Electric cars.

With each passing day I realize that the market for electric cars is a lot like what was once the market for digital cameras. People regarded it as a novelty but not something really practical. Taking 0.3 Mp pictures of your family would prove to be more of a "Wow... thats cool" turn and look away then a really useful thing. Nowadays we cant seem to live without one. Reel cameras are all but gone in the amateur photography world except for grandmas and grandpas that still cant master the computer. Even the people who once said that printed photos were better now think otherwise, since now you can print only the photos you know are looking good and in matching quality to the ancient ones.

But I digress, its been a long time since we've been talking about electric cars as being the promise for the future and all that but they still cant seem to get off the ground. I think the premise that you have to start from a internal combustion engine to design anything that is better (hello hybrids) than it is the most important cause for the lack of creativity among designers and engineers. Throw away everything you know about engines. Throw away everything our society has learned from coal and gasoline. We need to start thinking fresh, about the reality of the world as it is and what are the solutions that are needed to achieve the world we want. This kind of thinking has gladly made its way through to GM, which are currently designing engines that have absolutely nothing to do with the things we take for granted on internal combustion engines.

http://media.gm.com/content/media/us/en/gm/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2011/Oct/1026_spark_elec_mtr

Thats the first baby step, let the 0.3 Mp cameras come rolling in. I cant wait to breathe a better air.