Ex-Intel Director on the Tipping Point for EV's

Andrew Grove was Time's Man of the Year in 1997

Andy Grove, the former chairman of Intel, has joined ex-CIA director James Woolsey, former Secretary of State George Schultz, and Google.org as an advocate for EV's and plug-in hybrids. He's been busily educating himself about alternative fuels, and he's sold on electricity as the solution, citing its ability to be generated domestically from a variety of sources.

Contrary to many EV enthusiasts who downplay home conversions, he compares the individuals converting their vehicles to pure EV or plug-in hybrids to the computer hobbyists in the mid-70's who helped usher in the age of personal computing.

Grove calls the point at which circumstances will drive corporations towards change the 'strategic inflection point' -- and he thinks that time has arrived with $4 gasoline and the evident risks of oil politics.

Read the AP interview here and an excellent summary of Grove's article in the July/August issue of The American here in the NYTimes technology blog. One of the the first comments posted there nominates Grove for Secretary of Energy -- wouldn't that be great?

Another E-Vanagon in the Works?

Breaking news (just in time for me to make my personal goal of updating this blog at least once a month!) -- I've had a flurry of emails recently around the possibility of converting another Vanagon. We have a very motivated owner in the Allentown PA area who wants to convert her 1982 Vanagon, and the MidAtlantic Renewable Energy Asssociation is willing to serve as the sponsoring nonprofit. I'm ready to help in any way I can, including referring the folks who've been contacting me wondering whether there would be a workshop in 2008 and of course sharing what we learned from our experience with the e-Vanagon. So stay tuned -- perhaps there will be an opportunity for the e-curious to get some hands-on experience in a conversion workshop in the near future!