Sustainable Manufacturing in China

I have just received an email making me aware of this new 4 minute video placed on Euronews.net. It deals with the research and teaching and learning we provide here at our Campus in Ningbo.

Originally I was hoping to get some of my friends who are working in the German automotive sector to provide a report about their experiences made at the IAA. For various reasons none of them went to the IAA this year – incredible. Anyway, instead of providing a firsthand experience, I have put something together based on what I have seen in the news:

The IAA closed on 27 September with a total number of more than 800.000 visitors. A range of concept studies dealing with how resource efficient and environmentally benign automotive transportation could look like in the (near) future were presented at the IAA. This fact was underlined by Matthias Wissmann President of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA):

“This IAA has the headline “A Moving Experience.” It has also shown what the path of the “mobility of tomorrow” will be like: a plethora of options has been presented at the IAA, with the range going from the mild hybrid and the plug-in hybrid to the all-electric car, the fuel cell and hydrogen propulsion. There is also great potential in the continuing optimization of the classical internal combustion engine, where there is still the possibility of reducing consumption by 25 to 30 per cent. One thing has become clear here at the IAA: there is no “silver bullet” for mobility. We are therefore working on a “broad-based strategy” that keeps all the options open. The bottom line is that we have been able to organize an IAA so exciting that there was no way round Frankfurt for anyone who is interested in cars.” (the full speech is available here)

With regard to the current trend towards electric cars I read this interesting article that asks the question “Will the Electric Car Ever Make It to the Mass Market?”

An interesting approach towards Eco-cars is displayed below. It shows a remake of the Trabant, a car that could prove to be immensely popular in Germany because of associations with the German Reunification. The car is equipped with an electric engine, lithium-ion-batteries, and a solar-cell roof. Investors are still needed to realise volume production, however, there seems to be a chance to see the car on the streets within the next 3-5 years. The price could be up to 25000 Euros (source).

Spiegel.de has observed that most concept studies at the IAA follow the trend of „down-sizing”. The visions presented show cars that are reduced to a minimum. However, this future can be both sensible…

…and exciting-looking as the BMW Vision Efficient Dynamics study proves (3.8l/100km, hybrid – 2electric and 1 diesel engine):

PS: When using google’s blog search I found this post describing a visit to the IAA including a range of pictures taken by the author.

Today the world´s leading automotive fair, the IAA, opens in Frankfurt, Germany. I am going to review a couple of interesting studies and concepts that deal with the environmentally friendlier cars as presented at the world’s biggest car fair. I will also try to present  one or two news articles that examine the IAA from the ‘green perspective’.

I have been at the IAA before and I spent an amazing time there. Unfortunately it is a bit too far to go for me now. Anyway, the picture below gives a little impression…though perhaps not the greenest solution to get from A to B.

Apologies for not posting during the summer break! 1^st I was travelling and 2^nd I managed to lose my login-data…

I am back in Ningbo now and looking forward to writing interesting articles for my blog!

This week’s link for the weekend contains case studies published by BestPractices on the bases of implemented and completed projects. BestPractices takes part in projects to demonstrate ways of energy saving in an industrial context:

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Although not related to green-technologies, this post at least relates to China:

Last week we finished our 5 weeks Mandarin course (I took part in the ‘intermediate‘ course, which in fact is more like a beginners #2 course) offered by the University to its members of staff  (4d/w, 2h/d).

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Yesterday Spiegel.de wrote about the 2009 State of the future report which will be made available to the public soon. The report is published by the Millennium Project. People involved in this project try to name and describe the biggest challenges that humanity is facing in the upcoming decades.

Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General, United Nations states that the report gives “Invaluable insights into the future for the United Nations, its Member States, and civil society.“

I am thinking about getting a mobile computer (for quite a whileby now…). I am looking for something really handy to surf the internet and to work with the common MS Office applications when on the road. Therefore I have followed the recent trend of netbooks and after seeing them in action I was actually convinced to get one.

However, when it comes to choosing the ‘right’ solution things become more difficult. I had narrowed down the choice to actually two candidates already (using, amongst others, the ranking here and reading the actual test results):

I was just about to go with the Asus one (due to the SSD resulting in better performance) when I read this article on http://www.goodcleantech.com :

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In order to offer some kind of service through this blog, I would like to introduce a new series:

‘Link for the Weekend‘

This idea is inspired by the blog “Design Tagebuch” (DT) which features a rubric called “linktipp-am-sonntag” in which the author recommends interesting design-related webpages (on a fairly regular basis -always on Sundays- hence the name).

As follows you can find two examples of these Sunday link tips given by DT: The first one links to an interview given by Andrej Kupetz (an expert on appearance-related design) in the newspaper Handelsblatt (in German…). Kupetz talks about the importance of good appearance and design – especially in the context of difficult economic circumstances. The second example introduces two pages promoting Art & Design “made in Germany” – just have a look and see whether you like it.

Above, I mentioned that this new series was ‘inspired’ by DT, I could also put it in other words (perhaps more bluntly) and say that I just nicked the idea from DT. As a consequence I would like to make DT the very first link of this new series:

Design Tagebuch

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