Auto innovation - The end game

Tuesday, June 23, 2009 | Posted by: Brian Maguire
Categories: Business, Technology | Tags: innovation, technology, research, financial, government, energy, university, innovators, science, car

One per cent of the energy we burn driving a car is used to move the driver. In one hundred years of automotive innovation, mankind has fought financial and military battles over oil reserves; only to announce that 99% of our effort was to shift a hunk of metal. Maybe we should have kept the horses.

Automotive innovation has almost always been about getting bigger, smarter, faster, and if the truth be told, more beautiful. Now, in this post-modern auto era, it’s time for smaller, more efficient cars. Big, brash brands will be back in a flash,  but only once global auto-makers have shifted fuel consumption down a gear or two.

Today, there are two innovation frontiers for car makers: fuel efficiency; and safety –  specifically, safety enhanced by electronics. This month, Jason Forcier,  President North America, automotive electronics, Robert Bosch LLC said:  "Our premise is simple - vehicle safety is the next frontier for automotive electronics. Active safety technologies like forward collision warning, predictive braking and lane departure warning are helping to improve a driver’s safety by completely avoiding or decreasing the severity of crashes."  Bosch is not alone in its thinking.

Bosch is a partner with BMW,  Continental, Daimler, and Infineon Technologies in the ‘Radar on Chip for Cars’  (RoCC) technology cooperation project - a three-year project part funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research as part of the ITK2020 support program focusing on ‘Innovation Alliance in Automotive Electronics’.  The German government’s high-tech strategy effort is designed to reduce the overall number of traffic accidents, principally in the small-vehicle class.

Ultimately, car makers are steering towards automatically directed vehicles; essentially a tie-up between intuitive radar safety systems and GPS navigation systems. However, as safe as road use may become, we won’t afford a trip from A to B, unless fuel consumption is successfully tackled.

In his 2005 Ted Talks presentation (see link below), Amory Lovins presented his Pentagon-supported thesis outlining how we can quickly move away from oil dependence, boost our economy,  and lessen the risk of energy related conflict. Lovins’ scientific and economic excellence preserves its integrity by pointing to energy consumption trends during the 1970s, during which time he identifies a missed opportunity to break away from Middle-Eastern oil consumption.

The lunacy of our current,  unsustainable, auto-energy trajectory is a lesson on the need for strong,  focused leadership to deliver innovative projects. The science is there, the need for efficiency is there, and, for good measure, the oil lobby is there –  spot the odd one out.

Reducing oil dependence in the auto sector is now a viable strategy, and governments are beginning to adapt national policy to support fuel efficiency. Often fearful of reduced profits,  oil companies lobby intensively, political brakes are applied, efficiency policies are slowed, and aging auto-makers crumble. Time and again, auto-fuel efficiency has been put out to greener pastures.

As new technologies emerge and are refined, the challenge to oil increases and the markets will make their choices. This week, a small UK company, partnered with Cambridge University,  launched the Riversimple Urban Car, a hydrogen fuelled ‘open source’ concept car. The radical concept is not the car itself, but the company’s stated objective of developing a hydrogen car market by making available all its design plans and research to encourage other engineers to develop the concept independently.  Riversimple’s two-seater isn’t big, and it isn’t beautiful, but it is bold –  ten gallon Texan hats off to the innovators!

Automotive Innovation

MUST WATCH:
Amory Lovins on Winning the Oil Endgame
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/amory_lovins_on_winning_the_oil_endgame.html

Riversimple – Urban Car
http://www.riversimple.com
http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gmg/op/view.m?id=105583&tid=34&cat=Energy