With the U.S. auto industry in rough shape, one thing is clear; we can never go back to the “good old days.” The global markets are changing, our tastes in vehicles are changing, energy prices are changing, and more Americans are becoming conscious of the environmental impact of traditional internal combustion engines.
Unfortunately, these are not even close to new issues. We’ve been having these discussions about pollution and dwindling oil supplies for decades now, but it’s been all talk and no walk. Nate Silver recently showed how General Motors has been on the decline for the last 50 years. We will never know how differently things would have gone, had they not been ignoring alternative technologies that have been around for over 30 years – check out Jack Nicholson driving his solar/hydrogen-powered car in 1978.
The U.S. auto-highway-oil industrial complex has long resisted new technologies. Despite the success of the electric cars GM made in the early 90’s, they quickly pulled the plug on the project and somehow still got beat out by Honda and Toyota in the hybrid-car revolution.
Through fear of going bankrupt, government pressure, or both – GM is at least apparently trying now. The PUMA, a joint project between GM and Segway, was unveiled today. It’s ugly as hell, but if they can produce these at an affordable price they may be onto something. Don’t get me wrong, nothing beats haulin’ some ass in a cherry red V8 convertible on the open road – but one of these for cruising around town on the day-to-day grind would be pretty handy.
The grassroots geeks haven’t been waiting for the auto industry to get its priorities straight. There’s a growing movement of electric car conversion, and free plans are widely available on the internet for creating electric motorcycles for just a few thousand dollars in parts. The open source model has been adopted by the OScar Project, making the car’s plans openly available for personal use and improvement by a limitless community of volunteers.
I would love to see these kinds of projects come together, and I’m optimistic that the new inkjet-printable solar cell technology will allow a vehicle like this to run without plugging in for much greater distances and periods of time when the sun is out.
The next big thing in transportation will likely come out of the mind and workshop of someone whose name we don’t know yet. Seeing some new independent car companies stepping up and picking up the slack of the failing Big 3 would be a great thing, especially in terms of creating green jobs for the layed-off auto workers.
The only question is, will the hulking beast we call the automobile industry adopt these ideas and create vehicles for the 21st century – or will they continue to try to squash new technologies and attempt to maintain an unsustainable status quo?
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