TEDTalk Tuesday: On the Future of Cars

[Occulus]

This week's TEDTALKTUESDAY is about cars. Specifically, the future of the automobile, not only as a mode of transportation, but as a mobile method of power generation, and even as nodes in a distributed computing grid.

Enjoy!

LARRYBURNS

Talk Title: Reinventing the Car (Video runtime: 9:12)

You can also watch or download this talk in high-resolution format.



Larry Burns

Ted bio

About this talk

General Motors veep Larry Burns previews cool next-gen car design: sleek, customizable (and computer-enhanced) vehicles that run clean on hydrogen -- and pump energy back into the electrical grid when they're idle.

Question: This talk was filmed in 2005. Given GM's current, ahem, issues, does anyone care to place bets on any of this happening anytime soon? Will we be bold enough to stipulate that any bailout money be used to pursue this man's automobile agenda, or is it a pipe dream at this point?

[Idealism]

1. Pipe dream currently

The amount of money needed to further develop hydrogen and make it cost efficient would be huge. BMW has been working on it for almost a decade without much success in making the technology more mainstream. It is a nice idea, but I doubt the US government will have the will to give the amount of money needed to make it a reality, currently.

[Speck Tater]

2. Another delusional hydrogen pusher. nt

[Occulus]

3. Well, as to that,

I'm frankly surprised the auto industry hasn't mentioned fusion.

No, don't laugh- go here and read a bit. I wonder if the auto industry execs even know about it...