Former CEO suggests Intel invest in green auto technology
Andy Groves, former CEO of Intel, has suggested an interesting proposition to the company he used to lead. He thinks that Intel should invest in electric car battery technology as a way of diversifying their operations and investing in the sweeping change to a new automotive technology. Groves, the man who was the third employee at the world’s leading microprocessor manufacturer, joins a number of other industry luminaries in suggesting that Silicon Valley lead the way in green technology.
Groves said specifically that Intel’s “strategic objective is tackling big problems and turning them into big businesses.” Groves made the suggestion in an interview with the wall Street Journal, in which he also said that Intel could become a leader in the battle to reduce the price and increase the efficiency of electric car batteries by using its cash resources, which could result in earlier and more widespread adoption of the electric automobile. The large batteries which make electric cars possible are the vehicles’ most expensive component.
Intel already has the beginnings of investment in these essentially green arenas. It has put money into battery technology through its venture capital operations. It has also backed green technology processes, such as it did when it started SpectraWatt, which is dedicated to improving technology that will lower the cost of producing solar cells.
Grove has become one of a number of Silicon Valley advocates of policies that promotes the manufacturing and use of plug-in hybrid automobiles. He even published an article in The American magazine, titled Our Electric Future, wherein he advocated the move to an electric American auto future as an aid to national security. In that article, he said “Because electricity is the stickiest form of energy, and because it is multi-sourced, it will give us the greatest degree of energy resilience. Our nation will be best served if we dedicate ourselves to increasing the amount of our energy that we use in the form of electricity.”
There is a plethora of technology talent in Silicon Valley, although is seems to have lain dormant for the past several years. This call by Groves and others, when added to the importance placed on technology by the incoming Obama administration, could be a step toward helping the United States regain some of it previous innovative supremacy in the tech world.
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