“Our world will be one of micro-turbines, Williams micro-jets, Quasiturbines, hybrids and high-capacitance capacitors.” - Automotive analyst Howard Kenig 2006
Publisher's note: China's announcement this week outlining proposed new auto sector policies that have major players seriously rethinking their participation in that country's marketplace has raised renewed concerns in the arena of intellectual property and patent protection; electric vehicles and their battery technologies among them.
Indeed, China's "new rules" have the potential to completely shift control of the world's automotive industry into this communist country's grasp, and if industry leaders and those within their respective governments aren't worried, they should be.
- Myron D. Stokes
Excerpt from analysis:
"What will also emerge from this FOE [Ford of Europe], Renault-Nissan, DCX, BMW, VW fusion/symbiosis is the growing realization that quite unnoticed, and if noticed, dismissed as inconsequential, is an extraordinary shift in the industry technology and supply/resource base that will be potentially controlled by Japan and China.
" What might that be? The rise of turbine/rotary configuration powerplants capable of routine bio-fuel utilization to an extent that renders the dinosaurs extinct again. Honda's recent announcement of its rather excellent advancements in micro-turbines and the scientific/engineering community weighing in favorably on the viability of the Saint-Hilaire Quasiturbine (Google "Quasiturbine White Paper; Quasiturbine Livre Blanc; fr.), supports this contention powerfully. And, since micro- turbines produce power when fueled; i.e., fuel goes in, power comes out, fuel cells are rendered moot, as would fossil-based fuels. (Hybrid systems, as represented by Toyota's Synergy Drive and PAICE Hyperdrive will play a continuing, although not primary, role in vehicle propulsion methodologies.) Our world will be one of micro-turbines, Williams micro-jets, Quasiturbines, hybrids and high-capacitance capacitors.
"An instantaneous resource-based power/influence exchange would occur between the oil-producing countries and those with the most arable land, and China rules in that latter category. Honda has wisely designed the micro-turbine in a way that the Chinese cannot easily reverse-engineer the technology, except at great expense. Thus, their role as a fuel provider is locked, while Japan wears the mantle of creator, developer, assigner and maintainer of core power-unit manufacturing operations around the world.
" In our estimation, nationally self-contained manufacturing all but ceases to exist in this scenario, with Europe and the US reverting to pre-industrial status. The consumer/service economy therefore becomes reality. Consequently, we may well measure time and events not as A.D. or B.C., but as P.I.A./P.I.E. (Post-Industrial America; Post-Industrial Europe)."
