"Tesla would mark the first public offering from a U.S. automaker since Henry Ford's Ford Motor debuted its shares in 1956."
Congratulations! Finally a digital automaking
beach head on the edge of the world's largest
and farthest reaching businesses while five
billion 5,000,000,000 customers dream of
driving their first cars and trucks!!!
MORE than eight out of 10 humans
Planet Earth still do NOT own
their own cars or trucks!!!
Showing posts with label Tesla. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tesla. Show all posts
Friday, December 18, 2009
Thursday, December 3, 2009
High Voltage WiFi
There's a story about Tesla helping his friend
who had broken down on the side of the road in
an analgoue or tube electric car long before
computers were invented...
Tesla proceed to tell the friend to hold on
and ran to the hardware store and built a
small device much like a radio black box
and told his friend that he would simply
catch electricity from the air to fix the car.
Within the same day, Tesla had the black box
receiving energy and hooked up his friend's
car who drove away in his wireless electric car.
According to the article below the digital version has arrived!!!
Wireless electricity.
Can we imagine never having to fill up
or charge up our mobile devices including
the next generation of rolling high voltage computers?
who had broken down on the side of the road in
an analgoue or tube electric car long before
computers were invented...
Tesla proceed to tell the friend to hold on
and ran to the hardware store and built a
small device much like a radio black box
and told his friend that he would simply
catch electricity from the air to fix the car.
Within the same day, Tesla had the black box
receiving energy and hooked up his friend's
car who drove away in his wireless electric car.
According to the article below the digital version has arrived!!!
Wireless electricity.
Can we imagine never having to fill up
or charge up our mobile devices including
the next generation of rolling high voltage computers?
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Investing in Digital Automaking
How can one invest in the future of the automobile
after over one hundred years of analogue development
during this cusp of a massive industry wide transition
to digital technologies from clean diesel to electrics???
Daimler just gave you the chance by swallowing 10% of Tesla.
As most digital automakers like Telsa are privately traded
you cannot buy their stock on the public markets so since
Daimler is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange
and owns 10% of Tesla as of the same day MPG and greenhouse
gas emissions standards started the American digital automaking
race you can research and invest in Daimler to place bets on
clean diesel luxury automaking along with Tesla power trains.
Investing $50M for almost 10% of Tesla roughly values
the leading electric sports car maker almost at half
a billion dollar company after only delivering
a hundred or two roadsters to customers, WOW!!!
Here's some helpful links for you:
NYSE: DAI on Google Finance or Yahoo Finance
after over one hundred years of analogue development
during this cusp of a massive industry wide transition
to digital technologies from clean diesel to electrics???
Daimler just gave you the chance by swallowing 10% of Tesla.
As most digital automakers like Telsa are privately traded
you cannot buy their stock on the public markets so since
Daimler is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange
and owns 10% of Tesla as of the same day MPG and greenhouse
gas emissions standards started the American digital automaking
race you can research and invest in Daimler to place bets on
clean diesel luxury automaking along with Tesla power trains.
Investing $50M for almost 10% of Tesla roughly values
the leading electric sports car maker almost at half
a billion dollar company after only delivering
a hundred or two roadsters to customers, WOW!!!
Here's some helpful links for you:
NYSE: DAI on Google Finance or Yahoo Finance
Friday, April 10, 2009
Digital Tires
I went out to the truck the other day, and it looked pretty low on one side...
The front left tire was flat so I changed the tire and checked the odometer...
The Original Equipment (OE) tires were beyond their life at over
70,000 miles which meant that I drove very carefully and
constantly exceeded the EPA MPG rating...
Even though I didn't have the digital version of the vehicle.
In the gasoline Ranger rated at around 20 MPG avg,
I've been able to get 24 MPG around town and up to 38 MPG on the highway
which is almost doubling mileage or 40% OFF your $1,000 to $5,000 gas bill/yr.
For a higher mileage car,
doubling mileage would mean going from 30 to 60 MPG
or 40 to 80 MPG or even 50 to 100 MPG for advanced users.
In my last digital car with the tires pumped up on the highway behind a semi truck
it was easy to get mileage over 100 MPG for a few minutes at a time by lowering
resistance, both air and tire.
So let's take a look at digital tiremaking:
Some studies show tires eating up to 20% of your fuel energy!
One of the most expensive solutions is reported as Michelin's $43,000,000+
investment into the "Energy Saver" series of tire release in Europe
that for some unknown reason is being dumbed down as "Primacy" for the USA.
So here's a list of tires on digital vehicles installed by manufacturers
on to stock digital vehicles that were developed with mileage in mind.
"Bridgestones" - Toyota RAV-4 EV
Bridgestone Potenza - Honda Insight Hybrid USA
Continental ContiTrac EcoPlus - Ford Escape Hybrid USA
Dunlop SP31A - 2010 Honda Insight Revenge
Goodyear FuelMax (an extra mile) - 2011 Chevrolet Volt
Michelin Energy LX4 - 2007 Toyota Highlander Hybrid
Michelin Energy Saver - Toyota Prius EURO
Michelin HXV4 - Toyota Prius USA
Michelin MXV4 (215/60R 16 95H)- Honda FCX
Michelin Pilot HX MXM4 (215/45R17 87V) - 2010 Prius Hybrid USA
Michelin Proxima RR (175/65R14, self-sealing tires, tire pressure warning indicator) - Saturn EV-1
Yokohama ADVAN A10F (160/A/A) - Lexus GS450h
Yokohama ADVAN Neova - 2006 Tesla Roadster
Yokohama AVS E100 Radial (195/80R16 at 44 psi) - 1996 Toyota RAV-4 EV
Yokohama E105 (205/60R15 91H) - 2004-2007 Honda FCX Fuel Cell Vehicle
This list is a work in progress as OEM tire research
is much more difficult than expected.
The front left tire was flat so I changed the tire and checked the odometer...
The Original Equipment (OE) tires were beyond their life at over
70,000 miles which meant that I drove very carefully and
constantly exceeded the EPA MPG rating...
Even though I didn't have the digital version of the vehicle.
In the gasoline Ranger rated at around 20 MPG avg,
I've been able to get 24 MPG around town and up to 38 MPG on the highway
which is almost doubling mileage or 40% OFF your $1,000 to $5,000 gas bill/yr.
For a higher mileage car,
doubling mileage would mean going from 30 to 60 MPG
or 40 to 80 MPG or even 50 to 100 MPG for advanced users.
In my last digital car with the tires pumped up on the highway behind a semi truck
it was easy to get mileage over 100 MPG for a few minutes at a time by lowering
resistance, both air and tire.
So let's take a look at digital tiremaking:
Some studies show tires eating up to 20% of your fuel energy!
One of the most expensive solutions is reported as Michelin's $43,000,000+
investment into the "Energy Saver" series of tire release in Europe
that for some unknown reason is being dumbed down as "Primacy" for the USA.
So here's a list of tires on digital vehicles installed by manufacturers
on to stock digital vehicles that were developed with mileage in mind.
"Bridgestones" - Toyota RAV-4 EV
Bridgestone Potenza - Honda Insight Hybrid USA
Continental ContiTrac EcoPlus - Ford Escape Hybrid USA
Dunlop SP31A - 2010 Honda Insight Revenge
Goodyear FuelMax (an extra mile) - 2011 Chevrolet Volt
Michelin Energy LX4 - 2007 Toyota Highlander Hybrid
Michelin Energy Saver - Toyota Prius EURO
Michelin HXV4 - Toyota Prius USA
Michelin MXV4 (215/60R 16 95H)- Honda FCX
Michelin Pilot HX MXM4 (215/45R17 87V) - 2010 Prius Hybrid USA
Michelin Proxima RR (175/65R14, self-sealing tires, tire pressure warning indicator) - Saturn EV-1
Yokohama ADVAN A10F (160/A/A) - Lexus GS450h
Yokohama ADVAN Neova - 2006 Tesla Roadster
Yokohama AVS E100 Radial (195/80R16 at 44 psi) - 1996 Toyota RAV-4 EV
Yokohama E105 (205/60R15 91H) - 2004-2007 Honda FCX Fuel Cell Vehicle
This list is a work in progress as OEM tire research
is much more difficult than expected.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Sunday, February 24, 2008
All About Electric & Hybrid Cars Nugget
This post is one in a series where I capture
"nuggets" of information from books
that we can also use for our references
or to back up our arguments.
In All About Electric & Hybrid Cars by Robert J. Traister
Copyright 1982 by TAB BOOKS, INC, Blue Ridge Summit, PA
on pages 82-88 discusses controlling the speed of electric motors.
This is a very expensive and important topic
and was actually the bottleneck for Toyota
in developing the 80 G21 designs into the
Hybrid Synergy Drive that came may failures
and years later. The most expensive was the
decision to start a factory to manufacturer
power controllers because they could not source them.
Traister writes from an engineering perspective
and explains how the "gas pedal" works in electrics and hybrids:
PULSING TECHNIQUE
Rather than controlling the amount of air that enters a gasoline engine,
turning off and on the electricity to the motor depending on where the
gas pedal is describes pulsing or controlling the motor so you can drive.
SCR
Traister cites silicon-controlled rectifiers (SCRs) as the best devices
because they are highly efficient (95%). Compare that with burning
gasoline one of every four strokes (25%). Remember that electric
motors and batteries have been described as 90% efficient in my
interview with a Tesla Motors VP.
PROS = Secret Black Box
Although the SCR has no moving parts, it can clearly be wired
or programmed to perform differently. I believe that nearby is
where you will find billions of dollars of R&D monies invested
over the next 100 years of digital car development.
Probably in the system controllers that tell the SCR
WHEN, which way and what to do,
both in terms of hardware and software.
CONS = Cost
In 1982 dollars, Traister quoted SCR choppers for 400 amps
for the do-it-yourself electric or hybrid vehicle builder at
$750 to $3000 each.
Even back in the day, Traister agreeed with my silver bullet R&D hypothesis
of controllers over batteries by closing the chapter with,
"Much research and development is presently underway by various companies in the motor controller field. A listing of some of these manufacturers can be found in the appendices of this book."
The list was long 25 years ago and I've taken the time to list the names of organizations from Traister's 1983 Appendix E here ON CONTROLLERS: Brewer Associates, Cableform, Inc., Curtis Instruments, Dart Controls, Inc., EHB Systems, Inc., Electric Motion Control Corp., Electric Regulator, EVC Inc., Fengler Controls, FMC Corporation, General Electric Company, General Power Corporation, H.B. Electrical Mfg. Co., Inc., Propel Inc., RH Electronics, Robert Borsche Corporation, Ross Engineering Corporation, Sevcon, Siskiyou Energy Systems, Soleq Corporation, Uniparts Inc. and Unitron Corp.
Now that's a much lower profile yet arguably more important
list than what you see today, and Secret Black Boxes are
just as hidden even though the end product has blossomed.
The list has grown much larger into many different lists today
and one of my favorite is the Automotive X Prize Teams.
It's amazing to see so many digital auto entrepreneurs
with so few patents and hard core controller understanding.
If I was getting into the digital auto game, I would make sure
my team knew about every controller patent out there as
well as every competitor using a controller to drive a car,
then only then, could I successfully plot the tactics to win.
WHY?
Because if Toyota has a $1,000,000,000.00+ head start on SCR and controller R&D,
what company in their right mind could ever catch up. It doesn't matter if we're
talking about the next great battery, electric cars, hybrids or digital cars,
if you don't have hundreds of patents in your Secret Black Box,
you had better get a license or buy a company fast!!!
THANK YOU Traister for
spending several pages laying out a basic explanation for
tomorrow's "gas pedal" in a world accelerating the use of electrons.
TAKEAWAY
So the next time you pick a stock or judge an electric car company,
criticize a hybrid or start up your own digital automaker,
take a good hard look under the hood of the Secret Black Box.
HINT
It's the big black or silver looking thing under every hood
in plain sight with special words like Hybrid Synergy Drive
hiding billions of dollars, thousands of paychecks, hundred of patents
and the basics of what will drive the digital automotive revolution for years to come!
"nuggets" of information from books
that we can also use for our references
or to back up our arguments.
In All About Electric & Hybrid Cars by Robert J. Traister
Copyright 1982 by TAB BOOKS, INC, Blue Ridge Summit, PA
on pages 82-88 discusses controlling the speed of electric motors.
This is a very expensive and important topic
and was actually the bottleneck for Toyota
in developing the 80 G21 designs into the
Hybrid Synergy Drive that came may failures
and years later. The most expensive was the
decision to start a factory to manufacturer
power controllers because they could not source them.
Traister writes from an engineering perspective
and explains how the "gas pedal" works in electrics and hybrids:
PULSING TECHNIQUE
Rather than controlling the amount of air that enters a gasoline engine,
turning off and on the electricity to the motor depending on where the
gas pedal is describes pulsing or controlling the motor so you can drive.
SCR
Traister cites silicon-controlled rectifiers (SCRs) as the best devices
because they are highly efficient (95%). Compare that with burning
gasoline one of every four strokes (25%). Remember that electric
motors and batteries have been described as 90% efficient in my
interview with a Tesla Motors VP.
PROS = Secret Black Box
Although the SCR has no moving parts, it can clearly be wired
or programmed to perform differently. I believe that nearby is
where you will find billions of dollars of R&D monies invested
over the next 100 years of digital car development.
Probably in the system controllers that tell the SCR
WHEN, which way and what to do,
both in terms of hardware and software.
CONS = Cost
In 1982 dollars, Traister quoted SCR choppers for 400 amps
for the do-it-yourself electric or hybrid vehicle builder at
$750 to $3000 each.
Even back in the day, Traister agreeed with my silver bullet R&D hypothesis
of controllers over batteries by closing the chapter with,
"Much research and development is presently underway by various companies in the motor controller field. A listing of some of these manufacturers can be found in the appendices of this book."
The list was long 25 years ago and I've taken the time to list the names of organizations from Traister's 1983 Appendix E here ON CONTROLLERS: Brewer Associates, Cableform, Inc., Curtis Instruments, Dart Controls, Inc., EHB Systems, Inc., Electric Motion Control Corp., Electric Regulator, EVC Inc., Fengler Controls, FMC Corporation, General Electric Company, General Power Corporation, H.B. Electrical Mfg. Co., Inc., Propel Inc., RH Electronics, Robert Borsche Corporation, Ross Engineering Corporation, Sevcon, Siskiyou Energy Systems, Soleq Corporation, Uniparts Inc. and Unitron Corp.
Now that's a much lower profile yet arguably more important
list than what you see today, and Secret Black Boxes are
just as hidden even though the end product has blossomed.
The list has grown much larger into many different lists today
and one of my favorite is the Automotive X Prize Teams.
It's amazing to see so many digital auto entrepreneurs
with so few patents and hard core controller understanding.
If I was getting into the digital auto game, I would make sure
my team knew about every controller patent out there as
well as every competitor using a controller to drive a car,
then only then, could I successfully plot the tactics to win.
WHY?
Because if Toyota has a $1,000,000,000.00+ head start on SCR and controller R&D,
what company in their right mind could ever catch up. It doesn't matter if we're
talking about the next great battery, electric cars, hybrids or digital cars,
if you don't have hundreds of patents in your Secret Black Box,
you had better get a license or buy a company fast!!!
THANK YOU Traister for
spending several pages laying out a basic explanation for
tomorrow's "gas pedal" in a world accelerating the use of electrons.
TAKEAWAY
So the next time you pick a stock or judge an electric car company,
criticize a hybrid or start up your own digital automaker,
take a good hard look under the hood of the Secret Black Box.
HINT
It's the big black or silver looking thing under every hood
in plain sight with special words like Hybrid Synergy Drive
hiding billions of dollars, thousands of paychecks, hundred of patents
and the basics of what will drive the digital automotive revolution for years to come!
Friday, February 22, 2008
Which Business Score Counts???
at Martin's Tesla Founders Blog
there is a very lively debate
on how to keep score of a business.
Most of the businesses are automakers
and the products are usually cars.
The majority camp believes that products are what matter
and the minority camp (that myself and Martin subscribe to)
value business systems as more important than business products.
In Built to Last by two Stanford Professors,
the argument is deepened further,
akin to "clock building" vs "time telling."
Clock building is focusing on things in your company's DNA,
like for Toyota, kaizen, or values like frugality that help
employees on business trips order ramen instead of sushi.
Telling time is like making a MP3 player because everyone else is.
The hybrid and electric vehicle is much like the iPod for the world'
largest business and companies are all over the place in searching
for strategies: some are product based and few are systems based.
IF I WAS TO STARTUP AN AUTOMAKER SYSTEM...
I WOULD START WITH ? ENTITIES...
but let's save that for another blog, sorry...
BACK TO TESLA FOUNDERS BLOG AND MY RESPONSE TO A BLOGGER KINDLY ANSWERING MY QUESTIONS ABOUT PATENTS AND MARTIN'S RESPONSE
One of the most lively debates appears under Martin's posts on Kaizen.
In response to my question," How many patents does the Tesla Roadster have compared to the Prius?"
TEG wrote:
"Here are some examples:" and proceeded to list some important details that obviously costs his voluntary time!
FIRST OF ALL TEG, I would really like to say THANK YOU for going out of your way to do some research and answer my question. That is very kind of you!
You have taught some of the value of a blog (as I'm new to this system, although I've been scribbling for decades)...
Back to the question about patents related to the topic of kaizen.
COMPANY OR CAR???
As Martin and I try to hit home over and over, it's about the business system and much less about the product.
Kaizen is simply one example, and it DOES NOT mean that anything Toyota touches is golden. Anyway, that system had roots in Deming's work, who had also worked with Ford. So, yes you need a team AND a system, but I argue, system first, most argue team first...
Martin said:
"A lot of you seem to miss my point. Kaizen applies to the way you run a factory, work with suppliers, negotiate contracts, structure the company, etc. The whole point is to encourage evolution so that your business gets better over time and learns from its mistakes.
I am talking about evolution of business processes."
THIS IS PROFOUND AND PROVED IN BUILT TO LAST!!!
SO IF WE ARE COMPARING companies and technologies under the system approach, how do we keep score???
Traditionally, we measure sales, or consumer acceptance. That to me only measures the products, half the battle. After all, a company is a collection of resources working in a unique system.
What about measuring the system???
PATENT SCOREBOARD
I would argue that the patent trade war is a good place to start.
What is a patent anyway???
Well, is it not the result of several failures???
Trial and error inside of a business system.
If so, than the number of patents is a great metric for evaluating business systems (companies), especially startups that don't have customers yet.
BACK TO TEG's hard work on Tesla vs. Toyota patents. FIRST OF ALL, it's unfair to compare these two business systems, Toyota is a collection of hundreds of businesses and thousands of suppliers and tens of thousands of employees, while Tesla is a startup.
BUT, I was very curious to see if anyone out there knew that the G21 project that failed through 80 car designs to accidentally land on the Prius and filed 650 PATENTS ALONG THE WAY!!!
The bottleneck for the most successful digital automobile every produced was the high voltage controller. Even Silicon Valley knows little (has far fewer patents on than lo voltages) about high voltage.
Toyota plowed $1 billion into a secret factory head up by an engineer that started his career scrubbing catalytic converters 30 years prior, churning through the system of Kaizen, where failure in R&D is acceptable. Up in Northern Nagoya, the guy built the brains that became the Hybrid Snergy Drive. The product WAS NOT the goal, it was a system to run the first Prius because no supplier could come up with enough high quality controllers.
AGAIN THAT WAS A POTENTIAL $1,000,000,000.00 FAILURE (IRONICALLY THE SAME PRICE AS THE EV-1) WITH MANY SMALL FAILURES ALONG THE WAY THAT BECAME PATENTS (IRONICALLY HOW MANY GM EV-1 PATENTS ARE ON THE SCOREBOARD?).
So the reason I keep bringing the Prius into the picture is that VERY FEW people understand how many failures occured and how the Toyota system worked through those with a rush deadline for the Kyoto Protocol. The managers and engineers hated each other on the project.
The other misunderstanding is that people calculate the $1 billion dollar factory into just the Prius and don't realize it's a system that will probably last until Toyota's last day.
SO WHAT IS THE SCORE???
Toyota ($1 billion high voltage controller secret factory and 650 patents that became the Hybrid Synergy Drive)
GM's how many patents on E-Flex
Tesla's how many patents on energy management
Mitsubishi's how many patents on in-wheel electrics
Ford's (300+ related to the Escape hybrid) how many plug-in controller patents
Where we can get a scoreboard of patents on the high voltage race to the digital automobile???
PS I'm not asking for patent search help, as this is not an engineering scoreboard, think ESPN that reports the score on each of the sports systems running. Just the area of patents and number by company.
there is a very lively debate
on how to keep score of a business.
Most of the businesses are automakers
and the products are usually cars.
The majority camp believes that products are what matter
and the minority camp (that myself and Martin subscribe to)
value business systems as more important than business products.
In Built to Last by two Stanford Professors,
the argument is deepened further,
akin to "clock building" vs "time telling."
Clock building is focusing on things in your company's DNA,
like for Toyota, kaizen, or values like frugality that help
employees on business trips order ramen instead of sushi.
Telling time is like making a MP3 player because everyone else is.
The hybrid and electric vehicle is much like the iPod for the world'
largest business and companies are all over the place in searching
for strategies: some are product based and few are systems based.
IF I WAS TO STARTUP AN AUTOMAKER SYSTEM...
I WOULD START WITH ? ENTITIES...
but let's save that for another blog, sorry...
BACK TO TESLA FOUNDERS BLOG AND MY RESPONSE TO A BLOGGER KINDLY ANSWERING MY QUESTIONS ABOUT PATENTS AND MARTIN'S RESPONSE
One of the most lively debates appears under Martin's posts on Kaizen.
In response to my question," How many patents does the Tesla Roadster have compared to the Prius?"
TEG wrote:
"Here are some examples:" and proceeded to list some important details that obviously costs his voluntary time!
FIRST OF ALL TEG, I would really like to say THANK YOU for going out of your way to do some research and answer my question. That is very kind of you!
You have taught some of the value of a blog (as I'm new to this system, although I've been scribbling for decades)...
Back to the question about patents related to the topic of kaizen.
COMPANY OR CAR???
As Martin and I try to hit home over and over, it's about the business system and much less about the product.
Kaizen is simply one example, and it DOES NOT mean that anything Toyota touches is golden. Anyway, that system had roots in Deming's work, who had also worked with Ford. So, yes you need a team AND a system, but I argue, system first, most argue team first...
Martin said:
"A lot of you seem to miss my point. Kaizen applies to the way you run a factory, work with suppliers, negotiate contracts, structure the company, etc. The whole point is to encourage evolution so that your business gets better over time and learns from its mistakes.
I am talking about evolution of business processes."
THIS IS PROFOUND AND PROVED IN BUILT TO LAST!!!
SO IF WE ARE COMPARING companies and technologies under the system approach, how do we keep score???
Traditionally, we measure sales, or consumer acceptance. That to me only measures the products, half the battle. After all, a company is a collection of resources working in a unique system.
What about measuring the system???
PATENT SCOREBOARD
I would argue that the patent trade war is a good place to start.
What is a patent anyway???
Well, is it not the result of several failures???
Trial and error inside of a business system.
If so, than the number of patents is a great metric for evaluating business systems (companies), especially startups that don't have customers yet.
BACK TO TEG's hard work on Tesla vs. Toyota patents. FIRST OF ALL, it's unfair to compare these two business systems, Toyota is a collection of hundreds of businesses and thousands of suppliers and tens of thousands of employees, while Tesla is a startup.
BUT, I was very curious to see if anyone out there knew that the G21 project that failed through 80 car designs to accidentally land on the Prius and filed 650 PATENTS ALONG THE WAY!!!
The bottleneck for the most successful digital automobile every produced was the high voltage controller. Even Silicon Valley knows little (has far fewer patents on than lo voltages) about high voltage.
Toyota plowed $1 billion into a secret factory head up by an engineer that started his career scrubbing catalytic converters 30 years prior, churning through the system of Kaizen, where failure in R&D is acceptable. Up in Northern Nagoya, the guy built the brains that became the Hybrid Snergy Drive. The product WAS NOT the goal, it was a system to run the first Prius because no supplier could come up with enough high quality controllers.
AGAIN THAT WAS A POTENTIAL $1,000,000,000.00 FAILURE (IRONICALLY THE SAME PRICE AS THE EV-1) WITH MANY SMALL FAILURES ALONG THE WAY THAT BECAME PATENTS (IRONICALLY HOW MANY GM EV-1 PATENTS ARE ON THE SCOREBOARD?).
So the reason I keep bringing the Prius into the picture is that VERY FEW people understand how many failures occured and how the Toyota system worked through those with a rush deadline for the Kyoto Protocol. The managers and engineers hated each other on the project.
The other misunderstanding is that people calculate the $1 billion dollar factory into just the Prius and don't realize it's a system that will probably last until Toyota's last day.
SO WHAT IS THE SCORE???
Toyota ($1 billion high voltage controller secret factory and 650 patents that became the Hybrid Synergy Drive)
GM's how many patents on E-Flex
Tesla's how many patents on energy management
Mitsubishi's how many patents on in-wheel electrics
Ford's (300+ related to the Escape hybrid) how many plug-in controller patents
Where we can get a scoreboard of patents on the high voltage race to the digital automobile???
PS I'm not asking for patent search help, as this is not an engineering scoreboard, think ESPN that reports the score on each of the sports systems running. Just the area of patents and number by company.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Who will win the Lithium race?
Automakers spend more on R&D than any other industry. For example, Toyota spends 10 times more dollars than Apple. Getting to the Prius cost $1 billion and getting to the next digital transportation breakthrough is costing more.
The race to marry Lithium with automobiles is attracting top talent, global money powering new technologies with promising futures.
Just as entrepreneurs and corporate American filled the analogue to digital wake that Napster left in the music industry, venture capitalist and the largest organizations in the world are racing to R&D the iPod for the auto industry.
I wonder who will sell me the automobile that can drive across the digital divide and set the standard to accelerate away from the competition...
Start your Lithium teams and then engines (ranked in random order)!!!
The race to marry Lithium with automobiles is attracting top talent, global money powering new technologies with promising futures.
Just as entrepreneurs and corporate American filled the analogue to digital wake that Napster left in the music industry, venture capitalist and the largest organizations in the world are racing to R&D the iPod for the auto industry.
I wonder who will sell me the automobile that can drive across the digital divide and set the standard to accelerate away from the competition...
Start your Lithium teams and then engines (ranked in random order)!!!
- Team Volt: Sequoia, GM, A123
- Team VW: 360 million euros to develop Li-ion batteries by Bosch, Evonic Degssa, Li-Tec, STEAG Saar Egnergie including 60 million euros from the German govt. (Automotive Engineer, Dec 2007, Vol. 32 Issue 11, p 47)
- Team Nissan: NEC Lamilion Energy, A123, SAP AG
- New Enterprise Associates, BlueRun Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and DFJ
- Element/$7.5mR1-$15MR2 Deeya Energy
- Team Ford: GE, $30 million R1, $40 million R2 for A123, Sanyo
- Team Phoenix: Al Yousaf, Altair
- Team GM: Cobasts, Johnson
- Vincent Bollore/EDF/$52.8M BatScap/Continental AG/BMW/Pininfarina/BlueCar
- Team Mitsubishi: GS Yuasu, Lithium Energy Japan, MiEV
- Team Tesla: $37M Musk/VantagePoint Venture Partners, Technology Partners, and Draper Fisher Jurvetson/$105M Tesla
- Team Fisker: $10M Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers/Quantum
- Team Zenn: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers/EEEstor/$25M Zenn/Lockheed
- Israel Corp., Morgan Stanley, VantagePoint Venture Partners/Renault Nissan/Israel's Ofer Shipping Holdings/$200 million R1 for Project Better Place
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Start Your Digital Engines!!!
Influenced by the founder of Tesla's story here:
http://teslafounders.wordpress.com/about/#comment-1030
I wrote this short piece about why the digital car
and not the electric or gasoline or diesel is what matters:
RE About Tesla's Founder
This is a beautiful story in progress, but I would like to politely disagree with one thing.
There have been many theories about why the electric car failed. But did it?
Through the period of the car's invention and growth, the electric and steam hybrids dominated the analogue market. Kind of like AOL dominating the .com boom over copper wires.
What happened?
The internet went digital (broadband) just like record became CDs quickly replaced by the digital iPod that really took off when Jobs lowered the price of flash memory for the world in one deal (nano).
Now imagine if some startup halved the price of Lithium or nano-Lithium or crystal Lithium batteries with one order.
Why would they be making that order?
Because the car went digital, not electric!
Why did it take 10 years from CD to iPod or dial-up to broadband or Walkman to Zune or Tube to Flat Screen or book to Kindle?
Because in between the industrial age (analogue) and the information age (digital), there has to be a analogue to digital converter for the masses.
A dial-up compatible website to plug into your Kindle or TV Guide to run your device or a free cable box for broad band or free iTunes software compatible with any computer OR a hybrid compatible with any gas station.
There has to be an analogue bridge for what I estimate a 10 year period followed by a swift takeover of the analogue industry, it's players and technologies.
The electric car was never killed or came back to life!!! The analogue cars, ie steam hybrids, jet powered, hover crafts, air hybrids, fuel and tube powered electrics have been dying for 110 years.
The analogue car is dying a long awaited slow death and the digital car is accelerating out of the information revolution's garage.
The digital conversion requires a critical mass as well as followers than can safely have one foot in the analogue world and one foot in the digital world.
With 1,000,000,000 million hybrid-electrics (each of these has 300-650 digital patents involved) owners having paid extra to straddle this digital divide, the time is now for several digital organizations to fight to become the standard (like Apple and iPod) as well as many analogue giants to fall (like Zenith at worst or Pixar owning Disney at best).
Start your digital engines!!!
http://teslafounders.wordpress.com/about/#comment-1030
I wrote this short piece about why the digital car
and not the electric or gasoline or diesel is what matters:
RE About Tesla's Founder
This is a beautiful story in progress, but I would like to politely disagree with one thing.
There have been many theories about why the electric car failed. But did it?
Through the period of the car's invention and growth, the electric and steam hybrids dominated the analogue market. Kind of like AOL dominating the .com boom over copper wires.
What happened?
The internet went digital (broadband) just like record became CDs quickly replaced by the digital iPod that really took off when Jobs lowered the price of flash memory for the world in one deal (nano).
Now imagine if some startup halved the price of Lithium or nano-Lithium or crystal Lithium batteries with one order.
Why would they be making that order?
Because the car went digital, not electric!
Why did it take 10 years from CD to iPod or dial-up to broadband or Walkman to Zune or Tube to Flat Screen or book to Kindle?
Because in between the industrial age (analogue) and the information age (digital), there has to be a analogue to digital converter for the masses.
A dial-up compatible website to plug into your Kindle or TV Guide to run your device or a free cable box for broad band or free iTunes software compatible with any computer OR a hybrid compatible with any gas station.
There has to be an analogue bridge for what I estimate a 10 year period followed by a swift takeover of the analogue industry, it's players and technologies.
The electric car was never killed or came back to life!!! The analogue cars, ie steam hybrids, jet powered, hover crafts, air hybrids, fuel and tube powered electrics have been dying for 110 years.
The analogue car is dying a long awaited slow death and the digital car is accelerating out of the information revolution's garage.
The digital conversion requires a critical mass as well as followers than can safely have one foot in the analogue world and one foot in the digital world.
With 1,000,000,000 million hybrid-electrics (each of these has 300-650 digital patents involved) owners having paid extra to straddle this digital divide, the time is now for several digital organizations to fight to become the standard (like Apple and iPod) as well as many analogue giants to fall (like Zenith at worst or Pixar owning Disney at best).
Start your digital engines!!!
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Kaizen = Change to Good
The founder of Tesla wrote a piece on his blog at
http://teslafounders.wordpress.com/2008/01/30/kaizan/#comment-1029
that really got my creative juices flowing after playing to my
Japanese and Caucasian heart strings in love the automobile.
Reading Martin's post suddenly made me realize why I respect
Toyota and Ford, although, I've never been excited by actually
driving or using their products. It's because those founders
have actually pioneered processes and not flashy products!!!
Toyota founded, "kaizen" and Ford invented the "assembly line."
Those two management science principles power almost everything
in the digital world and challenge what's left in the industrial
world of industry and business everyday.
Kaizen
First of all, I'll borrow two quotes, "better late than never," and "failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently." This comment is a month too late, I'm sorry for your experience Martin, only time will heal, and as far as Ford, it's not about what kind of product a Ford car or truck is, but about the man that invented the assembly line.
He also failed twice because shareholders wanted an expensive car, he just wanted to race and build another one for the masses. One of his failures became Cadillac, who's focus was the highest profit margins.
Compare that to Toyota's first entry, an ugly underpowered car, that couldn't get on the freeway. Almost identical to the Prius released 50 years later that has gone on to sell one million units at $20,000,000,000 or more along with saving hundreds of thousand of gallons of gasoline.
So if Ford invented the assembly line and Mr. Toyoda studied it, were they engineers or management scientists? Well, one might argue, just as two Stanford professors do in Built to Last, that a company's true value is it's organization, grounded in permanent DNA that never goes away, but any innovative technology that goes through the system can be innovative. Building a clock vs. telling time.
The time is now for building the digital automobile and Toyota started with the Prius foreshadowed by decades of experience in processes grown from looms grounded in Kaizen.
I asked my Japanese wife to simply define this, and she has no automotive or engineering or business background.
She said, "just a moment..." then drew on a scratch piece of paper, some Kanji (Chinese characters imported by a Buddhist monk who achieved enlightenment by walking around Japan's smallest island for months on a trek people still follow today called something like 88 temples) that she thinks reads...
Searching for Kaizen
"aratameru" for the first one and
and she wasn't sure of the reading when standing alone but very clear on the meaning, "yoi."
So what does Kai from China or aratemeru in Japanese really mean? According to a quick internet search, "change, alter, improve, remodel." I would think that change and alter are Eastern and improve and remodel are modern.
Basically, we're talking about change, NOT make better, or run lean... Now take a look at every Toyota or Toyoda product from cars to houses to controllers. The Prius came from 1,000 engineers THROWING out 80 designs to get to 650 patents replaced by the 2nd generation that Hollywood bought to be made obsolete by plug-ins.
I'm not sure about better, but change is 100% correct.
So what about "zen" and not this is not the zen you are thinking about, remember, the Japanese language is the 2nd most difficult language in the world because of three alphabets and multiple meanings. My wife says that in the Kaizen combination, "zen" means yoi.
Well even I know this word. It's good, but it's a very rare way to say good. Normally, one would say, ii. For example, I'm good (full) or good job. Yoi is a different good.
It seems to carry more respect, as if something difficult or important was achieved, almost as if it's more used in the past tense as opposed to have a good day, maybe, "Wow, that was a good effort" no matter what the result was.
There's no question that you made a "yoi" effort at Tesla Martin, and the only constant in the world's biggest business is change.
So putting the two together, I come up with "change good."
NOTICE THAT THIS KAIZEN HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH LEAN or the Western definition, "continuous improvement" which was taught in my MBA coursework.
This has to do with a different perspective. Whereas the East looks at the process, the West looks at the result. Japanese doctor's don't tell patients that they have cancer and focus on the process of what got there and beyond. We want to cut it out, like firing someone who makes a mistake.
But what if mistakes are part of the "kaizen" process, or change to good as opposed to good change. What if Toyota stopped at the 2nd, 5th, 52nd or 79th G21 (Prius) failure?
We might not have a digital benchmark to beat today...
So as you build your next company, I encourage you to focus half of your early efforts on DNA that relates to the process, not the technology. DNA that make an organization, "lean" not matter what kind of transmission or controller goes through the assembly line. And maybe most important, DNA that applauds failure as another chance to start again more good!
http://teslafounders.wordpress.com/2008/01/30/kaizan/#comment-1029
that really got my creative juices flowing after playing to my
Japanese and Caucasian heart strings in love the automobile.
Reading Martin's post suddenly made me realize why I respect
Toyota and Ford, although, I've never been excited by actually
driving or using their products. It's because those founders
have actually pioneered processes and not flashy products!!!
Toyota founded, "kaizen" and Ford invented the "assembly line."
Those two management science principles power almost everything
in the digital world and challenge what's left in the industrial
world of industry and business everyday.
Kaizen
First of all, I'll borrow two quotes, "better late than never," and "failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently." This comment is a month too late, I'm sorry for your experience Martin, only time will heal, and as far as Ford, it's not about what kind of product a Ford car or truck is, but about the man that invented the assembly line.
He also failed twice because shareholders wanted an expensive car, he just wanted to race and build another one for the masses. One of his failures became Cadillac, who's focus was the highest profit margins.
Compare that to Toyota's first entry, an ugly underpowered car, that couldn't get on the freeway. Almost identical to the Prius released 50 years later that has gone on to sell one million units at $20,000,000,000 or more along with saving hundreds of thousand of gallons of gasoline.
So if Ford invented the assembly line and Mr. Toyoda studied it, were they engineers or management scientists? Well, one might argue, just as two Stanford professors do in Built to Last, that a company's true value is it's organization, grounded in permanent DNA that never goes away, but any innovative technology that goes through the system can be innovative. Building a clock vs. telling time.
The time is now for building the digital automobile and Toyota started with the Prius foreshadowed by decades of experience in processes grown from looms grounded in Kaizen.
I asked my Japanese wife to simply define this, and she has no automotive or engineering or business background.
She said, "just a moment..." then drew on a scratch piece of paper, some Kanji (Chinese characters imported by a Buddhist monk who achieved enlightenment by walking around Japan's smallest island for months on a trek people still follow today called something like 88 temples) that she thinks reads...
Searching for Kaizen
"aratameru" for the first one and
and she wasn't sure of the reading when standing alone but very clear on the meaning, "yoi."
So what does Kai from China or aratemeru in Japanese really mean? According to a quick internet search, "change, alter, improve, remodel." I would think that change and alter are Eastern and improve and remodel are modern.
Basically, we're talking about change, NOT make better, or run lean... Now take a look at every Toyota or Toyoda product from cars to houses to controllers. The Prius came from 1,000 engineers THROWING out 80 designs to get to 650 patents replaced by the 2nd generation that Hollywood bought to be made obsolete by plug-ins.
I'm not sure about better, but change is 100% correct.
So what about "zen" and not this is not the zen you are thinking about, remember, the Japanese language is the 2nd most difficult language in the world because of three alphabets and multiple meanings. My wife says that in the Kaizen combination, "zen" means yoi.
Well even I know this word. It's good, but it's a very rare way to say good. Normally, one would say, ii. For example, I'm good (full) or good job. Yoi is a different good.
It seems to carry more respect, as if something difficult or important was achieved, almost as if it's more used in the past tense as opposed to have a good day, maybe, "Wow, that was a good effort" no matter what the result was.
There's no question that you made a "yoi" effort at Tesla Martin, and the only constant in the world's biggest business is change.
So putting the two together, I come up with "change good."
NOTICE THAT THIS KAIZEN HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH LEAN or the Western definition, "continuous improvement" which was taught in my MBA coursework.
This has to do with a different perspective. Whereas the East looks at the process, the West looks at the result. Japanese doctor's don't tell patients that they have cancer and focus on the process of what got there and beyond. We want to cut it out, like firing someone who makes a mistake.
But what if mistakes are part of the "kaizen" process, or change to good as opposed to good change. What if Toyota stopped at the 2nd, 5th, 52nd or 79th G21 (Prius) failure?
We might not have a digital benchmark to beat today...
So as you build your next company, I encourage you to focus half of your early efforts on DNA that relates to the process, not the technology. DNA that make an organization, "lean" not matter what kind of transmission or controller goes through the assembly line. And maybe most important, DNA that applauds failure as another chance to start again more good!
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Digital Doom and 0 Days Inventory
In reponse to
Backseat Driver
Riders Of The Storm
Jerry Flint 01.29.08, 6:00 AM ET
In this industry, preparing for bad times means reducing inventories of unsold cars and trucks and cutting production. If manufacturers are not overstocked, they can ride out the bad months without losing as much money in sales incentives to lower those stocks. Having fewer cars and trucks to sell when business falls is that "ounce of prevention" mother used to talk about.
Overall stocks are lower for some automakers, and not in bad shape for a few others.
The days’ supply number is the inventory divided by the daily sales rate from the previous month. When things are worrisome, lower is better. As a rule, manufacturers don't fret too much about inventories if the supply on a vehicle is 60 days or lower.
I left the following post at Forbes.com
Comments for Comments 1-2 of 2
Riders Of The Storm
Jerry Flint
When a hurricane comes, we board up the windows and batten down the hatches. The same goes for Detroit.
Posted by johnmba | 01/29/08 11:16 PM EST
Excellent metric to focus in on Flint! In fact, most digital industries have thrown out inventory all together. Think of oil LPs vs. plastic CDs vs. bits on an iPod with a waiting list and no inventory. As the auto industry struggles just like every other industry (consumer electronics, TVs, radios, media, music, etc.) facing a digital transformation, inventory will continue to go away as JIT or the Dell or should we say Prius or Tesla pre-order model takes place. How much profits are earned from 0 days of inventory?
I've read that Dell has its supplier's trucks backed up to it's warehouse and almost through the door and then sells you a computer and finally puts things like the CPU into inventory for only during the assembly process. Now if the auto industry can narrow things down to a commuter car and light truck platform just like a desktop and laptop plastic case with everything inside customized for the end user, the digital transformation will finally turn pain into profits.
The bottom line is, "did Hollywood save music and movies with an iPod?" Nope, a hi-tech company from a related industry...
In other words, "will the digital iPod for the auto industry come out of Detroit's hurricane?" Probably not... I imagine after many startups and failures, we might see the digital car with the new interface come out of the West and/or Asia.
Detroit might want to study the demise of companies like Zenith in TVs and the slew of bankruptcy in Hollywood as music and movies went digital...
at
http://rate.forbes.com/comments/CommentServlet?op=cpage&sourcename=story&StoryURI=2008/01/24/autos-inventory-vehicles-oped-cx_jf_0129flint.html
Backseat Driver
Riders Of The Storm
Jerry Flint 01.29.08, 6:00 AM ET
In this industry, preparing for bad times means reducing inventories of unsold cars and trucks and cutting production. If manufacturers are not overstocked, they can ride out the bad months without losing as much money in sales incentives to lower those stocks. Having fewer cars and trucks to sell when business falls is that "ounce of prevention" mother used to talk about.
Overall stocks are lower for some automakers, and not in bad shape for a few others.
The days’ supply number is the inventory divided by the daily sales rate from the previous month. When things are worrisome, lower is better. As a rule, manufacturers don't fret too much about inventories if the supply on a vehicle is 60 days or lower.
I left the following post at Forbes.com
Comments for Comments 1-2 of 2
Riders Of The Storm
Jerry Flint
When a hurricane comes, we board up the windows and batten down the hatches. The same goes for Detroit.
Posted by johnmba | 01/29/08 11:16 PM EST
Excellent metric to focus in on Flint! In fact, most digital industries have thrown out inventory all together. Think of oil LPs vs. plastic CDs vs. bits on an iPod with a waiting list and no inventory. As the auto industry struggles just like every other industry (consumer electronics, TVs, radios, media, music, etc.) facing a digital transformation, inventory will continue to go away as JIT or the Dell or should we say Prius or Tesla pre-order model takes place. How much profits are earned from 0 days of inventory?
I've read that Dell has its supplier's trucks backed up to it's warehouse and almost through the door and then sells you a computer and finally puts things like the CPU into inventory for only during the assembly process. Now if the auto industry can narrow things down to a commuter car and light truck platform just like a desktop and laptop plastic case with everything inside customized for the end user, the digital transformation will finally turn pain into profits.
The bottom line is, "did Hollywood save music and movies with an iPod?" Nope, a hi-tech company from a related industry...
In other words, "will the digital iPod for the auto industry come out of Detroit's hurricane?" Probably not... I imagine after many startups and failures, we might see the digital car with the new interface come out of the West and/or Asia.
Detroit might want to study the demise of companies like Zenith in TVs and the slew of bankruptcy in Hollywood as music and movies went digital...
at
http://rate.forbes.com/comments/CommentServlet?op=cpage&sourcename=story&StoryURI=2008/01/24/autos-inventory-vehicles-oped-cx_jf_0129flint.html
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- John Acheson
- Portland, OR, United States
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