Vinod Khosla Interview at earth2tech

Outstanding, if too short, interview with Vinod Khosla, The Optimist's (among others') favorite future-savvy investor, at GigaOM's earth2tech.

I especially love how Khosla admits he drives a Lexus hybrid because he can- not because he believes today's hybrids are whether the cost the incur to save 1 ton of carbon. He falls short of saying he's not for incremental improvements and doesn't invest in them (but is willing to drive one!)

February 2 Links: Green Buildings and Remodeling

Green Eggs & Planet reviews the 10 Greenest Buildings in the World, including the Robert Redford Building, home of the National Resources Defense Council, an awesome urban remodeling achievement. The link reminds me that I was recently proud about a huge Northwest Ohio company's achievement- Owens-Illinois' new headquarters in Perrysburg achieved LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver certification, although not as sad I am that the company moved out of downtown Toledo and massive glass tower and into the 'burbs.

Now we're getting somewhere! Aptera, a Carlsbad, CA, company who's developmental electronic vehicle looks as futuristic as we all secretly hope the next generation of automobiles will be.


Interesting Discovery Channel article on GreenMobile, a Mississsippi State University effort to develop a sustainable alternative in rural housing. Pre-fabricated, eco-conscious and therefore not a far off cousin from higher-profile green housing start-ups, GreenMobile is blatantly aimed at a different market, and not afraid of the word "Mobile." Also interesting how simple some of the innovations are, like which direction the house faces as a way of controlling the temperature.

Green Eggs has some other nice posts recently, including a Top 10 list of (relatively obscure) home-cleaning products.

Quick video excerpt from "Nubian Cheetah" on Eden Campus, "Africa's First Green Business School."

Earth Friendly Moving, a Costa Mesa start-up that is reinventing moving with Recopack, a system of reusable plastic containers (instead of one-and-done cardboard boxes!)

A fascinating "Web Trend Map" produced by FormForce (Japan). I love the random, disconnected offshoot at the top of the subway-style map that contains a bunch of random webtrends, like Netflix, Sendspace and bunch of other media-sharing services.

Link to SCSI, a Massachusetts company that does green residential remodeling projects. Why is there not an all-out scrum among contractors in higher-end markets to become THE green remodeler in each market.

(There must be progress in some markets: Vivavi's directory of Green Remodelers...3 and counting! One's in New York, of course, but the other two are in Humboldt, CA and DeForest, WI.)

Press release about MaestroReading.com winning the Business Development Bank's Enterprize 2007 biz plan competition in Montreal, and $15,000. The start-up is working on elementary literacy tools and curriculum. I believe there is huge room for improvement in the student literacy arena...more to come on that!

John Doerr, Ben Godhirsh, Gaiam and Change

ZDNet leads us off with some coverage of one of our favorite social entrepreneurs, Steve Glenn of LivingHomes, who literally introduced this Optimist to the phrase "Profit and Purpose" during a chat at Pepperdine University two years ago. The author dwells on the apparent lack of privacy in a LivingHome, given the demo's (and Glenn's home's) many windows. Dwell-caliber design critique it's not, but all coverage is good, I suppose, with Glenn's goal of hundreds of homes over the next few years.

Silly author above, though, links us to a bit on summer 2007's Solar Decathlon, in which 20 universities competed in a Department of Energy contest to create a village of off-the-grid homes on the National Mall. Champion: Germany's Technische Universitat Darmstadt. University of Maryland was runner-up.

Inhabitat shows us this Taiwanese solar-powered car (don't look at it if you're predisposed to believing that "good" vehicles are "ugly") out of a university project.

Meanwhile this LA-based company, Venture Vehicles, led by Rick Balsiger, has a great-looking site, and a much more attractive three-wheeler.

Nice Motley Fool follow-up on legendary VC John Doerr's continued commitment to cleantech; he has previously called environmentally-friendly technologies the Biggest Economic Opportunity of this Century. (Needless to say, this is one investor to take cues from). The Fool's spin this time is on which large industrials (BP, DuPont) will jump on Doerr's bandwagon to reduce greenhouse gas 25% by 2010.

From the LA Times archives: a 2006 profile of young social entrepreneur and philanthropist Ben Goldhirsh, founder of Good Magazine and Reason Pictures

The Daily Green reports on the continued growth of $70M Boulder-based Gaiam, the "mother of all green product marketers," with 10,000 offerings.

Here's the blog of workplace revolutionaries Cali and Jodi, authors of Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It and pioneers of ROWE (the Results-Only Work Environment.

Today's post on Change in the above blog made me think of how difficult Change is, and I recalled a 2005 Fast Company by article called Change or Die on that topic. This article is one of the two or three most stimulating things I've ever read.

Fantastic web home of The Good Store, a beautiful and simple Australian purveyor of stuff that is good. Not Good, good, in the sense that we normally discuss it here. Just...good, as in gifts, mostly, from a Bialetti Moka Express to a Hohner Harmonica.

Social Entrepreneur points to non-profit Conscious Lifestyle's Ventures program, which (with Youth Ventures) awards $1000 seed prizes to social innovators. Deadline: Feb. 15.

Khosla Invests and Invests

Legendary Silicon Valley VC turned leading cleantech investor Vinod Khosla continues to spread capital across various alternative transportation technology start-ups, reports earth2tech. This week: Camarillo, CA-based Transonic Combustion received more Khosla Dollars; they're working on improvements to the reigning stalwart, the internal combustion engine.

Last week, it was Ecomotors that received Khosla funding, says Red Herring; this start-up is driving toward the 100 mpg diesel engine. The best thing about them: they're based in Detroit:

Morning Commute!

Thoughts from a near-empty Ford Explorer on a crawling exit ramp...

Zipcar continues to thrive (180,000 members) and act like a real business (merged with Flexcar.) This will never work for the huge portion on non-urban Americans but there's absolutely no reason it shouldn't continue to get huge in cities.

Velo-Commuter reports disturbing facts about the drain of commuting on our economy (I'm sure some of our largest companies (Exxon) would argue that it's such a drain.))

I was also thinking about incremental improvements in alternative transportation. I am, after all, still driving the Explorer, and thinking, "Big Deal!" when it comes to today's lineup of marginally better hybrid fuel efficiencies. But I thought back to Niel Golightly, green transportation evangelist at Ford (and possessor of maybe the BEST name in the entire Green world...As in Go Lightly Upon the Earth, Young Man!) I heard him speak at the 2006 LOHAS conference, and his message was about the steps along the way to the end result we all want.

As an example, he responded around the same time to a question from Grist.org about whether Ford's hybrid efforts were "deck chairs on the Titanic." His response:

Hey guys, give me a break! This is huge -- in impact, investment, and strategic commitment. A quarter million hybrids is our plan today, but...we're not likely to sit on our thumbs as the segment continues to grow.

For those of us arm-chair quarterbacking the green transportation revolution, let's at least remember to embrace the incremental improvements along the way. A few more MPGs, a few less cars off the road, a little more conscience, and I'd be off this exit ramp a few seconds quicker...and probably wouldn't be driving the Explorer!

Detroit: Green Envy and Not Going To Take It Anymore

If you don't have time to read this whole BusinessWeek article on U.S. Automaker's "Green Fear and Loathing" at the 2008 Detroit Auto Show, here are your key takeaways:

• A phenomenal headline: Fear and Loathing and Green Tech in Detroit
• Toyota is kicking U.S. automaker arse in the "green vehicle" race, with the Prius becoming the 9th best-selling car in the U.S. in 2007!
• Ford, with its gas-turbocharged direct injection hybrid technology, and GM are apparently scrambling to close the gap (the sleeping giants have awoken!)
• Oil barrels cost over $100 each now (with oil in them; a few bucks if they're empty, I'm guessing)...will this be the breaking point, and thus 2008, that we collectively say "Enough!"?
• All improvements are still incremental to this point, I am required to say, and fuel efficiency progress is embarrassing compared to, say, microprocessors (duh, but still)

I remember going to the Detroit show up at Cobo about 15 years ago, a care-free pre-teen, with my longtime pal Brad (who lives not far from Detroit and works on some of the coolest ad campaigns for some of the region's best vehicles, including Jeep). We were young and carefree, mesmerized by the shiny metallic Lamborghinis. Hummers and other 9 mpg beasts were nary a thought on our minds- heck, the minivan heydey had yet to yield to the SUV craze.

Imagine how far we've gone in 15 years...I mean, it's 2008 and we're talking about how this might even be the year that possibly we could maybe start to think about how U.S. automakers might consider preparing to compete with mass-market, cutting edge alternative technologies of their own!

P.S. With Subtle Disclaimer: Just so as not to appear entirely cynical, the 2008 Ford Escape Hybrid (younger and more eco-friendly nephew to my 2001 unhybrid Explorer) is a seriously good looking vehicle.

Thursday Links

Links early on a Thursday...

Wall Street Journal breaks the hope and promise of a New Year with the report of a Harvard study and its stimulating conclusion that businesses "doing good works" or pursuing "societal benefit" are only weakly correlated to reap shareholder benefit. (Save yourself the click- that's basically all it says.) The discouraging suggestion is that cash contributions to charities are a better indicator of a company's financial success than community projects, for example...or responsible corporate policies! Expect nothing less from Harvard and WSJ then the stunning philosophy of "Make your money first, and then give it away."

Admittedly my first reaction to news of Salesforce.com CEO Mark Benioff's book was skeptical; after all, I figured it was easy enough for a celebrity chief exec to cajole all of his/her buddies into writing an essay and throw them together and have them published. On second glance I decided I'd give this one a try, not for my dayjob allegiance to Benioff's web-based software, but for the diversity and star-studdedness of his essayist lineup.

This week's TreeHugger Carnival of the Green is a best-of-the-best of the green web by EBikeBlog.org, leading off with a link to a GreenLivingOnline.com story about "Pedelecs" on college campuses. I've never been a big fan of "motorized bikes" and any time I see one here in moderately temperate Southern Cal, I can't help thinking, "Why don't you just pedal yourself?" Of course the few times I have pedaled the 8 miles to work, I'm covered in sweat by the time I arrive; maybe that's an argument.

Double the wheels, but only multiply the cost of your average bike x 10, and you get the world's first $2,500 car, by Tata of India. It's actually closer to $3k at the moment- and I am fine that we continue to refer to Optimist innovations by their target price, whether it's achievable yet or not. Admittedly the "$100 Laptop" has a lot more cache than the "Buy Two $100 Laptops for $400" that the production economies currently allow...

Great local story from the Indianpolis Star about some Indiana farmers who began using roduce from there all-natural farms to create food products back in 2002 and have since grown Local Folks Foods 20x into a nice-sized (we don't know how nice) specialty foods company.

Another quick local story, this one from the Bismarck Tribune, about 2008 Marketplace Entrepreneurs of the Year winner SolarBee, a North Dakota company whose floating, solar-powered water circulator improves water quality in lakes, reservoirs, and water storage facilities. Another great story about local entrepreneurship with universal applicability- and yet another great (and, not that I could have thought it up, relatively simple-sounding) product marketed toward better water quality.

And finally, on Monday I was absolutely enlightened to absorb this perspective on why my all-time favorite lunch- the All-American Classic Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich (I am very particular about mine and make with Jif Reduced Fat Crunchy Peanut Butter and Smuckers Strawberry Preservers, both marketed by the JM Smuckers Company of Orrville Ohio, on whoe wheat bread with some tortillas inserted for added crunch)- is also far better for the environment than your average lunch! Check out the PB&J Campaign.

Fast Company: Go Diesel!

Haven't stumped for Fast Company in a while, and the recent cover on the "Motorhead Messiah" Jonathan Goodwin, he of Kansas, the mechanic-turned-master of alternative engines (from Electric to military grade Turbines to Diesel) whose $28k conversions to diesel are not only good for MPG but also a celebrity fad, delved into a fascinating side bar: the critical role that Diesel can play in moving us all away from gas. Diesel engines are already more fuel efficient, but more importantly, they are a likelier stepping stone, since they are more accommodating of alternative fuels- an idea that seems to becoming a necessity, since few large corporations seem willing to take the lead on rolling out purely alternative vehicles until the alternative power source is ubiquitous, and vice versa (author Clive Thompson's chicken/egg analogy, not mine)

Not one to typically paraphrase a brilliant story, I'll nonetheless sum up Goodwin's three-step program:

• Aggressively roll out diesel vehicles (already available at most gas stations, instant 40% MPG gain!)
• Release diesel-electric hybrids- again potentially doubling MPG
• Moving on to "dual fuel" hybrids that can use diesel OR another low-emissions gas (hydrogen, ethanol)

Even if you're in the microchip business and the word "double" doesn't impress your Moore's-Law-Loving appetite for innovation, this has to stimulate some thought. Now we wait for the devil's advocates, who already in full form in the comments below the article!

EEStor and a Better Battery

Optimist reader Brad in Royal Oak, Michigan, points us to Mlive.com and an A.P. story by Grant Slator profiling Austin, Texas company EEStor's ultracapacitor- a battery stuffed with wafer thin metal sheets whose inventors believe will hold enough charge for 500 miles of electric vehicle drive time.

EEStor is well-backed by Kleiner Perkins and Zenn Motors of Toronto, which has already licensed the technology.

Treehugger was first on the story in March 2006 and again in January

StartupTime and the Commuter Pod!

For all those who enjoyed Alternative Transportation Week on the Optimist Company and all other dreamers and doers and innovators of world-improving transporation, StartupTime's Commuter Pod webisode cartoon contest is an absolute must see.

StartupTime is the creation of Molly Lavik, founder of Mentorography Inc. The Commuter Pod is a webisode series about a disgruntled young professional who quits Corporate America to take on the entrenched powers-that-be in the automotive industry in an attempt by creating a 100 recyclable alternative fuel commuter vehicle.

Check out the Call for Entries to Mentorography and StartupTime.com. The winning story submitter gets $1,000!

StartupTime creator Molly Lavik is an inspiration. A standout among standouts on the entrepreneurial faculty at Pepperdine University's Graziadio School of Business and Management, Professor Lavik goes beyond a stellar curriculum of business plan writing and marketing for new ventures. She matches every single student with a mentor from her vast rolodex of media professionals, interactive gurus and cultural creatives and takes an unbelivably active role in the career searches and start-up endeavors of her students and colleagues.

In the parlance of Malcom Gladwell, she is the ultimate connector. She's also herself a mentor to past and present students and fellow entrepreneurs; a longtime P.R. professional; and an entrepreneur herself. Huge disclosure: I am among the proud and appreciative former students and "mentees" of Molly Lavik and am even lucky enough to have collaborated with her on The Commuter Pod!

Certain keywords in Molly's bio keep popping up...entrepreneurial, inspiring, and mentor. So it's not surprising that Molly is also the founder of Mentorography, a digital media company that tells the stories of inspiring socially responsible entrepreneurs in countless formats.

Judges for the contest include famed Mac evangelist, entrepreneurship-inspiring blogger, Truemors.com co-founder and Art of the Start best-selling author Guy Kawasaki; Broadband Emmy-winning studio Animax Entertainment's managing director Michael Bellavia; and balance-oriented actress and author Mariel Hemingway.

Alternative Transport in the Sky: The Boeing Green Jet

Boeing has received a lot of press recently on its first new jet in 13 years, the 787 Dreamliner.

Last week Boeing unveiled the massive aviation innovation with a green spin, touting the green jet's carbon composite construction and other fuel saving efficiencies Check it out at Discovery.

The Air Car of South France

Quick follow-up to Alternative Transportation Week: Courtesy of Business Week and Gizmag.com, here's a great article on The Air Car, a new vehicle being produced in limited quantities (3,000 a year for now) by Moteur Development International (MDI), based in Luxembourg and the South of France. The vehicle, the MiniC.A.T., is fueled by compressed air, with a top speed of 68 MPH and a range of 200-300 KM.

If partnerships are the key to the success of a small, tightly-held family start-up like MDI, their pact with India's automotive juggernaut Tata Motors is one reason to be incredibly Optimistic about the prospects of the Air Car.

Thanks to Molly Lavik at Startup Time (much more to come on Startup Time!) for the tip!

Alternative Transportation Week: Wrapping Up

You'd think that our first Alternative Transportation Week would last...about a week. But there's so much good stuff going on in this world, that would be irresponsible. So here's a grab bag of extra cool stuff:

Commuter Cars is importing the Tango, the closest thing I have seen yet to a vision I had of essentially a covered motorcycle. This one, though, is battery powered with a range up to 160 miles, a perfectly shaped commuter vehicle. It weighs just over a ton and a half, a third of which is battery.

The only thing I am unsure of about it is that CC advocates Tango's benefits in lane-splitting, or driving between two cars in tight traffic. As a Southern California driver it makes me extremely nervous when motorcyclists do this, yet it could be a major incentive to get people into much more efficient vehicles. It highlights the need for some kind of true "CommuterCar" lane to incent drivers to make the big switch.

Or even for something grander, like the network of slim, elevated tracks that would be required to make SkyWeb a reality. It doesn't look like much has happened lately with SkyWeb, or Taxi2000, whatever the companies name is behind this ultra-futuristic "personal rapid transit." But it's another idea that gets right to changing the infrastructure of ground travel. There's an old press release (2005) about installing SkyWeb on Microsoft's Redmond campus. A big, deep-pocketed company with a campus-like headquarters and a workforce of early techno-adopters seems like an ideal place to test the concept.

Here's another alternative fuel maker to put up there with BioWillie: Altra Biofuels, an LA-based developer of cellulosic ethanol fuel.

And here's a fantastic Bruno Giussani article in Business Week about the OSCar Project, or the Open Source Car Project. Based in Europe and "maintained" by Markus Mertz, OSCar is trying to do for automotive hardware what has been done for countless open source software projects, from Linux to Firefox: virtually assemble a group of talented and passionate minds to come up with a better design to "reinvent mobility." An awesome, if slow-evolving (the group wrote its first "manifesto" in 1999 and not even Mertz is able to be committed full-time to the effort) approach.

If you can't get behind any of these more advanced technologies or start-ups, at least seriously consider NuRide, one of several increasingly prominent ride-sharing concepts out there. This one offers rewards and incentives for ride sharing. And look at the passengers in the convertible- they look so happy!

Finally, and look for a full disclosure from me in the near future on anything I write about them, is Google's RechargeIT initiative. Google's philanthropic venture arm, Google.org, is funding development efforts for a hybrid plug-in car to the tune of $1M.

News and What They're Saying:

Futurist Jim Carroll on the Google Car
NY Times' Katie Hafner on Google.org and Dr. Larry Brilliant
Morning Paper on the Google Car
WorldChanging on NuRide
AutoBlog on OSCar's debut
Richforking on SkyWEb
Arlington Initiative to Reduce Emissions on NuRide
Great Green Gadgets on Commuter Cars and the Tango
SoCalTech.com on Altra's huge debt fundraising round

Alternative Transportation Week: The Bicycle

On the Fourth of July, let's celebrate Independence as a nation, and when possible, independence from our automobiles.

With the huge disclaimer that I drive, as I've disclosed before, a fairly large Detroit automobile, and I drive a lot, I can also honestly say that I spent the Fourth cruising up and down Newport Beach's Balboa Peninsula on my bike. I didn't touch my SUV all day, an unbelievable luxury considering the madness that was traffic on the peninsula.

My Giant Boulder SE

It's the simplest alternative transportation: ride a bike! (And wear a helmet while you're at it.)

Alternative Transportation Week: Tesla and Phoenix

When you think of alternative transportation, what do you REALLY think of? Let's get to the sexy.
They may not be working on the innovations that are most ripe to alleviate our dependence on oil (alternative fuels comes to mind for that) or our environmental impact (that would be biking), but the sexiest innovators may just be those companies that are developing new kinds of cars from scratch.

Let's talk fully electric powered vehicles. These aren't your incrementally-improving hybrid vehicles from Toyota or Honda (that's no judgment; at least they're putting putting mass quantities of fuel-saving cars on the road) or, worse, your auto show sparklers with no real world application (yet) from our Big 3. They're not your fuel-cell novelties that raise more stumper questions- like where will you refill your hydrogen?- then they answer. And while their technology platform poses its own limitations (like how far will my 100-mile charge take me?), these battery-powered vehicle pioneers represent an exciting advance in the idea that electric may win the alternative transportation race.

There's Phoenix Motorcars, whose Nanosafe battery lasts 100+ miles per charge and offers up more torque and higher speeds than probably most people imagine from an electric. Phoenix is in production on fleet trucks and SUVs and conjures up some serious commercial applications. Plus they use the word "Nano," which is always a hit.

And then there's Tesla Motors, whose high-end Roadster, powered by lithium ion battery packs (or "Energy Storage Systems") performs like a sports car and, as reservable and customizable online, costs like one too (about $100k).

(not to be overlooked: ZAP! Smart Cars, and scooters, ATVs and bikes...)

That may be what I love most about the different market-targeting tacts these two well-funded and well-partnered start-ups are taking, especially Tesla: it suggests maturity in the market if they really believe there is a high end customer to serve (and all the 2008 pre-orders and funding Tesla has secured would seem to corroborate the business model) in addition to a commercial market and, ostensibly, a Joe Prius-Driver type of market.

News and What They're Saying:

Business 2.0's Todd Woody reports Tesla will be supplying it's lithium battery
Autobloggreen.com on Tesla's funding for developing a commercial charging station
HybridCarBlog.com on steamrolling Prius sales
ObscureStore points to the Trib on a Chi-town Prius cabbie
Jeff on a BarackObama.com community block on the unrealized benefits of "transport electrification," include Phoenix
GreenCarCongress on UQM and Altairnano collaborating with Phoenix on a 150kW drive system
Clement's Cave on Phoenix' SUT truck
REpreneur (great blog by U. of Arizona marketing/entp student Kyle Cherrick) with links to Phoenix, ZAP! and a bunch of other renewable energy companies and organizations

phoenix motorcars
tesla

Alternative Transportation Week: Lovecraft Biofuels and Making the Most of What You Have

Lovecraft Biofuels is one of the most inspiring companies I've encountered in the nouveau transportation movement. The LA-based company started by Brian Friedman at an old Sunset Blvd. service station in Silverlake converts cars- especially Benzes- to run on vegetable oil. With a second location now running in Portland and well over a thousand veg-oil-chuggin' cars in circulation, this shop is the ultimate in grassroots, business-model-good companies that isn't about the hype- although they are cleverly branded, in my humble opinion- but instead about improving the fuel problem one vehicle at a time.Lovecraft also has a great group of people behind it. I've experienced first hand that they are humble and reluctant to be spotlight entrepreneurs, yet eager to share what they've learned and what inspires them with, for example, LA-area business students.

PS: Lovecraft brings to mind the ultimate anthem of veggie oil fuel, and in my mind of alternative transportation in general. It's a little ditty I discovered on one of the free monthly compilations sent to Relix subscribers:

Well-Oiled Machine by Hot Buttered Rum (give it a list; it will change your life!)



News and What They're Saying 'bout Lovecraft
Cody Simms' firsthand account of the $737 conversion of his vintage diesel Mercedes
Cody proudly displays the viral symbolism of his conversion
Treehugger touts Lovecraft's expansion
Sacha at Vegetable Oil Roadtrip visits Lovecraft
Hugg links to Lovecraft tv ads

Alternative Transportation Week: Petty Theft vs. The Rise of Bike Sharing

On top of car sharing, there are bike sharing organizations, too, which appear so far to be more of the non-profit variety. Check out iBike.org. There seems to be an opportunity for a company and a technology that can offer bike sharing will somehow mitigating the risk of having all bikes stolen. (Check out this wikipedia entry: "all 300 bikes were stolen on the first day..."

By the grace of YouTube, Treehugger and Matthew Sparkes bust a a bike tire thief and would-be Stomper on the Dreams of a US Bicycle Culture.

Hilarious lyrics: "This guy needed some wheels; this guy...he steals...what an asshole!"

Hopefully this unexpected peer video exposure virally vilifies this petty schmuck into a conviction and the shame of running so counter to our burgeoning affinity for velo power. See these bloggers on the rise in Bike Sharing.

Paul DeMaio at CommuterPageBlog
Bike Sharing in Chicago from Amy at the Trib
BikePortland's Jonathan Maus on Portland's prospects
And Richard Layman, "Urban Revitalization Advocate" in DC

Alternative Transportation Week: Car Sharing and Zipcar

Next up in The Optimist's Alternative Transportation week is one of the first start-ups I'd heard of that was really trying to reinvent the way people think about driving.

I remember first reading about Zipcar in Business 2.0 in 2004. Next thing I knew, a buddy in Boston was singing it's praises.

Zipcar is so logistically different, it reminds of me what legendary Pepperdine entrepreneurship professor Charles Morrissey says about early reception of Fedex' business plan: "You're going to take all the packages and fly them into Memphis over night, and then send them back out by the ten the next morning?"

(photo: I saw two Zipcars waiting patiently at a very urban gas station in San Fran.)

As in, "You're going to leave a bunch of cute cars around the city, and people who can't afford their own wheels can go up to it and swipe their membership key and get in and drive it around for a few hours and bring it back?"

But it's not about people who can't afford their own car. It's about the new kind of person, the Careful Consumer who lives in a city and considers it financially dumb to own their own car, not to mention environmentally irresponsible. Besides, they're still in business after four solid years. So here's to Zipcar.

Also look at: Flexcar. The predictable effect of at least two credible competitors in car sharing appears to be a price war and a turf war; it's fun to keep track especially of their new location announcements.

News and What They're Saying About Zipcar and Flexcar:

Hydro Kevin on car sharing with hybrids
Elliotte Rusty Harold on the Zipcar user experience
Environmental Leader on Flexcar's carbon offset membership

Alternative Transportation Week: Biodiesel and BioWillie

With an admiring nod to WorldChanging and their regular feature The Week in Sustainable Mobility by Mike Millikin, we hereby launch our own inaugural Alternative Transportation Week.

Alternative Transportation can- and, in this case, will- be broadly encompassing, from automotive innovation to non-car transportation alternatives. We'll highlight the start-ups that are poised to make some noise in the game of "Reinventing How Humans Travel." It will take us more than a week, too.

Leading off is a company and a namesake entrepreneur that may not have been on the tip of your tongue for pioneering alternative transportation. But Willie Nelson is a Good Business Optimist, for sure. This legendary singing/song-writing country/folk musician and long-time-Highwayman, reformed bandit, one-time Taco Bell pitchman, near Octogenarian, weed-legalization proponent is no stranger to social activism, having stirred up great awareness for the plight of the American farmer with fellow troubadors Neil Young, John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews in the festival form of Farm Aid.

Now his brand graces BioWillie, a Dallas-based brand of premium biodiesel distributed to a current roster of 13 truck stops in 7 states in support of both the environment and his familiar farming friends, who of course produce the earth stuff of which biodiesel is a product.



Willie, maybe we didn't love you quite as often as we could have in your early days as a country crooner (although if you ever get a chance to see the man and his band live, do it, still, and be mesmerized by his enduring persona and the emerging stage presence of his young, prodigious guitar-shredding son.) But, with much more to be said in the nascent dialogue of biodiesel and other alternative fuels, we salute your leadership in the alternative transportation space.

News and What-They're-Saying:
Domestic Fuel News on BioWillie distributor Earth Biofuels' financial struggles
Sarah Rodman on the green-ing travel habits of conscientious musicians and touring acts
Stillisstillmoving.com on the rebel Willie Nelson
GreenTechnolog on a recent PBS segment on BioWillie (with a YouTube clip)
Fairfax Digital, 2005 (photo credit, too!)

Godin on Bad

With his typical marketing-wise view of the world (or worldview, as he would say), Seth Godin starts with the assertion that marketing works (people can be sold) and concludes that businesses have a responsibility to the right thing. Don't take my paraphrasing for it; it's always worth reading his dramatic interpretation of the business world's approach to marketing.

In between, Godin focuses more on the bad that a business can do before closing on an Optimistic high note (a link to Patagonia.) The part that struck me most, and a topic I'll definitely revisit frequently since I'm from the region and agree entirely with his readers' quote, is his example of "Detroit's" fatal approach to cramming SUVs into the marketplace.

Disclaimer: I drive a big piece of Detroit myself, and yet the environmental impact of our beloved gas guzzlers is only part of his message. It's really about one of Godin's favorite themes, and it's not just an indictment of the Big Three but also the powers that be in the automotive world: if as much time and energy and resources were spent aggressively innovating safer and more efficient vehicles as were instead spent on defending life span of the current production, the hole in the ozone would be a little smaller and a lot more people in the "Rust Belt" might still be employed.

More specifically, I've recently adopted the mindset (not my own unique thinking) that Motor City business and government leadership missed a GIANT opportunity, not only to keep pace with the foreign brands but to more aggressively and more publicly and more enthusiastically pursue BETTER vehicles (better for consumers, for safety advocates, for fuel consumption, etc.) instead of trotting out tiny incremental improvements every year in addition to a slew of useless tradeshow novelties. Simple example: They could have thrown a tiny share of their lobbying budgets toward luring alternative fuel start-ups to the region.

But they didn't, so on the Optimistic side, there is still a GIANT opportunity out there for a company- and now it could be any sized or stage company, really, given the endless avenues for prototyping and production- to become the leader in better vehicles. And that means there's still opportunity for an entire region to become the home to one of the biggest industries in America (transportation), the way Henry Ford did with Detroit a century ago.