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Google’s favorite car company

March 25, 2009

Think about the aerodynamics of jet plane, a sailboat and a minivan. When we build things to fly through the air or propel us through the water, we design efficient vehicles. Not so with cars.

Aptera, an auto company startup, aims to change that. In just three years, the Carlsbad, Ca.-based firm  has designed and built a remarkably sleek and snazzy three-wheeled, two-seat electric car.

aptera_2e

“If a plane looked like an SUV, it wouldn’t take off, “ says entrepreneur Bill Gross, who is a founder and board member of Aptera. “Dophins don’t look like SUVS for a reason. Cars need to look like dolphins, not SUVs.”

Here are a couple of videos showing the car, one from ABC News and another from Popular Mechanics.

The Aptera is “the most aerodynamically efficient vehicle ever,” says Gross. By contrast, according to the company, an average car traveling at 55 mph uses half of its energy just to push air out of the way.

If you pay attention to business, you’ve heard of Bill Gross. He’s a lifelong entrepreneur and the CEO of Idealab, the incubator for new businesses in Pasadena, CA. Bill has birthed spectacular successes and  big flops, among them Knowledge Adventures (educational software, now part of Vivendi), Picasa (photo sharing software, acquired by Google), eToys (an online toy store that overextended itself and failed) and CitySearch (local directories.) Idealab’s GoTo.com introduced the idea of paid search to the Internet, and as such is the underpinning of the $20-billion search market now dominated by Google.

So it’s fitting that Gross is currently doing lots of business with Google. Google is an investor in eSolar, a utility-scale solar thermal power company that recently announced big projects in India and in the Southwest. (You can listen to an interview that I did with Bill Gross about the solar projects and about Aptera at Greenbiz Radio at www.greenbiz.com.) Google has invested in Aptera, too, and it turns out that the company’s beginnings go back to a  Google search.

As Bill tells the story, he was doing some casual research on the Stirling Engine a few years ago when he stumbled across a web page created by Steve Fambro, the founder and now chief technology officer of Aptera. Fambro, an electrical engineer, had posted a design for a vehicle that would be safe, comfortable and fuel-efficient; his initial idea was to make kits so people could build the car themselves. Gross was impressed by the idea of a super-efficient car. “Your dream is my dream,” he recalls saying.“Let’s get together and start a company.” They joined forces with Chris Anthony, who is CEO of a company called Epic Boats (they build wake boats) and an expert in composite materials.

Using computer-assisted design, Aptera’s engineers went on to design a car that weighs just 1,700 pounds with a body made from an impact-resistant material that is lighter than steel but three times as strong.  The car will run 100 miles on a single charge and it’s got some nifty features, including butterfly-styled doors that pop open and a solar-assisted climate control system. Its top speed is 90 mph and it goes from zero to 60 in less than 10 seconds.

“The car is very unusual looking,” Gross says.  “It looks like a futuristic Jetson  vehicle.  But we feel that that’s what it takes to actually make an impact on our energy use and transportation.”

Aptera, which is based in Vista, CA., began taking orders for the cars from California residents at the end of 2007. “Very quickly, we got 4,000 pre-orders,” Gross says. Buyers put down a $500 deposit. The entry-level price for the car is expected to be about $25,000.

Last summer, Google.org announced that it had invested a total of $2.75 million Aptera and a company called ActaCell that makes lithium ion batteries for plug-in hybrids and electric cars. Google didn’t say how much money went into each company but it’s not a lot of dough in any event. Aptera has also raised money from Idealab, Esenjay Petroleum, The Quercus Trust and from Donald R. Beal, the retired chairman and CEO of Rockwell, about $30 million in total. But the company obviously needs a lot more to go into production. Last year, Paul Wilbur, a career automotive executive who worked for 26 years at Ford, Chrysler and a sunroof maker called ASC, was brought in as president and CEO.

Only five of the cars have been built, so far.

Gross tells me he expects to raise the cash in a few months. “Most people would not want to invest in a new car company at a time like this,” he says, “but investors are quite warm to this.” We’ll see.

The U.S. government is a potential source of funding for electric car and battery companies, through the Department of Energy’s advanced technology loan fund. But Aptera has run into a brick wall in Washington. Apparently the government has classified the Aptera’s vehicles as motorcycles, and they aren’t eligible for loans.

I’m delighted that Bill Gross (below) will be at FORTUNE’s Brainstorm Green conference about business and the environment in April, to talk about both eSolar and Aptera. Here’s a chart comparing Aptera’s aerodynamic drag to other vehicles. It’s hard to see, I know, but the company says Aptera is more aerodynamic than a 10-speed bike and 2.86 times more aerodynamic than a Prius.
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Google: “You’ve got to take a stand.”

March 4, 2009

America doesn’t have a national energy plan, but Google does.

The question is, why?

“You’ve got to go out and take a stand,” says Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO.

To investors who say the company is overreaching, and not focusing on shareholder value—its core business is not energy, after all–Schmidt says that “shareholder value in a company is created at the end of everything we do.”

By that, he means that if Google focuses on creates great products, solving big problems and serving its customers, shareholders ultimately will benefit. Besides, getting clean energy right requires a lot of information—and that is Google’s business—and, he argues, renewable energy will over time become cheaper that fossil fuels.

“Green energy, done right, is more profitable that the old kind of energy,” Schmidt says. Google’s a huge consumer of energy at its data centers. “Lower costs cause more earnings for shareholders.” He spoke at the Wall Street Journal’s Eco:nomics conference in Santa Barbara, CA.

Google released its Clean Energy 2030 plan last fall. It says the country can generate 30% of its electricity from renewable sources, mostly wind and solar, by 2030, and in so doing replacing all coal and oil electricity generation, and about half of that from natural gas. Google itself has venture capital investments in start-ups in solar power, wind and wave energy.

But won’t the financial meltdown put all those plans on hold? “Change occurs when people are scared,” Schmidt says. “This is the time to have this conversation, set out bold agendas and go for it.”

Google says its plan would make the following reductions from today’s energy and emission levels:

* Fossil fuel-based electricity generation by 88%
* Vehicle oil consumption by 44%
* Dependence on imported oil (currently 10 million barrels per day) by 37%
* Electricity-sector CO2 emissions by 95%
* Personal vehicle sector CO2 emissions by 44%
* US CO2 emissions overall by 49% (41% from today’s CO2 emission level)

Much, of course, has to happen between now and then. A vital component of any clean energy plan is the smart grid, another Google project. The federal government must make it easier to build big power lines. “It takes two years to get the lines built and eight years to get the permits,” Schmidt says. “I’m not making that up.” A smart grid also enables big gains in energy efficiency. “You want to have a computer that talks to your dryer, and finds the optimal time to turn it on,” he says. For more about that, check out a software tool called the Google PowerMeter.

Cheering on Schmidt at the event was Peter Darbee, the CEO of PG&E Corp., which is aiming to generate 33% of its electricity from renewables. (He didn’t say by when.)  “It takes the right incentives and stretch thinking,” Darbee said. “The utility industry has not been known for that, historically, and we need to change.”

Schmidt is an optimist, perhaps because he’s watched Google go from a startup to a company valued at $100 billion (even in this horrible stock market) in about a decade.

“America is a great country because of our ability to solve problems and build great businesses,” Schmidt said. “We can do clean energy and we can do it at scale.”

Let’s hope he’s right.

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GE & Google say: Get Smart

February 17, 2009

Imagine driving into a gas station, filling the tank and not knowing how much the gas cost–until a bill arrives at the end of the month. That’s how most of us buy electricity, it’s a crazy way to do business and, if all goes well, it won’t last.

Why? Because momentum is building behind the so-called smart grid, which, among other things, will make buying electricity more transparent. The $787-billion stimulus package signed into law today by President Obama includes $4.5 billion for a smart grid, along with tax incentives to promote solar and wind power.

This afternoon, an event called “Plug In to the Smart Grid” organized by General Electric and Google attracted a standing-room only crowd of more than 500 people to Google’s New York Avenue offices in Washington. Among the speakers were such power players as Carol Browner, the president’s climate czar (although she didn’t say anything), John Podesta, the head of Obama’s transition team and leader of the Center for American Progress think thank, and Chris Miller, a senior aide to Senate leader Harry Reid.

Washington’s renewable-energy crowd is downright giddy about the president’s push for clean energy.

“Look where President Obama has chosen to be today,” said Dan Reicher, a Google executive and former Clinton administration official who was co-host of the event, along with Bob Gilligan of GE. “He could be standing by a bridge or a highway. But he’s at the Denver Museum of Science, looking at a solar panel.”

Gilligan ticked off the advantages of the smart grid: “It enables higher penetration of renewables. It allows the utilities to operate in a more efficient manner. Most importantly, it empowers and enables consumers by giving them more information.”

Because a smart grid is essentially the application of information technology to the electricity business, Google (an IT company) and GE (an energy company) have joined together to push for better federal and state policy to enable the grid. This was their first outreach event in DC. Here are a few things I learned:

Information is power. Power over power, in this case. A smart grid will tell consumers how much their electricity costs at any given time of day, how much each appliance draws down from the grid, how their usage compares with their neighbor’s, perhaps even whether they are using clean or “dirty” power. So, for example, if consumers know that it’s cheaper to run the dishwasher or washing machine at night, many will do so. Can you think of a better way to promote energy efficiency in homes?

As Ed Lu, a Google executive (and former space shuttle astronaut for NASA), put it: “All of our work in this area is based on the premise that consumers ought to be able to see how much energy they are using.” Google’s working on a software, called the Google PowerMeter, to show consumers their consumption in real time.

Andy Karsner, the smart and outspoken former Bush administration energy official, said: “This is about full transparency and disclosure and empowerment of every consumer and small business in America. People ought to know how the biggest investment they make in their life performs, on the day they buy a new home.”

How that information will be delivered is no simple matter. It raises issues of privacy, intellectual property and security, among others.

The grid needs to get bigger and stronger, as well as smarter. Right now, there’s not enough transmission capacity to move wind power from the Great Plains to Chicago or solar power from the southwest to urban centers like Los Angeles.

“That’s going to require literally thousands and thousands of miles of new transmission, and we’ve seen very little (recently) in this country,” said Reicher.

To get major transmission lines built, the federal government will need more authority to site them, even over objections from state and local officials.

“Siting continues to be a problem,” Podesta said. It’s a lot easier to move oil and gas around this country than it is to move electricity, in part because the federal government exercises its power to get gas pipelines built.

Turning to Chris Miller, the Senate aide, Reicher asked: “Is the federal government going to end up with significantly more authority to site transmission lines?”

“Yes,” Miller replied. He said enhanced federal clout could be part of an energy bill that the Senate will take up this spring.

Karsner added: “This is not a question of the opportunity to bring solar from the southwest or wind from the Midwest. I would say it’s a necessity…If the planet could talk, it would say, stop choking me.”

Highlights from the Plug Into the Smart Grid event will be posted on Google’s DotOrg channel on YouTube (a Google property), where there’s also an interesting video about the Google PowerMeter gadget. We’ll also be looking at the smart grid during FORTUNE’s Brainstorm Green conference, with a panel that includes the CEOs of smart-grid firms GridPoint and Silver Spring Networks as well as venture capitalist and grid guru Chuck McDermott.

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When GE meets Google

September 27, 2008

Because many of us are captivated by the extraordinary goings-on in Washington, on Wall Street and in the presidential campaign, it’s easy to overlook everything else that’s happening in the world of business. But an unusual bi-coastal alliance between GE and Google caught my attention last week, and so it is the topic of my latest Sustainability column at fortune.com and cnnmoney.com.

GE and Google don’t have a lot in common, but the industrial giant and the Internet powerhouse share an interest in renewable energy. So they have come together to lobby for a so-called smart electricity grid and to collaborate, albeit in an unspecified way, in research into geothermal energy.

Here’s how the column begins:

When companies as savvy and as important as General Electric and Google join forces, it’s worth a closer look. The companies say they will work together to drive two industries with big growth potential: geothermal energy and the upgrading of the nation’s overburdened electricity grid.

The two industries are related, of course. Renewable energy, whether from wind, the sun or geothermal, which taps into the heat below the surface of the earth, won’t be deployed on a vast scale until the electricity grid can carry more power and deliver it more intelligently.

A more robust grid, often called a smart grid, would be able to move electricity in both directions (not just from central power plants to users), monitor usage better, enable more sophisticated pricing schemes and use advanced sensors to pinpoint outages.

“The smart grid is all about marrying energy technology and information technology,” said Bob Gilligan, a vice president for transmission and distribution at GE Energy, during a conference called Smart Grid this week in Washington, D.C. Without a stronger and smarter grid, the so-called clean tech revolution will come to a grinding halt.

Upgrading the grid will likely be a slog. Two famously sluggish bodies–the federal goverment and the utility industry–basically run the grid. But the geothermal play is intriguing. The potential for geothermal energy, which often gets overshadowed by solar and wind, is huge. If you want to know more, this Google website and YouTube video are worth a look.

You can read the rest of the column here.

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