How David Beats Goliath

In the familiar Gladwell approach (Similar to Outliers, which is a great read) - He proves that success does not have to come only to those who are advantaged or naturally talented - but can be achieved by adopting a different approach, and more importantly having the will to take on the more difficult option, and put in much more effort.

As Gladwell mentions "Effort can trump ability...  because relentless effort is in fact something rarer than the ability to engage in some finely tuned act of motor coordination"

The design is great.

And the specs even more so:

• 300 Mile range
• Only 45min for full charge (which BTW costs only $4 for a full tank)
• 0-60mph in 5.6 seconds
• 17 Inch, Touch screen TV, with in-car 3G connectivity (so you can use apps such as Pandora, Google Maps, etc)

Does any one need any more convincing?!

You can place an order on their website here.

But just before you do... take note of two caveats:  

1. $50,000 base price. I guess that with the minimal options it would come closer to $60,000 or more...

2. Deliveries start in 2011. So unless you work on Sand Hill Road and have invested in the company, prepare to wait. (consider that Tesla has delivered 300 of its Roadsters to date with nearly 1,000 more customers still on the waiting list)

So...

I decided to pass on the car, and just buy the T-Shirt.

But they are out of stock...

I found this one quite amusing... Are extraterritorial  beings drawn to renewable energy as well?

Its exciting because this is a totally new way of thinking about wind energy production. It even seems a bit science fiction. If successful in scaling and achieving performance, it would present a real paradigm shift.

In many ways this reminds me of the shift from sails into steam engines for propelling ships (a case in which the further addition of sales did not provide sufficient power gains). Ironically, here the shift is moving in the opposite direction: Back from a rotating blade design and into a sail / wing design.

But back to reality... Achieving such solution will take many years, and significant funding to get to commercial scale.

As with many of the early stage, disruptive innovations in the energy space, this is a good example of the many hurdles a project must overcome, as it moves from the drawing board, to a pilot system, and through to a commercial grade system. These include proving the technology works, its performance, the full system reliability (across various conditions and time periods), the lifetime system costs (including ongoing operations and maintenance which seem high in this case), etc...  Even once all these are achieved, there is still the challenge of finding appropriate locations, permitting, accessing grid transmission (a huge problem, which I'll try to touch on separately), air space permits (beware low flying planes), and so on.

Not an easy task - but if you're going to change a paradigm - I guess that's what it takes. 

And there's one great thing in going after the wind energy space - The potential is so great that there's room for any successful and economic solution.

(Source: Wired magazine  creative concept)

Seeing this I was reminded of a great scene from "Back to the Future"... (one of my childhood favourites) - back in the 80's this really seemed science fiction to me.

Some key quotes:

"Someone in the mobility business in Denmark and Tel Aviv is already developing a real-world alternative to Detroit’s business model...

...our bailout of Detroit will be remembered as the equivalent of pouring billions of dollars of taxpayer money into the mail-order-catalogue business on the eve of the birth of eBay. It will be remembered as pouring billions of dollars into the CD music business on the eve of the birth of the iPod and iTunes...

...What I find exciting about Better Place is that it is building a car company off the new industrial platform of the 21st century, not the one from the 20th — the exact same way that Steve Jobs did to overturn the music business."

(here's the original link by clip)

Really great

Interesting what Wall Street bankers discover when they have some spare time (and much less cash) - for example: The best store in NYC (is buying food at Trader Joe's rather than take out dinner)

What will this mean for the future of renewable energy?

In the short term, it seems the answer is, unfortunately, a real slow down. 

The combination of easing energy costs and a global credit crunch (making financing of new projects close to impossible) will slow down the progress of most companies in the space (Wind has been taking the majority of the hit over the last week, but this is true for solar, geothermal, and the others). A good article on this in the WSJ here

But in the long term, this may well be just be a small hiccup in the drive to eliminate energy dependence on oil.

Last night the show 60 Minutes had a profile with T Boone Pickens, who is trying to drive a shift into renewable energy with the "Pickens Plan" (this is a man that made his fortunes in the oil industry). He's already taken a big hit from the falling markets, and looks to be in for a rough time with his huge bet on the wind sector. But in the long term I believe he'll come out a huge winner.

Worth viewing:

Here's a great map showing the performance of various stocks by sectors, with a strong red for the major declines.

What is the big island of green on the right? Try to guess

(Answer: Nothing to do with green technology of course... rather gold)

The company announced today a deal to set up a $660 million network in Australia, through partnership with two key groups - AGL Energy and Macquarie

This is a significant move, that will help prove the company's ability to scale its business well beyond small markets, and create one of the largest companies to ever come out of Israel. Good to see one person that's not slowing down at all in the current markets

Apparently it was their first performance in the US.

The show was great, so no need to elaborate too much on that.

This was the first time I attended such an (Israeli abroad) event since I left Israel:

• The crowd was almost all Israeli's (not a big surprise). It seemed that most of the Israeli tech industry relocated to the valley was there (with quite a few from the Green tech space this year). So a great opportunity to catch up with the startups, hear who's raising money, who's hiring, (and these days who's firing)
• Most were between 30-45, married (very few were single), living around the valley (not to many inside SF), probably 1-3 young kids at home with a babysitter, just here for a "few" years
• For the first time I realised what a sense of patriotism these events provide to all those who are based out here. Something like Bob Hope going to entertain the troops. Its nice to see, but very sad to be on the receiving end.

My new years resolution will be to see much more local artists perform in Israel (rather than away)