(Note – this article was dictated 100% with only a few corrections. The grammatics, semantics and flow are all stream-of-thought drivel)
We have a real problem.
As most people would agree, we need to reduce greenhouse gas. One of the most effective ways to do this, would be to eliminate cars. Here in the United States, that’s going to be really difficult. The issue, of course, is that automakers are not going to put a hydrogen car (for example) into the mass market without there being the infrastructure to fuel them. Fuel companies, are not going to build a fueling infrastructure without there being cars to consume the fuel. Ergo the classic chicken or the egg problem. So what is the answer? I want an iCar.
No, it’s not that I want Apple to build my next car. It’s that I’d like some company to use the Apple model for construction of our new personal transportation infrastructure.
The Apple model, is to provide the entire experience – from purchase, to unpacking, the hardware, operating system and even a great amount of the software that will run on the machine. It’s not that Apple is such a great manufacturer of software, it’s that they provide me with the ability to move photos from my camera into my computer near effortlessly. It’s the fact that I can hook up my music device of choice, and iPhone to my iTunes library and have things exactly the way they that I want them, again, almost effortlessly.
This is in contrast to the Microsoft model, which is the strategic partnership between software vendors, an operating system vendor, and hardware vendors. The problem here is quite obvious: without a single “artist” or visionary, it is entirely possible for the pieces not to match perfectly, or even in fact make integration of different pieces problematic. Hardware vendors cannot move beyond the capabilities of Windows, and Windows must be bound to the current hardware status quo.
So how does an iCar look?
First, I need to be able to refuel from home. There are a couple very interesting technologies coming about, but the one I particularly like is a firm that is trying to genetically engineer a bacteria that eats CO2 and poops hydrogen. The benefits of a small cistern sitting in my backyard making use of this technology cannot be overstated. As you probably know, combusting hydrogen is a zero-pollution solution, because the exhaust is simply water.
A car that runs 100% on hydrogen will require more infrastructure than we can put in place anytime soon. And for a car to be really effective, it will need to be refueled just about anywhere I can drive. So the second phase would be for the car to be a hydrogen-electric hybrid, so that I can fuel up at any diner, or even retrofit the car with solar panels so that it could refuel a certain amount of its needs as I drive, or sit parked.
Assuming for a moment, but I cannot produce enough hydrogen every day to satisfy the three cars that currently sit in my driveway, I’ll need more fueling capability. Back to solar panels. If I could replace my curved Mexican tile roof, with pretty curved solar panels (these are on the way) and I could be producing and storing vast amounts of electricity simply because of the fact that I own land.
What I’d like, is for Richard Branson to create a company that wraps all of my needs to be green and self-sustaining into a single company, just like Apple makes my hardware and software experience so easy and fun. It strikes me, the company that had this capability would garner the same kind of fanatic fan base that Apple has as well, thereby insuring its success. The issue is not that I don’t want to be green, or that I hate the look of a Toyota Prius, or that it’s too expensive – all of these things can be overcome. The issue is that I don’t know where to go to get the right stuff without having to be extremely knowledgeable about all the topics. Yes, I can Google with the best of you, but that doesn’t mean that what I find is in fact good data. (Insert your own joke about Perk being a search engine spammer here LOL).
Someone needs to present the likes of me with a solution. it does not have to be the absolute best in every arena. There’s plenty argument, that Apple is not the best computer, nor the best operating system, nor the best GUI, nor the best platform, nor the best MP3 player, nor the best phone, nor the best monitors, nor the best keyboards or mice - but they are pretty damn good, and certainly in this case the whole far outstrips the sum of the parts.
So Richard, are you reading? Let’s do this thing. Several of my readers will probably jump on the bandwagon as quickly as I will. I think there’s big money in being the Steve Jobs of energy and transportation.
(Note: At braindonkey.com NutBalls references Ikea starting to sell solar panels. Perhaps it has begun)
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