Imagine finding a gigantic oil field under Detroit, capable of producing 8.5 million b/d of oil - forever. This idea came from Amory B.
Lovins, director of research at Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), Snowmass, Colo.
Lovins was picturing potential fuel savings from use of superefficient cars in the U.S. He added that use of ultralight hybrid cars and heavy vehicles worldwide could lead to fuel savings equal to current production from OPEC-about 27 million b/d-in 25-30 years.
Lovins and his colleagues at RMI have developed the hypercar concept. Housed in an ultralight body made from composite materials, it would be propelled by a hybrid electric drive (OGJ, Feb. 20, p. 27).
"This combination of technologies works better than the sum of its parts," Lovins said. "An ultralight, aerodynamically slippery body with good tires improves vehicles' fuel efficiency up to 1@ times. A hybrid drive improves fuel efficiency by about 30-50%.
"Together these technologies improve fuel efficiency by five to 20 times. It's like suddenly discovering that two plus one equals 10."
RIVAL HYPERCARS
RMI is a nonprofit organization. So instead of patenting its ideas it has placed them largely into the public domain. RMI is helping 25 rival companies and groups to bring toward production their own versions of the hypercar.
About half of these hypercar projects involve existing car makers worldwide, while the others involve aerospace and electronics companies and even small or start-up enterprises.
The first hypercar project could be in production in 1997 or 1998, Lovins said. "And today's car makers underestimate at their peril the speed with which such a market redefining product could take hold."
Lovins believes car production today is like the mainframe computer market of 20 years ago, before its big shakeout, The computer industry was torn apart by small companies that built smaller, cheaper, better products.
Lovins, said, "Hypercars will be safer, sportier, more beautiful and comfortable, hundreds or thousands of times cleaner, and almost certainly cheaper than today's cars. People will buy the hypercar because it is a superior car, not because of its fuel economy."
ADVICE
Meanwhile, Lovins also has a long range warning for oil companies. He says they are in danger of being stranded with massive oil reserves and downstream assets as demand for transport fuels falls away.
"If you are a vertically integrated oil company, go crude short before the market discounts your asset values still further," Lovins said. "As you liquidate your reserves, it would make sense to hedge by investing in the hypercar industry with upside participation."
Whether the oil giants would agree completely with Lovins' outlook is debatable, but they are tracking car research and apparently looking to secure their positions for the future.
"We have had oil majors approach us," said Lovins, a long time adviser to several. "They include six or seven inquiries from big oil companies over the past few months alone. Several are seriously thinking of getting into hypercar projects."
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