Blog of Intellectual Capital

Here is an article from SF Gate.

“Vinod Khosla has been called a “green kingpin,” a fitting honorific given that the Silicon Valley venture capitalist controls $1.3 billion worth of funds targeted at all manner of clean tech enterprises.

Which makes his latest investment seemingly counterintuitive.

Last week, Khosla‘s firm, Khosla Ventures, partnering with Bill Gates, put $23.5 million into a suburban Detroit company looking to manufacture oil-dependent internal combustion engines.

Ah, but not just any oil-driven internal combustion engines. The 2-year-old EcoMotors International says its “opoc” (opposed pistons, opposed cylinders) engines are 50 percent more efficient and emission-reducing than conventional engines, are half their weight and size, with substantially fewer parts, and therefore much cheaper to produce.

Announcing the investment, Khosla called the company’s technology the kind of “game-changing innovation that can provide not only payback in months but also economic and carbon benefits to large segments of the world’s population without the need for subsidies or massive infrastructure investments.”

Gates sees the engine as “an important step in providing affordable, low-emission transportation for the developing world.” One of EcoMotors’ investors is Zhongding Holding (Group) Co. Ltd., a Chinese auto parts company.

“Maintech” solutions: Elaborating in an e-mail he sent me this week, Khosla said he believes EcoMotors’ engines “will prove to be the least expensive way to increase mpg – or decrease grams of carbon/mile driven – at zero cost compared with current engines. Basically, efficiency could be 2x what you get with a hybrid like the Prius.”

The Troy, Mich., company fits with Khosla’s oft-stated preference for “maintech” solutions, like more efficient engines, that don’t require the “massive investments” needed for the current flavor of the month, electric vehicles – which Khosla has said “are probably not material climate change solutions with technology developments that are visible today.”

It should be noted, however, that EcoMotors ( www.ecomotors.com) has also applied for a $200 million U.S. Department of Energy loan, which the company said it would use to build its engines at an old GM plant in nearby Livonia.

Based on testing so far, EcoMotors says its engine, designed by the former head of Volkswagen‘s powertrain division, will certainly exceed the federally mandated 35.5 mpg mandated standard for light vehicles by 2016. By that time – the company is aiming for 2012 – they should be in commercial production. The real goal: A five-passenger car getting 100 mpg, running on gasoline, diesel or ethanol.

Mainstream revolution?: Whether EcoMotors succeeds, Khosla’s investment illustrates a growing interest in what the company’s CEO, former GM senior executive Donald Runkle, has called “a revolution going on right now in propulsion systems.”

“It shows that Silicon Valley’s interest in the auto industry can’t just be married to the electric vehicle,” said Thilo Koslowski, chief auto industry analyst at research and consulting firm Gartner Inc. in San Jose.”

Read Full Post »