cts | Volt a Day | Innovation September 11, 2010

I will struggle to keep this blog from becoming political, because I admit that I am woefully under-informed and I certainly don't want the job of running the country or making practically any of the decisions that need to be made by the people in power. Still, it made me sad to hear that GE was shutting their last incandescent bulb factory.

Not because I think we still need them, surely there are better ways to light things up without generating so much heat (which, when you are trying to light something, just represents wasted energy). But part of the story is that the government regulations are basically pushing the incandescent manufacturing out of business without providing the necessary support or incentives to replace the manufacturing with something else.

I don't know how it can be possible, but GE says that re-tooling the factory to make Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs would mean they would sell at 50% more than bulbs coming from overseas.

On any case, you would hope that GE, with billions of dollars to spend in research and development, would be working on an Light Emitting Diode solution to leapfrog the CFL technology anyway. Where is the innovation?

That will be part of the Volt story. GM dropped the ball after the EV1 (see: Who Killed the Electric Car?). They had the momentum, technology, market position, and visibility to become a turning point in American automobile manufacturing. For various reasons, it didn't happen. It has always disappointed me to read of the advances in electric vehicle technology, knowing that the team that created a great car was not hard at work on the next one. The game changer.

It's almost here. We'll see. If it is as good as the EV1, but a four seater without range anxiety, and the support of the entire GM organization, we could get to see a renaissance.