For decades, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl have served as shorthand for the nightmare of nuclear power generation gone awry. In the wake of Japan’s deadly earthquake and tsunami, the disaster of Fukushima Daiichi has come closer than any nuclear crisis in history to making it a fearsome trio. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Analysis
How Is Japan’s Nuclear Disaster Different?
Posted in Energy
Tagged Analysis, Chernobyl, Fukushima, Japan, National Geographic, Nuclear, Three Mile Island, Tsunami
Wanted: Fair Costs for Electric Car Home Charger Installations
As a new generation of plug-in vehicles rolls off the assembly line, a new cadre of consumers has entered the market for home charging equipment. Federal and state incentives are designed to help offset installation costs, which can range from hundreds to thousands of dollars. But some customers and electric vehicle advocates worry that the very programs meant to help lower costs for charger installations in practice have set the stage for price gouging. This post for PluginCars.com explains options for home charging equipment and the real cost of free chargers.
BMW Rolls Toward Zipcar’s Turf With Hourly Rentals
BMW's Mini Cooper is among the most frequently requested models in Zipcar's fleet.
A new pilot program from BMW will let customers rent any current BMW model by the hour from the company’s event center in Munich, Germany. In this piece for GigaOM’s Earth2Tech blog, I explore how “BMW on Demand” fits into much larger trends of innovation around providing mobility as a service — and growing competition for the current car sharing heavyweight, Zipcar. Continue reading
Posted in Auto, Collaborative Consumption, Transportation
Tagged Analysis, BMW, Car Sharing, Daimler, Earth2Tech, Mobility on Demand, RelayRides, Reuters, Spride Share, Trend, WhipCar, Zipcar
Tesla IPO: Will Tesla See a Powerhouse Public Offering?
Tesla Motors, the Silicon Valley electric car startup gunning to raise $185 million next week through an IPO and sales of shares to Toyota, has won over members of the Silicon Valley, Capitol Hill and Hollywood elite. But will the company, which has never turned a profit, charge up Wall Street with a blockbuster IPO?
I dove into Tesla’s regulatory filings and interviewed several analysts to weigh the comany’s prospects for a blockbuster, lackluster or middle-of-the-road IPO. Written originally for Earth2Tech, this article also appeared on Salon.com and NYTimes.com, and was featured in the New York Times’ DealBook blog.
Tagged Analysis, Earth2Tech, Electric cars, IPO, New York Times, Salon, Tesla Motors
After DOE Nod, a Long Road Ahead for Green Car Startups
At a time when dozens of vehicle and components makers are gunning for government funding, it might seem that a fat federal loan is the end-all-be-all of green car manufacturing. But as I’ve explained in this Earth2Tech post, when the Department of Energy makes a conditional loan commitment under its Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program, it represents just one of many milestones for companies racing to bring greener cars to the mass market.
Why A123 Threw Down for Fisker & Who’s Next
Battery maker A123Systems and plug-in car startup Fisker Automotive, which announced a new partnership this week, seem like natural dance partners. Each exists as an outsider in an entrenched industry, they’re both gearing up for a ramp up in 2011 and they share one mega backer — the U.S. government. I interviewed A123′s VP of Automotive Solutions, Jason Forcier, for this Earth2Tech piece analyzing why the battery maker pledged to not only supply Fisker with battery systems and collaborate on a new vehicle, but also to invest $23 million in the startup.
Posted in Auto, Energy Storage
Tagged A123 Systems, Analysis, Earth2Tech, Electric cars, Fisker Automotive
Tesla IPO: A Test for VC Model in the Auto Biz
If and when Tesla Motors goes through with its long-discussed goal of going public, I’ve argued over on Earth2Tech that it will offer a glimpse at the role IPOs will play in the nascent green car market, as the question remains: Is the classic venture capital model (invest early and find a big exit in the form of an acquisition or an IPO) viable for this sector, or will a green-car IPO be more about feeding big capital needs and branding? This article also appeared (through syndication) on BusinessWeek.com.
Tagged Analysis, BusinessWeek, Earth2Tech, Electric cars, IPO, Tesla Motors
The Price of a Stimulus Award, Courtesy of ECOtality
ECOtality subsidiary eTec (with several partners, including Nissan) won a nearly $100 million grant from the Department of Energy in August to deploy 11,210 charging stations — tripling its total number of installations — in five states over the next three years. But the grant didn’t come cheap. I dug through ECOtality’s first report of financial information since the grant award for a sense of how ECOtality’s race to secure the DOE contract reverberated throughout its business, and wrote this post about it over on Earth2Tech.
What the ARPA-E Bets Mean for the Future of Green Cars
Of the $151 million in grants announced this week under the federal ARPA-E program, more than a fifth has been allocated for green vehicle projects. Over on Earth2Tech, I’ve looked at how wisely the DOE is placing its chips when it comes to choosing risky ideas for transforming the auto industry and cleaning up transportation.
