manufacturing of the yet-to-be-unveiled automobile will take place in Louisiana.  If all the Federal and state loans fall in place, the total investment will exceed $500 million.  Former Oracle executive, Frank Varasano of San Diego, is the company’s CEO.  Wrapped in product secrecy, V Vehicle’s website has a video and information about their plans to hire 1400 workers.

Carlsbad-based Aptera has a waiting list of over 4,000 early adapters who have written deposit checks for the yet-to-be-offered three-wheeled, super aero-dynamic electric vehicle.  Looking like a cross between an albino lobster and George Jetson’s commuter car, the Aptera comes with a built-in fan club that is drawn to the car’s futuristic appearance, three-digit MPG comparisons and cocktail-party-conversation features such as solar assisted climate control.  Originally funded last year for $24 million from Google, Idealab and individual investors, Aptera seeks Federal loans to accelerate their production capability.  Their quest for funds was stymied because the Aptera 2e’s design is one wheel short of the standard four.  Local Congressman Brian Bilbray is grinding through the legislative process to include “fully enclosed vehicles that are capable of carrying two adults and get at least 75 mpg.”

The recent input of over $12 million will rev-up San Diego’s Achates Power in their efforts to build the internal combustion engine equivalent of Doctor Dolittle’s pushmi-pullyu.  Their 4.2L automotive engine design is a high-efficiency two-stroke power plant which features two opposing pistons in each cylinder.  The Achates Power value proposition is an “unparalleled combination of fuel efficiency (more…)