Posted by: George Brunemann in MyBlog on Jul 28, 2009
Our goal is to provide a practical, experienced, holistic perspective on the current events and developments in the quest for affordable, clean transportation.
Our viewpoint on green vehicles is founded on over 15 years of engineering design and development experience. We are intimately familiar with the complexity and tradeoffs involved in lowering emissions and improving fuel economy having delivered some of the current improvements ourselves. Most of our effort has been in the area of the vehicle powertrain, including low emission diesel combustion, high performance automated transmissions, and high mpg hybrid systems. Hence, our perspective is based on the scars and hair loss associated with bringing green technology to actual product.
Our analysis methodology focuses on understanding the fundamental physics of the total system, especially the relationships and interactions between the major subsystems. The design process we follow looks at these relationships in order to provide a solution that manages the entire system to get optimum performance. This practical, holistic approach to Green Vehicle Innovation means that we tend to emphasize achievable solutions and time frames.
The discussions here will similarly focus on looking at the broad implications of proposals, probability of success of developments and data centric analysis of current events. Our goal is to be objective and balanced in what we present.
The current discussion of "Green" tends to focus on extreme claims from both those emphasizing the threat of "Climate Change" and those trying to debunk the threat. The same extremism is a part of the technology discussion with many announcing the salvation of "Renewable Energy" and those pointing out the severe roadblocks to totally cutting off use of oil for our energy needs.
Our position is that while the overall process will be very evolutionary, with the opportunity for revolutionary improvements along the way. For example, the all electric vehicle is a far simpler and potentially cleaner approach to transportation, but the current 25% efficiency of conventional vehicles presents a huge opportunity for improvement with far smaller infrastructure impact.
We hope you will find our postings interesting and thought provoking. Comments are welcome but are reviewed before posted to avoid unplesantness.
Please stay tuned and check back often.