Joule and Smart Transportation

Did you know that Optimal Energy has developed a proto-type electrical car? I seem to have missed this .... it debuted at the Paris Motor Show in October of 2008 to international acclaim.

Joule is a a zero-emission vehicle that is approximately five times more energy efficient than petrol or diesel vehicles. Joule is battery operated and recharges from any electrical source. Furthermore, Joule’s lithium-ion batteries are recyclable and contain no heavy metals.

Joule is a six-seater passenger car with a range of 400 kilometer, a 0-60 time of 4.8 seconds, and a top speed of 135 km/h. Production will take place in South Africa and the venture is in conjunction with the Department of Science and Technology.

Joule's interior and body was designed by Keith Helfet, who is famous for his designs of Jaguar’s F-type concept and XK220.

This is a great example of how South Africa is helping to reduce pollution. Couple this together with less less congested motorways and we are onto something massive. The proposed Open Road Tolling System by South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL), together with initiatives like Gautrain, could be the foundation of a future smart transportation system.

Now we add in some intelligence like the system that is being developed by Garmap and Netstar that collects real-time information from over 50000 cars to determine congestion. This information is then transmitted to users and displayed on a mobile using an on-screen map. Users will then be in a position to manage their travel to reduce congestion and the environmental impact thereof. Pretty damn smart :)

What we now need to do is to bring this all together to ensure that we have a transportation network that reduces the impact on the environment, improves productivity, and improves the lives of people in South Africa.

This is achievable - we just "need to want it".

Green and Beyond

I think that we can all agree that the economic downturn and ecological reality of living in a globally integrated world has required us to rethink our approach to doing business. It is also fair to say that the approaches of the past are not sustainable and that the impact thereof on the environment can not continue unabated.

The challenge we have to accept is to reinvent how we do business, not only to survive and grow, but also to achieve the goals of conservation and pollution prevention.

I think that there are three primary questions we need to answer.

How do we do more with less?

We should build green infrastructures that take out cost and improve the efficiency of our assets and infrastructure. We must strive to maximize the efficiency of what we have; reduce the ecological footprint thereof; whilst providing the platform for business growth without adding to what we have.

How can we be more responsible?

We should build sustainable solutions that focus on increasing efficiency and abating the environmental impact of processes, products and people. There are significant benefits to measuring, monitoring and streamlining processes across the value chain. The difficult is that we can not achieve the full potential of these solutions if we work in isolation. Improvement s across the value chain will yield the most significant benefits.

How can we be more efficient?

We need to build solutions that are able to make intelligent decisions based on the wealth of information available across an entire industry. For example, we are able to use predictive analytics for water management; automate, monitor and control two-way flow of energy from power plant to plug; and build optimized transportation systems.

Let’s talk

What it takes is a willingness of stakeholders across the value chain to collaborate, share information and aspire to build a smarter planet.

edit 22/07/09: I was interviewed on this concept of Green IT - refer to the second half of the following podcast by FinWeek

On a slightly different topic

Just come back from a couple of days in Livingstone, Zambia, where we had a truly wonderful time.

I will try to summarise the experience in one sentence (which will not do it any justice): From sundowners on the sundeck of the Royal Livingstone; to G&Ts on the Zambesi with hippos for company; to abseiling and gorge swinging in the quarry; to cold showers next to the Victoria Falls; I had the time of my life (one of them at least).


So where is the technology you ask? Or the business? Well … the camera continued to work despite all the water from the Falls and a US dollar doesn’t buy you very much there.