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Europe Debating Stricter Car Emissions

Irina Haltsonen — Thu, 29 May 2008 07:00:38 +0000

Car makers are facing newer and stricter emissions regulations all over the world. In Europe, the debate over proposals to curb carbon dioxide emissions for new cars is getting fiercer. This week six Greenpeace activist dressed up as Flintstones characters were arrested in Brussels, Belgium, as they were protesting about the influence of the car industry on the proposals. The European Parliament started debating legislation concerning CO2 emissions from cars on Wednesday. A vote on the legislation is coming up in the fall.

The activists, who claim that the car industry’s thinking is in “the stone age,” stopped at the car manufacturers’ lobby group, ACEA, and gave them copies of a Greenpeace report about the impact of car industry on climate change. On their way to the European Parliament, they were stopped by the police, but later released without charge, Greenpeace reports.

Most recently the European Parliament has proposed to cut average carbon emissions from new cars to almost half their current level by 2020, reports the Financial Times. Under proposed legislation the average new car sold in the EU could only emit 95g of carbon per kilometer, down from the current 160g/km regulation.

The makers of Europe’s larger cars, notably Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes, have been lobbying for a size-based emissions regulation scheme to encourage bigger but lighter cars. Meanwhile, Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne has spoken out against this weight-rated system, saying it penalizes the little guy. Still, the new proposal is very ambitious. Currently, only the likes of Daimler’s tiny Smart, which emits 88g/km, can meet the tough new proposed regulations.

In the U.S., California continues its own battle to enforce regulations for tougher emissions standards on cars. Yesterday it came out that the White House played a “pivotal” role in the EPA’s decision to deny California a waiver to enforce its own regulations. California has been trying to force car makers to abide by a state law, which would require a 30 percent reduction of emissions by 2016, and is currently embroiled in an investigation and a lawsuit with the EPA.

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Nissan Aiming for World Domination of Zero-Emission Cars

Irina Haltsonen — Sat, 17 May 2008 16:00:38 +0000

The race to develop and market environmentally friendly cars is getting fiercer. As the price of gasoline hits record heights and people are becoming more concerned about global warming, car companies are increasingly investing in ‘greener’ cars. One car manufacturer showing a massive commitment to alternative vehicles is the Nissan Motor Company that has been in the news several times within the last week.

On Tuesday, Japan’s No.3 car manufacturer confirmed its plans to launch an all-electric car in the U.S. and Japan by 2010. The New York Times called Nissan’s move “the first by a major automaker to bring a zero-emission vehicle to the American market.” Nissan also envisions having a broad range of electric vehicles in the future and wants to be the world leader in zero-emissions vehicles.

The day before the company announced its green plans for the U.S., it said it will be heading into India, too. Nissan announced together with French Renault and Indian Bajaj Auto that the companies will form a joint-venture to develop, produce and market a low-cost, energy efficient car targeted at the growing Indian market. The wholesale price of the low-cost car, called ULC, will start from $2,500. The ULC will be manufactured at a new plant, with a capacity of 400,000 units per year, to be constructed in Chakan, India. The sales are to start in early 2011.

Last weekend, the Silicon Valley electric car startup Project Better Place said that Renault-Nissan, which is its partner, would likely spend between $500 million and $1 billion on building electric cars. Renault is building the cars and Nissan, via an agreement with NEC Corp., is supplying the swappable lithium-ion batteries for them.

A lot of green vehicle plans for Nissan. “We are convinced that the mass availability of affordable zero-emission vehicles is the most significant breakthrough our industry could deliver, and, together with Renault, Nissan intends to be the breakthrough leader,” said Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn according to a company press release.

Nissan hopes the eco-shift towards cleaner cars will deliver it some market share in a time when the company is expecting a sharp fall in annual profits this year due to a weak dollar, rising commodity prices and sinking U.S. demand.

The company did start to profile itself as an SUV specialist just as those vehicles started to go out of fashion, The Independent writes. So moving to greener cars could please its consumers, as well as its shareholders.

At least the example of Toyota’s Prius hybrid cars is encouraging. And the technology is slowly getting better, as companies work on innovations to address the current challenges of electric vehicles, like the small range and tough battery technology. The tricky part part will be betting on the right technology and making the right partnerships.

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Project Better Place Shows Off Electric Car

Irina Haltsonen — Mon, 12 May 2008 22:15:44 +0000

The Silicon Valley electric car startup Project Better Place showed off a prototype for its electric vehicle in Israel this weekend, and said partner Renault-Nissan (Renault is building the cars while Nissan, via an agreement with NEC Corp., is supplying the swappable batteries) would likely spend between $500 million and $1 billion into building them. We contacted Project Better Place and are waiting to hear more on the partners’ investment.

Project Better Place’s car just looks like a regular sedan according to reports and images on the company’s website, but with an electrical socket and a screen showing the battery power, instead of a gas gauge. The cars are said to have a range of 100 km in city driving and up to 160 km on the highway before needing to be recharged or swapped. The aim is to have a pilot of several hundred cars in Israel next year. The first vehicles should be available to the public in late 2010.

The startup is in the process building an infrastructure of electric vehicle charging and battery-swapping stations across Israel, where it will use largely solar energy generated in Negev Desert. In March, the company started to work with Denmark’s DONG Energy to introduce the electric cars there, where the batteries will help the country with intermittency due to its high use of wind power.

Project Better Place has already raised at least $200 million dollars from Israel Corp., Ofer Shipping Holdings, Morgan Stanley, VantagePoint Venture Partners and private investors. That’s a lot of money (though only a drop in the bucket needed to get its countrywide networks built). While Project Better Place is focusing on the infrastructure, Renault-Nissan will be investing those funds into developing the vehicles.

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Finnish Biodiesel Fuels Mixed Reaction

Irina Haltsonen — Fri, 09 May 2008 07:00:41 +0000

As the debate over whether countries should mandate more or less biofuels rages on, Finland’s diesel car drivers — at least in the Helsinki area — now have a chance to fill up their tanks with a new diesel fuel blend whose biodiesel content is at least 10 percent. Neste Oil, Finland’s biggest oil refiner, launched the new biodiesel blend commercially this week, called Neste Green diesel; the biofuel is a mixture of fossil fuel diesel and Neste Oil’s NExBTL Renewable diesel, which is based on renewable raw materials such as palm oil, rapeseed oil and animal fats.

Neste Oil aims to become the global leader in renewable diesel. The company is currently producing NExBTL in one refinery in Porvoo, Finland; a second plant is also under construction elsewhere in the country. A third, which the company claims will be the biggest biodiesel production plant in the world, is currently being built in Singapore. Neste is also said to be looking for investments to build additional plants in the future, potentially in the Benelux countries in Western Europe or in the U.S.

Many, however, oppose the shift to biofuels made partly of palm oil, arguing that it, too, is far from environmentally friendly. Today a European Union directive mandates that each member country should have at least 2 percent of bio or renewable ingredients in transport fuels.

In Helsinki, Greenpeace activists welcomed the new Neste Green diesel by locking the fuel pump nozzles at Neste fueling stations. Wearing orangutan suits, activists claimed that the increased use of palm oil is resulting in cutting down of rain forests and destroying the living environment of endangered orangutans.

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Estonian Internet Gurus Launch Clean-up Project

Irina Haltsonen — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:58:52 +0000

Being an Internet millionaire doesn’t mean you’re only interested in creating businesses that make huge profits — though our list of 25 that ditched infotech for cleantech are certainly still trying. Estonian entrepreneurs Ahti Heinla, a Skype guru, and Rainer Nolvak, founder of MicroLink and Delfi, have decided to use their creative minds and Google mapping software to start a grassroots project aimed at cleaning up their small home country.

They’re calling it Let’s Do It! 2008, and last weekend over 50,000 volunteers, more than 3 percent of the Estonian population of 1.3 million, joined together to clean the forests, roadsides and other public areas from garbage. Using software based on Google Earth, the crew mapped out 10,000 illegal waste dumping sites, gathered the waste from these spots and took it to over 200 temporary collection stations.

This was the first massive recycling project in Estonia, a small European Union country that only regained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, and has had a big problem with illegal dumping. The aim of the initiative is to recycle up to 80 percent of the collected garbage, which could prove to be a challenge as on average, just 10 percent of the country’s garbage is recycled.

What a nice way to combine grassroots activism and technology. And the example of Estonia has already inspired others as well. Estonia’s neighbor Lithuania has already declared war on both its garbage and Estonia, trying to collect three times more garbage than the Estonians.

Check out the interactive map on their web site. You can click through to small areas and check out the satellite imagery via Google maps.

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Shell Ditches British Wind Farm, Faces Criticism

Irina Haltsonen — Sat, 03 May 2008 16:17:15 +0000

Oil giant Shell’s decision to pull out of the world’s biggest planned offshore wind farm to be built in Britain resulted in a storm of criticism last week. Politicians and environmentalists accused Shell of being “greedy” and “irresponsible” in the British media. Many also believe that the move is part of a larger trend by Shell away from its renewable energy initiatives.

And the future of the London Array wind farm seems uncertain now. Shell was one of the three shareholders in the project together with German power company E.On and Danish utility DONG Energy. When fully operational, the wind farm would have provided electricity to power 750,000 homes, or around a quarter of London — its 341 turbines would have generated 1,000 megawatts of power.

The decision of Shell is also a major setback for Britain as London Array has been the symbol of the country’s renewable energy future. Britain is having a hard time meeting the European Union’s target of producing 15 percent of the country’s total energy from renewables by 2020. London Array wind farm was designed to provide around 10 percent of the renewable electricity produced in Britain by 2010.

It seems ironic that the decision made by the oil giant that has marketed itself with its renewable energy plans came only days after the company reported record profits. Shell has declined to give a detailed reason for its decision to sell its 33 percent share in the wind farm. However, Shell has said it plans to pursue other wind projects in the US where government incentives are more competitive and permitting easier to obtain.

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Microsoft Dreams of a Live Mesh

Irina Haltsonen — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 04:10:56 +0000

In this new millennium, our lives are becoming increasingly digital, thanks to proliferation of devices — from MP3 players to digital cameras to cell phones and of course computers. The challenge is to keep a handle on the data on these digital devices and the software programs that go with these devices. Microsoft thinks it has the answer, and it is called Live Mesh.

The much-talked about technology is a service platform that allows users to manage and access different devices, share and synchronize files and stay in touch with others from any computer by using the Web as a hub. Live Mesh users can, for example, access photos on their mobile phone from their computer and make them available to friends by placing them in a shared folder. In order for devices to talk to each other, you need to install Live Mesh software.

It is also possible to follow a newsfeed that informs the user about the activities taking place in their Live Mesh; the status of different devices, the use of different files and people using them. People who share a folder can also chat with each other. In a demo given to us, Live Mesh seems well designed and easy to use. In a blog post, Microsoft gives all the details on the product.

Many have tried to fix the problem of digital complexity before. Apple has come closest to solving the e-riddle of devices. In many ways Live Mesh does remind us of Apple’s Digital Hub strategy, that included iSync software and dot.Mac service. It tried to solve the syncing riddle. There are many start-ups which are trying to solve this problem, most prominent of them being Sharpcast, that recently introduced its SugarSync service. Microsoft had also acquired FolderShare, an early player in data synchronization space, but never really did anything with that excellent service. (Related story: Pushing Microsoft Into The Cloud.)

Microsoft is going after rest of the market. According to Microsoft Chief Architect Ray Ozzie, Live Mesh is a lot more than a way to manage our devices with. In a speech earlier this year at Mix08, Ozzie said:

Just imagine the possibilities enabled by centralized configuration and personalization and remote control of all your devices from just about anywhere. Just imagine the convenience of unified data management, the transparent synchronization of files, folders, documents, and media. The bi-directional synchronization of arbitrary feeds of all kinds across your devices and the Web, a kind of universal file synch.

Earlier this year, when Om had a conversation with him, he said that he sees an opportunity there for the whole industry.

“If we have the opportunity right now to establish a model of devices hooking into the cloud using simple, simple, simple standards as opposed to big, heavy things, there might actually be a chance of us all doing it together.”

Ozzie thinks it’s about time that the challenge of digital complexity is answered. He said that the company has sold software to enterprises to manage “tens of thousands of PCs,” but “what the heck have we done for consumers to help them manage lots of different devices?” How about starting with Live Mesh? Lets us know if you try it out, and please share your initial impressions with rest of us.

Also, read Mary Jo Foley’s take on the announcement.

I’d go so far as to say Live Mesh will be Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie’s “make it or break it” project, given Ozzie has been setting the stage for Live Mesh since October 2005, when he outlined his pie-in-the-sky goals for it (without calling it Live Mesh) in his “Internet Services Disruption” memo to the troops.

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Housing Info Flows to the iPhone

Irina Haltsonen — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 01:00:02 +0000

Looking for a new house to buy but don’t have enough time to browse the Internet, either at home or in the office? As of today, iPhone users can use a new application from Silicon Valley-based startup Terabitz to look at property listings, photos, local neighborhood information, recent sales and driving directions to properties while on the go. So far the app only has data from Northern California, though there are plans to include other locations, too. Given how hard-hit the NoCal region has been hit from the subprime mortgage crisis, however, there will undoubtedly be lots of listings in the meantime.

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On Sale: The iPhone (well, in Europe, at least)

Irina Haltsonen — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:33:30 +0000

Well the iPhone may be hard to come by in the U.S. these days, but they’re practically giving them away overseas. As Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster notes today, two more mobile phone retailers — Britain’s 02 and Carphone Warehouse — have cut the price of the 8 GB iPhone by 37 percent. This follows another, even more drastic price reduction earlier this month, of 75 percent, by T-Mobile in Germany.

Munster thinks the cuts indicate that the demand for iPhones in Europe is light. However, he also believes iPhone carriers are clearing the way for the new 3G model, expected to be launched in June.

Meanwhile, RIM’s BlackBerry keeps adding addicts overseas: Roughly 33 percent of its subscriber base is now outside of North America, according to Scotia Capital’s Gus Papageorgiou — with most of it in Europe.

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The Zombies Are After Our iPhones

Irina Haltsonen — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 23:11:01 +0000

If you’re a security company like Radware, it’s your job to find and create patches for vulnerabilities, but it’s also your job to poke and prod in the hopes of finding some newsworthy exploit to get your firm’s name in the paper. Radware struck media gold with its findings of a vulnerability in the iPhone browser. According to Radware, the iPhone Safari browser version 1.1.4. is vulnerable to a denial-of-service attack after a user clicks through spam email or spam texts that could crash the browser or the phone.

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Unlimited Plans Could Create Unlimited Trouble

Irina Haltsonen — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:00:30 +0000

Will consumer adoption of unlimited mobile plans cause your call quality to suck? ABI Research seems to think so. In a report released today, ABI Research says unlimited plans can lead to more phone calls, more data use and worst of all, more YouTube-related video streaming. And that leads to more of a burden on wireless networks and backhaul. Since Sprint’s unlimited plan includes 3G data as well as voice, it may be the canary in the coal mine for other carriers waiting to see what unlimited means for their networks.

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