Renewable Energy: Alternative Assembly
Renewable Energy: Alternative Assembly
image: Aleksandar Rodic
Globally many automotive plants sit idle after decades of successful assembly. Some have closed or reduced production, with jobs disappearing at astonishing rates. But in some cases alternative assembly from renewable-energy and new-tech enterprises are taking advantage of the automotive downturn. In turn transforming defunct automotive labour and assembly lines into alternative 'green jobs'. Many renewable-energy companies are seeing opportunities in old automotive assembly lines to produce equipment for solar and wind power systems. Following the trend of the rust-tech industrial base converting to clean-tech manufacturing.
The principal of buying assets when they're cheap is hardly a new idea, or exclusive to the automotive industry, therefore the growth of renewable energy is no exception to market development. Companies are paying only about 25 percent of the estimated cost of building those factories from scratch. Taking advantage of the low prices available today to expand their manufacturing capacity cheaply and to position themselves to grow when market conditions improve. These projects are real attempts to replace thousands of lost automotive jobs with 'green jobs'. It also proves the ability of some renewable-energy companies to benefit from the recession, especially from the automotive industry's pain.
Automotive Industry: Detroit’s Cultural Change
Automotive Industry: Detroit's Cultural Change
image: mug25
Once upon a time it was known as the world's traditional automotive powerhouse, but unfortunately 'Detroit' is no longer a symbol of power within the global automotive industry. Detroit's automotive industry has been forced upon a cultural change as a pure form of transformation, which was radical and fundamental. This cultural change involved changing the basic values, norms, and beliefs, in order to significantly improve performance. A mission that appeared impossibly daunting with numerous obstacles: collapse of market shares, overwhelming structural costs, profuse bleeding of cash.
The unusual suspect character that led the effort had no automotive or governmental experience. Steven Rattner left his Wall Street position, and straight into the largest restructuring attempt in American history. The scale and speed of the rescue raised many more questions, especially within the automotive circle. Rattner, who led the task force, believed passionately that the decision to intervene prevented a colossal economic collapse. Part of the suspicion was caused by the appointment of a 'non-car czar' to come to the rescue of a passionate industry.
Solar Power: Traffic Lights
Solar Power: Traffic Lights
'Green' traffic lights are not a new idea. The move to LED traffic lights is already offering significant savings on both energy consumption and costs. Berlin already derives 100% of their electricity for traffic control from renewable sources. India has combined both these attributes into a single traffic system. South African's first solar powered traffic light intersection was unveiled a few years ago. The main benefit being that traffic flows will be free of disruption when inevitable power failures occur.
Some solar-powered traffic signals have been previously provided by private investors. Sometimes costs were defrayed by allowing limited advertising on the lights. Certainly one way of getting motorists attention, but not likely to improve road safety. But the extensive use of renewable sources to power traffic lights is still very limited.
Electric Vehicles: Sounds
Electric Vehicles: Sounds
The near silent nature of Hybrids and Electric Vehicles is clearly a potential safety problem for pedestrians. Until now, the branded sounds cars make has been a function of the engine and exhaust system. The option of making future electric vehicles sound like anything we want creates a world of options.
After decades of trying to make cars quieter, manufacturers are willing to bring back, and even brand, decibels. It’s clear that some vehicle manufacturers see prospects of warning sounds as a unique and possibly valuable form of branding. Maybe even to the point of a commercial prospect.
Navigation: Video Maps
Navigation: Video Maps
While car navigation systems are gaining in importance, maps are still the medium of choice for laying out a route to a destination. However, even with a map, one is almost always more comfortable navigating a route the second time due to the visual memory of the route.
A novel navigation system under development at Microsoft aims to tweak visual memory with carefully chosen video clips of a route. The navigation system, called Videomap, adjusts the speed of the video and the picture to highlight key areas along the route. To make the first time navigating a route feel more familiar, the system integrates a map with a video automatically constructed from panoramic imagery captured at close intervals along the route.
Pre-Owned Electric Car Batteries
Pre-Owned Electric Car Batteries
Nissan and Sumitomo established a joint venture to recycle lithium-ion electric car batteries, which could give Nissan an early lead in the fledgling electric car market by making its vehicles more affordable. The venture is based on a '4R' business model - Reuse, Resell, Refabricate and Recycle. Nissan aims to launch mass market electric vehicles by 2012. It already operates a joint venture with NEC - Automotive Energy Supply Corporation (AESC) - that makes high-performance lithium-ion batteries.
Reselling the batteries solves one of electric car manufacturers' biggest problems, which is affordability. Demand is expected to be particularly high for back-up power supplies, uninterruptable power supplies, load levelling for the electricity grid, and levelling of energy from both photovoltaic solar and wind power. In Japan, demand for such recycled batteries is expected to reach the equivalent of at least 50,000 electric cars a year by 2020.
3 Wheels
3 Wheels
Three-wheel vehicles are not a new idea, but getting new ones beyond concept stages is mission impossible. Recent automotive shows have unveiled the latest generation of these tri-wheel cars. Each idea with new advantages and cutting-edge designs, three-wheelers are some of the coolest looking, if not totally practical, modes of transportation around.
A three wheeled car, also known as a tricar or tri-car, is a vehicle having either one wheel in the front for steering and two at the rear for power, two in the front for steering and one in the rear for power, or any other combination of layouts. Having one wheel in front and two in the rear for power reduces the cost of the steering mechanism, but greatly decreases stability. However, a configuration of two wheels in the front and one wheel at the back has many strong proponents among automotive designers and enthusiasts. Having one less wheel also increases fuel efficiency because of decreased rolling resistance.
Automotive Form Follows Automotive Function
Automotive Form Follows Automotive Function
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This saying first appeared in the 3rd century BC in Greek. It didn't appear in its current form in print until the 19th century, but in the meantime there were various written forms that expressed much the same thought. Toyota in 1997 is widely credited with coining the saying in the Hybrid arena with the Prius.
The Prius is still one ugly car. Not very politically correct, therefore apologies in advance if you own one, and our deepest sympathies to Toyota designers. If you don't own one, or didn't design the thing yourself, you probably agree with this opinion. Luckily they are slightly improving with each new revision. But assassinating the design of Toyota's Prius is not the intention of this opinionated article.
Sex Appeal: Fiat
Sex Appeal: Fiat
It has the reputation of the car all girls adore and has been voted the 'sexiest' car on the road - by women. In a recent survey women were asked for their definition of sex on wheels and the Fiat 500 came out way ahead of Ferraris, Lamborghinis and all those other cars which men think women are impressed by. A car with the roominess of a phone box, and the acceleration of a scooter. But Fiat cannot churn them out fast enough.
Now the next generation of Fiats will feature designs inspired by the 500. With the next Punto and Bravo likely to be the first models to adopt the new look. Although the styling of the current Punto has been widely praised, Fiat considers that it apparently puts off a significant amount of female buyers. The slightly aggressive design will go, in favour of a softer cuter approach. The change of design direction is crucial for Fiat, which needs to widen the appeal of a model range that is very dependent on small cars. More than that, it faces intensifying competition from many downsizing rivals that have not previously had models in the small car segment. But Fiat has to be careful with this strategy.
Brand Reputation: Ford Recalls
Ford Recalls
In an attempt to protect brand reputation, vehicle manufacturers have been very proactive towards warranty responsibilities. Amazingly, a serious safety problem which has plagued Ford for well over a decade has arisen again. Ford recently announced that it will add another 4.5 million older-model vehicles to the long list of those recalled because a defective cruise control switch could cause a fire. The problem first emerged in 1998, when the government investigated complaints of engine compartment fires.
The latest voluntary action pushes Ford's total recall due to faulty switches to 14.3 million registered vehicles over 10 years, capping the company's largest cumulative recall in history involving a single problem. The recall covers 1.1 million Ford Windstar minivans that had a small risk of fire due to internal leaking from the switches. Ford said in a letter to federal regulators that it found a small number of reported fires linked to the problem during an internal investigation that began last year, but did not specify how many.
