Well Known Fact

EV HOV Reciprocity: Maryland Bill With High Hopes Seeks Companion in Richmond

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:04:07 -0500

At Well Known Fact’s urging, Maryland House Bill 683 (sponsored by Delegate Luiz Simmons, D-17) would provide Maryland and Virginia electric vehicle owners reciprocity on high-occupancy lanes in both states. Currently, these vehicles only enjoy privileges in the state in which they are registered.

While Maryland House Bill 683 is headed toward a March 6 hearing in Annapolis, a companion bill in the Virginia Assembly must also pass favorably for these privileges to be extended.

It is, reciprocal, after all.

At the suggestion of several WKF fans among the Electric Vehicle Association of Washington DC and the National Capital Area Leaf Owners Group, contact has been made with Virginia Delegate Ken Plum and Virginia Senator Janet Howell, however a bill has not yet materialized in Richmond.

If you know these members of the Virginia Assembly, or another, supportive elected member, please let us know! The Maryland and Virginia general assemblies only meet for a few months in the spring.

The window for bills to be drafted and gain necessary support is VERY SHORT. We are looking for a companion bill within the next few days to get passage before the end of the session.

EV HOV Reciprocity -- Bill in Maryland House

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 21:28:00 -0500

A bill suggested by Well Known Fact in the Maryland legislature will establish HOV exemption reciprocity with Virginia for electric vehicle owners.

Well Known Fact is very pleased to report the favorable standing of Maryland House Bill 683, entitled “Electric Vehicles - Use of High Occupancy Vehicle Lanes - Reciprocity with Virginia,” sponsored by Delegate Luiz Simmons (D-17).

A first reading was made before the House of Delegates’ Environmental Matters committee on February 8.

A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, March 6, 2012 at 1 PM at the Maryland State House in Annapolis. Supporters are encouraged to attend.

The bill’s ultimate enactment is contingent on a comparable bill passing the Virginia legislature this session.

Virginia EV owners, please reach out to Well Known Fact to coordinate.

Solving Problems That Don't Exist

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:00:05 -0500

Two stories this week to file under “solutions looking for a problem to solve.”

First, the non-scourge of charging electric vehicles (EV) using a power cable will be non-solved with the addition of wireless inductive chargers. It seems that people who have grown accustomed to inserting the hose-end of a gasoline pump into their cars for the past 120 years can’t imagine doing the same thing with an electric cord.

Gotta be wireless to work? C’mon, people.

Second, the lunatic fringe in the form of one Kansas state legislator is proposing a one-cent per kilowatt hour tax on electricity used for electric vehicles. Why? Revenues from the state’s gas tax might take a beating from all the EVs on the road, he claims.

Given the modest sales of EVs this seems ill-timed and far-fetched. Also, the Federal Government and most states are giving tax credits to people to buy and use EVs.

The idea of taxing something we’re also reimbursing seems a robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul game.

Paul will be played in this afternoon’s matinee performance by the State of Kansas.

Rage on, rational thinkers.

Who Says Electric Vehicles Have Range Issues?

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:00:05 -0500

Here’s the story of one opportunist who’s pushing 2,000 miles a month in his Nissan Leaf.

What I Learned at #CES This Year: Part 3 of 3

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:00:06 -0500

Lesson 3: Great design still matters.

With all due respect to my esteemed colleagues who are great designers, great design need not be expensive. Great design often is pricey, though.

Working with a great designer with a solid track record costs. But even small fish can use great design principles and get great results.

There’s an oft-cited trope about three project management attributes—speed, quality and money, that are in short supply. One always comes at the expense of the other two, the saying says.

Some of the very best products manage to break that model through thoughtful design.

Recent projects like glif, Elevation Dock, and the Stump manage to be at once cheap, good and apparently, came to market pretty damn fast.

Cheap, good, and fast for the win!

Thank you, smart designers.

This is the third in a three-part series about lessons learned from this year’s International Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

« Lesson 1: Be a great generalist, be a great unitasker or be gone

« Lesson 2: Glitzy tech sizzles, but ecosystems sell

Honda Fit EV Coming Not Very Soon

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 09:23:56 -0500

File under “setting expectations.”

Cars.com reports that Honda is bringing an EV version of their popular Fit subcompact to the United States. Look, here’s one now, being sent to the City of Torrence, California.

Just one. That’s it.

That’s what I call a limited release.

Everyone else? A small batch of production models will be available in 2013.

What I Learned at #CES This Year: Part 2 of 3

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:03:00 -0500

Lesson 2: Glitzy tech sizzles, but ecosystems sell.

Traditionally, CES was about making the deal, but today, it’s just as important to make a big splash. To make that splash—or “earned media” as PR pros call it—something new, innovative, and clever drives mouse clicks and page views.

Trouble is: technology needs are rarely satisfied with one-off solutions, no matter the sizzle. Industry sales at scale require end-to-end ecosystems that allow for the full sweep of the production cycle. Absent all the pieces in the puzzle, it’s just a product, not a solution. Two recent examples:

Ultra-High Definition Television

The standard for so-called 4K television has been around for years. These new displays have roughly four times the horizontal resolution of today’s HDTVs—breathtaking clarity. Sony showed an outstanding demo unit at CES five years ago. But until last week, we haven’t seen on public display the end-to-end product line that allows professionals to shoot, edit, distribute and ultimately present that 4K content in, for example, a home theater setting.

Now that the ecosystem of equipment exists from a single manufacturer, individual content creators can investigate and buy these parts, or, if they prefer a competitor camera, for example, that may be better or cheaper than Sony’s offering (no list price yet), assemble the pieces needed for a competitive advantage. Sony has successfully moved their product line from product to solution.

3D Modeling

CAD (computer assisted design) packages have been around for a generation. They allow plans for three-dimensional objects to be designed, stored and transmitted digitally and rendered on screen or on paper. But building an object in three dimensional space with a two-dimensionally bound mouse is, well, flat.

The new Leonardo 3D Bird seeks to solve this problem as a feather-weight pointing device that is held aloft in a wispy ergonomic grip. The proper hand position is akin to about-to-toss-a-paper-airplane. Users manipulate the Bird on-screen with a new set of gestures (sounds naughty, doesn’t it?).

Once that 3D CAD file is ready, making a prototype or scale model is the next challenge. Here enters a growing vendor community of 3D printers. These are devices that make a life-like replica by layering micrometer layers of plastic or composite ceramic one atop another, similar to a ink-jet printer, but moving in three dimensions, and at a finer resolution.

These devices have been out for a while, but due to exorbitant cost, have remained a tool for specialist purposes until recently. CES this year showed several options at more approachable price points. Among them, solutions from MakerBot and Cubify.

Or, for more sporadic needs, a ‘cloud-based’ offering from Sculpteo: upload a file and your 3D prototype arrives by mail. Again—it’s not just a product—it’s a part of an end-to-end solution.

And increasingly, it’s solutions that customers crave, even if they can’t easily express their need in so many words.

This is the second in a three-part series about lessons learned from this year’s International Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

« Lesson 1: Be a great generalist, be a great unitasker or be gone

Lesson 3: Great design still matters »

The Economics of Extraordinarily Large Numbers

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:43:06 -0500

An interesting article in The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) summarizes why Apple’s products are made in China.

The short answer: only China has the requisite labor force at the needed size, with the needed skills and living in the needed densities to crank out enough product to meet demand. No joke.

#MondayMusings -- The Value of Testing

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 09:00:05 -0500

Let’s face it. Testing is not the most fun possible on planet Earth.

But it’s vitally important to the success of complex systems.

Using a non-software example, this Wired article describes the (literally) fatal outcomes that can result when the hubris overtakes our thinking if A causes B, and B causes C, they always will.

Modern Stonehenge. The VCR is Long Gone. But the VHS Tapes...

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 12:06:57 -0500

Modern Stonehenge. The VCR is Long Gone. But the VHS Tapes Remain.

#ElectricCar -- Getting Legislative

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 06:56:00 -0500

With the inevitability of electric vehicles becoming a more regular presence in our lives, a few modest accommodations are warranted.

As a prospective electric car owner, here are a few items you want resolved sooner than later.

1. Legislative safe harbor for required EV infrastructure

My new charging station is ensconced in my home garage, away from the elements and public view. But the device itself is rated for outdoor use. My car dealer has a charging station just like mine mounted on a monopole in the elements.

To date, Nissan and Ford are ‘strongly discouraging’ non-garage owners from buying their electric cars. This means that, for the near term, when you see a Nissan Leaf or Ford Focus Electric plying the streets, its driver started their day from a single family home garage bay. That can’t persist for very long. Eventually condominiums, public parking garages, apartment parking decks and homeowners associations with street-side parking will all need to get comfortable with pole-mounted charging stations sprouting up like so many mushrooms after a warm rainstorm.

You can imagine the legislation will be similar to what you find for personal television satellite dishes and solar panels—you can’t be forbidden from acquiring these necessities, but your local fiefdom can play a role in where it can be situated.

But so far, that legislation doesn’t exist yet in most places. That will change after a very public spat between a ruthless condo board and a prospective EV owner results in legislation. Until then, caution and diplomacy remain the watchwords.

2. Regulatory reciprocity

In my home state of Maryland, I can request a bumper-mounted sticker from the motor vehicle administration that permits use of the electric car in high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes even when driving solo. I spend quite a bit of time in neighboring Virginia, and Virginia has a similar law. But these rules aren’t reciprocal—Virginia clean vehicles get no free pass on Maryland’s HOV lanes and vice versa. It’s high time that states permit their residents to cross borders and enjoy the same privileges.

I’ve engaged a member of the Maryland House of Delegates on the issue. I am seeking a tracking bill in the Virginia legislature in the current spring 2012 session. If you’re interested, I’d be happy to speak with my Virginia-based readers about helping push this important legislation.

3. Getting real on the federal electric vehicle tax credit

For cars purchased in 2011, the federal government offered an up-to $7,500 tax credit for plug-in electric vehicles. Many states offer their own tax credits or deductions.

But the party may soon be over. Absent an extension of the federal tax credit—which is no sure thing in the current climate—all of the electric vehicles on the market are too expensive at their current price points (Nissan Leaf starting at $37,000 and Ford Focus Electric at more than $40,000) to be cost effective in the long term, or affordable for financing for all but a very few car buyers.

Likewise, the vultures are circling a generous federal commercial tax benefit for companies investing in major infrastructure projects supporting EVs.

We’ve all heard the rhetoric from the auto makers: as soon as EV sales volume starts picking up, economies of scale for the battery packs will start kicking in and prices for EVs would ease. The proof is in the pocketbook: electric car manufacturers need to stand up and match price cuts to offset the federal tax breaks that are going the way of the dodo.

For electric vehicles to become more than a fringe offering, their drive-off-the-lot cost needs to be in the realm of internal combustion cars of the same class, and the economic benefits for total cost of ownership need to be made clearly and prominently. I think I have the contact information for those Infographics guys around here somewhere…

This is the eighth in a series on the state of electric vehicles in 2012.

« Part 1 of the Electric Car Series: “On the Bleeding Edge”

« Part 2 of the Electric Car Series: “A Recent History”

« Part 3 of the Electric Car Series: “Nissan Leaf Test Drive”

« Part 4 of the Electric Car Series: “Charged Up”

« Part 5 of the Electric Car Series: “Mindfulness”

« Part 6 of the Electric Car Series: “Difficult Conversations”

« Part 7 of the Electric Car Series: “Secret Message: Like Really Cheap Gas”

An Open Letter to Congress: On #PIPA and #SOPA

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:40:11 -0500

Dear Members of Congress:

I am gravely concerned about the potential adoption of the bills generally known as SOPA and PIPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act.

As eWeek recently noted, “The language of SOPA is so broad, the rules so unconnected to the reality of Internet technology and the penalties so disconnected from the alleged crimes that this bill could effectively kill e-commerce or even normal Internet use. The bill also has grave implications for existing U.S., foreign and international laws and is sure to spend decades in court challenges.”

Both bills greatly expand on existing, reasonable restrictions to the point of unreasonableness and provide tools to law enforcement agencies that effectively place non-Judicial persons in the role of playing judge and jury without due process.

Both bills usurp existing protections on prosecutorial restraint and permit gross travesties of free commerce to occur on no more than flagrant accusations, with little recourse for those affected.

I urge you, Members of Congress, to stand proudly against these two dangerous pieces of legislation.

Sincerely,

Cory Siansky
www.WellKnownFact.com

What I Learned at #CES This Year: A Three Part Series

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 09:00:00 -0500

Lesson 1: Be a great generalist, be a great unitasker or be gone.

The tablet market best describes this lesson.

Apple owns the general tablet market with iPad.

For e-book readers, Amazon’s e-ink Kindle line represents one example of a product offering good value (starting at USD $79) for a very constrained list of functions.

There remains room in the current marketplace for additional unitasking tablets, but I’m not convinced I saw them at CES this year.

The Samsung Galaxy Note might be such a device. But probably isn’t.

Let’s dig deeper.

Apple’s iPad, for better or worse, owns the generalist tablet market. This is not to say other general purpose tablets can’t be successful in the market. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 has great appeal, for example, even though it hasn’t won huge market share. The 7 is probably the most capable under-appreciated product on sale right now.

What I am saying is that the ship has sailed for mindshare for the first generation of general use tablets. Apple 1, Rest of Marketplace Zero.

If Microsoft expects their new generation of Windows 8 tablets to succeed, they need to innovate fast. Like Google, Microsoft sets an OS standard and has little control over the hardware their partners offer on their platform. Android competitors cannibalize one another all the while funneling cash to Google’s maw.

Microsoft will need to out-Google Google to make a general purpose Windows 8 tablet more attractive to an existing Android tablet-buying audience. Oh wait. That hasn’t taken off. Scratch that.

Microsoft will need to out-Apple Apple to make a general purpose Windows 8 tablet more attractive to an existing iPad-buying audience. Oh wait. That’s improbable. Scratch that.

Microsoft must create their own market by executing phenomenally on what a Windows 8 tablet should be (whatever that is). Or in an alternate reality, Microsoft must create an OS that offers hardware partners the latitude to deliver it to market at a phenomenally low price. In this scenario, some bad behavior or shortcomings might be overlooked on the back of perceived value (see Amazon Fire).

Absent a generalist approach, a purpose built one-task wonder can succeed. It must do what it does phenomenally well and at a right price for its market. I mentioned Amazon’s e-ink Kindle line earlier, but let’s look at an entirely different slant.

A more mature product of also-called-tablets exists in the form of Wacom’s fabulous input devices. This is a company that knows its niche market incredibly well and continues to innovate for its market. The product performs its role well, and is priced right for its audience.

Wacom lives this mantra—they are working hard to get their devices right and haven’t rested on their laurels.

Products that innovate, execute well and are priced right have a chance. Everything else, see dust bin.

This is the first in a three-part series about lessons learned from this year’s International Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

Lesson 2: Glitzy tech sizzles, but ecosystems sell »

Lesson 3: Great design still matters »

#CES #CES2012 Play Starcraft 2 Against a Pro for Prizes

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:04:50 -0500

#CES #CES2012 Play Starcraft 2 Against a Pro for Prizes

#CES #CES2012 Fond Farewell WKF Tripod

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:39:55 -0500

#CES #CES2012 Fond Farewell WKF Tripod

#CES #CES2012 BFFs Dennis Rodman and Andy Dick at CES

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:29:49 -0500

#CES #CES2012 BFFs Dennis Rodman and Andy Dick at CES

#CES #CES2012 The New Reference Standard? Angry Birds

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:35:05 -0500

#CES #CES2012 The New Reference Standard? Angry Birds

#CES #CES2012 Trends That Won't Go Away

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:55:40 -0500

Observed at this year’s CES too many times defying explanation:

- egg-shaped media chairs
- robot vacuum cleaners
- dancing robots
- reclining massage chairs, like you see at the mall, but supposedly for home use

#CES #CES2012 — New LG OLED is Bright, Beautiful and...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:37:01 -0500

#CES #CES2012 — New LG OLED is Bright, Beautiful and Super-Slender

#CES #CES2012 Inductive Charging Your Tesla Roadster, For the...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:27:26 -0500

#CES #CES2012 Inductive Charging Your Tesla Roadster, For the Win!