If you learned that someone had invented a car that runs on water, you’d probably be thrilled. But if you found out that the car consumes 50 gallons of water for every mile driven, you might wonder if it’s worth it.

Of course any vehicle that requires 50 gallons of any liquid fuel is a nonstarter given the volume and weight of the fuel, but for the purposes of this thought exercise the issue is using up all that water.

Something very like this scenario is rapidly becoming a reality, and is even mandated by law. It turns out that producing ethanol from corn uses an awful lot of water, and the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 requires the U.S. to produce 15 billion gallons...

In flush times, the funding of a company is not necessarily indicative of the potential success of that company (witness the last dot-com boom). One of interesting effects of a severe downturn in capital markets is that market forces have a tendency to mercilessly cull the herd. The money that does flow in times like these tends to be much more discriminating. That is why I received this morning's news that Fisker has secured an additional $85 Million in financing with such interest. I've been on record before with some skepticism about Fisker that went beyond the natural competitive sabre rattling that naturally happens when you are CMO of their competitor. My skepticism, which...

Scores of firms, startups and Fortune 500 companies alike, are working on algae-based biofuels.  Hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested.  And so far, maybe a few thousand gallons of algae oil have been produced. The question is: Can algae be economically cultivated and commercially scaled to make a material contribution to mankind’s liquid fuel needs?  The jury is still out. Ghosts of NREL Algae Programs Past The basement of the marine biology department at the University of Hawaii has a hallway lit by a dim incandescent bulb.  At the end of the hallway is a cardboard sign with the faded letters “ASP�? written on it.  A creaky door leads to a dank-smelling room crowded...

The A2B electric bike from Ultramotor has been around since August last year, but it is still getting a lot of attention whenever tested. I had the opportunity to take it for a spin and the summarizing feeling from the experience was: smooth. It looks cool, it's easy to use and it seems sturdy. Even for me, a 6'5" foot, 260 pound Swedish reporter, the bike was surprisingly quick and easy to get moving. Once I straddled the bike I got the same feeling as when I tried out a scooter for the first time: Will it bark off out of control and how do I stop it? But once I got moving, handling was no hassle. The twist grip throttle was easy to use and the acceleration was smooth, but not...

Much has been written about the potential impact of Big 3 bankruptcies on the hundreds of suppliers that sell parts and assemblies to them. Part of the logic of the auto bailout was that if any one of the Big 3 were to fail, it would bankrupt some of the tier 1 suppliers. This, in turn, could put additional pressure on the auto companies they supply. Hence, if GM were allowed to fail, Ford could be put in danger. The interconnectedness of the automakers, suppliers, dealers meant that any one failure could set off a catastrophic chain reaction, resulting in the loss of millions of jobs. A separate meme has also emerged, especially as it relates to the allocation of DOE grants and...

The news that MIT researchers have developed a lithium material that dramatically shortens battery charging times changes the equation for electric cars. It’s a long way from the lab to the showroom, but the battery breakthrough is a big step toward making electric cars eminently practical. Even though most of us drive fewer than 40 miles each day, the ranges allowed by today’s battery technologies are a major psychological barrier. And most of us do drive several hundred miles at a go now and then. Eventually batteries will store enough energy to give electric vehicles the ranges we expect from our cars. Fast-charging batteries could solve the problem before...

I clearly remember a very interesting debate I was involved in while at Tesla. The debate was about the manufacturing strategy for the WhiteStar (now known as the Model S) sedan. The plan had always been to manufacture the car in the U.S., but the new CEO was challenging our thinking on that plan. Michael Marks had built an extraordinarily successful company in Flextronics by providing outsourced electronics manufacturing services for its customers. Michael was one of the more knowledgeable people in business when it came to high quality manufacturing in China. The debate took place at the table in a hotel bar in Detroit with several members of the Tesla team. In order to...