Andy Grove made waves at Plug-In 2008

http://www.plugin2008.com , challenging the

audience -- including representatives from many

auto companies -- to cooperate and use their

ingenuity to create a new industry to electrify

millions of internal combustion engine (ICE) cars

now on the road. In particular, he called for a

broad national effort with an ambitious goal:

convert 10 million PSVs (Pickups, SUVs and Vans)

by 2012.  He emphasized that this would have a

far more immediate impact than the slow

penetration of new plug-in vehicles starting in a few years.





INTRODUCTION: I was honored that Andy Grove asked

me to introduce him as keynote speaker to the

audience of over 600 at the Plug-In 2008 conference. Here's what I said:



"One day in May, I picked up the phone to find

Andy Grove, calling me to hear more about plug-in

hybrids. I was thrilled. Not entirely surprised,

since last December I'd written on CalCars-News

about his pitch for GE to build electric cars.

Since then, I've enjoyed introducing one of the

world's most strategic thinkers -- to members of

the diverse coalition so well represented here

today. We're all charged up that he's working with us.



Andy's met many world-class challenges.

Fortunately, he's now focusing on scalable ways

to speed market penetration of plug-in

cars.  Today Andy Grove is best known for Intel.

May this new passion enhance his legacy.  One

disclaimer: Andy's not seeking new investment

opportunities. He's got some big new ideas, to

inspire us throughout the conference. Now, at a

time when it's the end of business as usual, to

start a new set of wheels turning in our heads, here's Andy Grove."





KEY RESOURCES: You can download his presentation

at a CalCars URL

http://www.calcars.org/grove-plugin08slides080722.pdf

and watch/listen to the half-hour speech at Auto

Channel

http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2008/08/03/095241.html

and or EVWorld

http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1501 .

You can see Earth2Tech's 6:50 abridged version of

the speech, showing a few of the 35 slides, at

YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zOxi1AGwqg or at the Earth2Tech URL below.



At one of CalCars' photos pages, "Groups and

Companies and Converters

http://www.calcars.org/photos-groups.html " you

can see in close-up Andy Grove with Ali Emadi of

HEVT, Andy Frank of Efficient Drivetrains and

Felix Kramer . And at "Top Photos

http://www.calcars.org/photos.html " you can see

a wider photo of the same group along with both

converted SUVs . (While most photos on our

website are freely reproducible; for these two,

see link to Green Stock Media for rights.) In

both captions you'll find URLs for the

presentation and the video. And you can read his

Washington Post Op-Ed at

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/11/AR2008071102549\

.html>http://www.washingtonpost.com/­wp-dyn/­content/­article/­2008/­07/­11/­AR2\

008071102549.html

and his longer article in the American (which was

distributed to the conference attendees) at

<http://www.american.com/archive/2008/july-august-magazine-contents/our-electric\

-future>http://www.american.com/­archive/­2008/­july-august-magazine-contents/­o\

ur-electric-future

.



We will continue to report at CalCars-News on the

growing interest in ICE (internal combustion

engine) conversions, which may become a major

focus of CalCars. (That goal of 10 million ICE

conversions begins to seem a little less

unachievable this week as the Senate "Gang of 10"

proposes that 85% of US vehicles get off gasoline by 2020.)





RESPONSE FROM INDUSTRY EXECUTIVES AND OTHERS: The

possibility that ICE conversions might be

feasible was a new idea for most attendees, who

were familiar mostly  with retrofits of Toyota

Prius and Ford Escape hybrids by aftermarket

conversion companies, CalCars and the EAA-PHEV

project. (Many also knew about Prof. Andy Frank's

ground-up conversions over the years at UC Davis

http://www.team-fate.net .) During his speech,

Grove pointed to two adjacent proofs of concepts:

Frank's Chevy Equinox conversion and the

just-completed Ford F-150 pickup truck by Hybrid

Electric Vehicles Technologies http://www.hevt.com .



JONATHAN LAUCKNER, VP of General Motors, speaking

before Grove, talked about him. (We assume he had

seen the AP/Bloomberg/Washington Post stories --

see http://www.calcars.org/news-archive.html --

that indicated what Grove would be proposing.) In

his speech, he said, "I'd like to acknowledge

another person who is involved in transforming

the energy industry, someone whose words have

inspired many people someone whom you'll be

hearing from today during lunch, and

interestingly enough, was a visiting lecturer for

one of the courses that I attended at Stanford.

Andy Grove, former CEO and Chairman of the Board,

Intel. I personally would like to welcome Andy to

the conversation about the electrification of

personal transportation. He brings a lot to the

table. Like Andy,  all of us here today must

become advocates for this effort. The

electrification of personal transportation is a

topic that I know we share and care about very

deeply. No doubt there are issues to be overcome

in achieving widespread vehicle electrification

that affect all of us, whether we're automakers,

utilities, NGOs, policymakers  or potential early

adopters of electrical vehicles. It's not nearly

as daunting as sending a man to the moon, but

it's requiring equally bold actions."



NANCY GIOIA, Ford's sustainability and hybrids

program director, in conversations after the

speech, was doubtful that any such conversions

could meet automakers' standards for safety,

performance and reliability. But we and others

persisted in suggesting that she not rule out

some way that well-funded and serious aftermarket

companies could gain status from automakers

as  "super-qualified vehicle modifiers." (QVMs

are companies approved by carmakers for far less

ambitious modifications. This could represent a

new revenue source for carmakers, and could

significantly improve both the MPG and resale

value of PSVs.) We hope we had an impact. When

asked to comment later by Matt Nauman of the San

Jose Mercury News, her response in "Grove exhorts

conversion to plug-in

hybrids"

http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_9960395

was open-minded: "I don't agree with his

(Grove's) specifics, but I don't know if it was

as much about his specific proposal as saying

this is the kind of quantum discussion we should be having.".



PAT CADAM, owner of Pat's Garage in San

Francisco, which converts Prius hybrids into

plug-ins, said in the same Mercury News story,

"Grove's speech was full of 'great ideas.' 'I

like him saying that this kind of plug-in

technology (converting Priuses) is valuable, so

taking something like an SUV or pickup and

converting it is even more valuable.'"



The subject came up repeatedly in the next two

days, including at the afternoon workshop on

conversions, which I moderated, where several

people stood up to describe themselves as

currently starting companies to modify ICE

vehicles. And at a networking session later in

the day, many of them met angel and venture

capital investors, some of whom had attended the

conferences and others who had came just for this informal event.



At the afternoon panel, discussions were very

lively, notably including TOM MOLINSKI, Manitoba

Hydro Fleet Manager, who said: "On Andy Grove's

thinking, as a fleet manager I'm up here

computing. 10 million vehicles at an average of

$10,000 a conversion. That's $100 billion. That's

not a lot of money. I'll be careful what I'm

saying here because I'm a Canadian.  How much

does the US spend on defense a year? What's $25

billion dollars a year [for four years] to make

this happen when you put it in the context of the

war in Iraq? It's really not that outrageous when

you consider what the stakes are. $100 billion is

not a lot of money compared to losing Bangladesh.

[Global Business Network's Peter Schwartz said

during a plenary that country would soon need to

be evacuated because of climate change.] We keep

talking about what's the cost of doing these

things. At some point we have to start asking

what's the cost of not doing these things. And

the cost of not doing these things is getting

more expensive every time we turn around."



TOM TURRENTINE, Director, PHEV Research Center,

University of California at Davis, in the final

remarks at the conference, said, "We also heard

from Andy Grove just how serious energy security

is -- as somebody who actually grew up behind the

Iron Curtain for a few years and has a certain

perspective on what happens in a crisis."





NEWS REPORTS: The speech received broad

attention. Searches for the terms "Andy Grove"

and "electric" return 35,700 results at Google,

197 at Google blog search, and 34 at Google News.

Here are some we find most illuminating -- in

some, short excerpts; in others, just URLs:





GREEN CAR CONGRESS "Andy Grove Calls for

Concerted US Effort to Convert Pickups, SUVs and

Vans to 40+ Mile PHEVs" with many comments:

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/07/andy-grove-call.html





EARTH2TECH: "Andy Grove Calls for 10 Million

Plug-Ins In 4 Years," by Katie Fehrenbacher

http://earth2tech.com/2008/07/23/andy-grove-calls-for-10-million-plug-ins-in-4-y\

ears/

Includes a 6:51 minute version of video, showing

the slides as well -- also found, larger at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zOxi1AGwqg .

Andy Grove, the former chairman of Intel turned

plug-in vehicle advocate, set a goal at a

conference on Tuesday that the U.S. should have

10 million plug-in hybrid electric vehicles on

the roads in four years. Those plug-ins should be

converted from vehicles with poor mileage like

SUVs, pickups and minivans. Grove threw down the

gauntlet before the crowd at the first annual

Plug-In 2008 conference. He said that a

multi-industry taskforce made up by utilities,

auto makers, high-tech companies and academia

could drive that goal and present the plan to the

next U.S. president on Jan. 21, 2009.



At Plug-In 2008, Grove said that a task force

could implement his goal by collaborating and

competing in the way companies that developed the

Internet did. Grove has previously compared the

early market for plug-in conversions to the early

PC hobbyist movement. Grove did note a promising

collaboration in his speech: As announced on

Monday, GM, along with over 30 utilities and the

Electric Power Research Institute will work

together to promote plug-ins. Grove said if

companies in the industry embraced both

open-source and standardized technology, the

industry for converting plug-in vehicles could

flourish. At the same time, Grove did admit that

converting that many pickups, vans and SUVs to

plug-in vehicles in just four years is

“borderline not doable.” But he says he likes the

challenge, and if it was easy it wouldn't be

interesting. Beyond learning from the development

of the Internet, Grove also said that public

policy could aid the plan by redeploying tax

incentives and giving away electricity for free to converted plug-ins.





HYBRIDCARS.COM: "Converting Standard Cars to

Plug-in Hybrids? Unlikely" [This critical story

received many comments.]

http://www.hybridcars.com/types-systems/converting-standard-cars-plug-hybrids-07\

31.html





GREENTECHMEDIA:  "Plug-In Hybrid's New Spokesman:

Andy Grove, The former Intel chief extols the

virtues of plug-in hybrid electric cars and asks

for free electricity and a tax credit to

popularize them" by Ucilia Wang

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/plug-in-hybrids-new-spokesman-andy-grove-\

1165.html

Not enough effort is going into promoting

electricity as a replacement for fossil fuels,

Grove said. He called for the public to

“transform our energy industry” and showed slides

with phrases such as “There will be blood” and

“Clear and present danger” to emphasize the

urgency and difficulty of accomplishing the goal.

“We are at a strategic inflection point in our

country and for the $7 trillion energy industry

worldwide,” Grove said. “We are, so far, doing

the very worse that we can do, which is worse

than ignoring that there is a problem.”





EVWORLD: "Andy Grove on American Energy

Resilience" [as noted above, this includes links

to video] http://ww.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1501

He estimates that if the 100 million "large form

factor" vehicles that include pick-ups, SUVs and

vans where converted to plug-in hybrids, we could

cut our oil imports by 50%.  "We face a clear and present danger," he stated.





EDMUNDS.COM: "Former Intel CEO Says 'Clear and

Present' Energy Danger Can Be Solved by EVs" By

Philip Reed,  Senior Consumer Advice Editor

http://blogs.edmunds.com/greencaradvisor/2008/07/former-intel-ceo-says-clear-and\

-present-energy-danger-can-be-solved-by-evs.html



If only our elected leaders spoke as directly

about our energy problems as does Intel founder

Andy Grove. Grove, speaking to a hushed lunchtime

audience, said the bloodiest battle in history

(the Battle of Stalingrad in which 1.5 million

were killed) was fought over the oil fields of

Caucasus. The implication is obvious. If we don't

kick the oil habit we will wind up fighting more "resource wars" over oil.



Grove wants to see us using electricity to power

our vehicles, an obvious choice, he said, because

electricity is "fungible," meaning that it can be

created in many different ways, transported

easily and used in different ways. Throughout the

speech, Grove referred to the "Tragedy of the

Commons," a phrase popularized by Garrett Hardin

in a 1968 essay about what happens when resources

that are held in common are overused. Flashing a

red powerpoint slide on the screen with the movie

title "There Will Be Blood," Grove concluded his

speech by saying, "It is up to us to rebuild the

commons and make that (the movie title) not be so."



Grove seemed to want to motivate the audience

when he called the current problem "borderline

undoable." He added, "So far we are doing the

very worst job we can do. We are trying to

pretend the signs are not there." Conversely,

Grove praised an announcement from GM last night

that it had teamed with the Electric Power

Research Institute to gain the cooperation of 34

utilities in 37 states to prepare of the introduction of electric vehicles.



WIRED: Intel CEO Calls for 10 Million Plug-In

Conversions within Four Years By Chuck

Squatriglia http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/07/plug-in-2008-yo.html

SAN JOSE, California -- Plug-in hybrids are a

great way to ease our oil addiction and do

something about global warming. But it's taken 10

years for conventional hybrids like the iconic

Toyota Prius to eke out almost 3 percent of the

domestic market, and nothing suggests cars with

cords will take hold any faster.

That, according to Andy Grove, the former

chairman and CEO of Intel, simply will not do.

He's become one of the country's most

high-profile plug-in evangelists, reading from a

sermon published last month in The American. Now

he's issued a Herculean challenge during the

Plug-In 2008 conference that had many in the

choir singing "Hallelujah!" He's called on

automakers, utilities, researchers and pretty

much everyone in Silicon Valley to develop a plan

to convert 10 million pickup trucks, vans and

SUVs to plug-in hybrids within four years. And he

says they should hand it to the next president on Jan. 21.



The scale of what Grove has suggested would be

difficult to overstate. After all, Toyota's been

cranking out the Prius for a decade and only

recently saw it's one-millionth model leave a

showroom. General Motors is throwing nearly

everything it has at the Chevrolet Volt so it can

start selling them -- in the low tens of

thousands at most and at what undoubtedly will be

a loss -- by the end of 2010. So how does Grove

-- and those who hailed him for his chutzpah --

propose doing things any faster? By making it a

national priority along the lines of the moon

shot. Or a program akin to the New Deal. Only

that level of commitment -- and investment --

will overcome the challenges to so radically

transforming the nation's transportation fleet,

they say. Grove's suggestions include:



      * A federal tax credit covering half the

cost of retrofitting a vehicle, funded by

licensing fees on all vehicles, boats and airplanes.

      * Free electricity for plug-in hybrids for as long as two years.

      * An open source approach (which some

advocates already employ for home conversions) to

developing the technology, and a new federal

court to handle intellectual property issues

stemming from the development of such vehicles.

      * Greater investment by venture capitalists

to spur innovation in the field.

      * Support from the Small Business

Administration and others to help launch the industry.



Supporters of Grove's idea suggest starting with

the fleets -- taxi cabs, delivery vans, municipal

vehicles. They get lousy mileage, so the return

on investment through reduced operating costs

will come much faster, and economies of scale

will reduce costs. And since a relatively small

number of models - the Ford Crown Victoria,

variants of Ford's F-Series trucks, etc. --

comprise the majority of fleet vehicles, it'll

minimize R&D costs. That's the approach John

Dabels, CEO of conversion start-up EV Power

Systems, has taken. "We are focusing on trucks

because trucks consume more fuel and, frankly, no

one else is doing this," he says. The company is

beta-testing a kit that bolts right on behind the

transmission with no modification to the engine,

emissions system or other major components.

Dabels claims the $11,000 conversion delivers a

33 percent increase in fuel economy and "we're

reasonably comfortable with getting to 40."



Once the conversion of fleets and hybrids is

underway, plug-in proponents say, you go after

everyone else. "The low-hanging fruit is out

there," says Felix Kramer, founder of the plug-in

advocacy group Cal Cars. "There are millions of

battered vehicles out there to be converted." He

and other conversion advocates say converted

vehicles will hasten the day when automakers fill

their showrooms with plug-in hybrids by providing

them with a wealth of data regarding how the

vehicles perform, how consumers use them and

what's needed to keep them going. But where are

we going to get the batteries? How do we ensure

converted vehicles meet federal

safety  standards? Who's going to perform all

these conversions, who's going to provide the

training to do it and what guarantees will

consumers have that the cars will keep running

five or 10 years down the line? And perhaps the

biggest question of all - what's it going to cost

and how are we going to pay for it?



"Ten million conversions at a cost of $10,000

(each)? That's $100 billion," says Tom Molinski,

manager of emerging technology for Manitoba

Hydro. "How much does the U.S. spend on defense?

How much has it spent on Iraq? At some point we

have to ask, 'What's the cost of not doing this.'"





WHILE WE'RE TALKING ABOUT CONVERSIONS



ANDY FRANK IN PRINT AND VIDEOS: Greentech Media's

Michael Kanellos has a print and video interview

with Frank about his views and his new company,

http://greenlight.greentechmedia.com/2008/08/01/a-new-plug-in-hybrids-start-up-a\

mid-hybrid-wars/

and before the conference, the Christian Science

Monitor's Mark Clatyon (who wrote one of the

first stories about Prius conversions) travelled

to Davis for a profile of Frank: "Can plug-in

hybrids ride to America’s rescue? The engineer

behind many electric-car advances says oil’s days

may be numbered"

http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/07/18/can-plug-in-hybrids-ride-to-\

america%E2%80%99s-rescue/



SILICON VALLEY LEADERSHIP GROUP: The press

conference the day before the conference session

got attention to SVLG's conversions for members

of http://www.ourpower.org Here's a link to an

ABC local news story, "Hybrid conversions getting

nearly 80 mpg" and 2:00 video with cars:

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local&id=6278746



--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --

        Felix Kramer  fkramer@...

       Founder  California Cars Initiative

              http://www.calcars.org

        http://www.calcars.org/news-archive.html

--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- --