WC Archive

Sustainability Sundays contributor Mike Millikin, editor of the fantastic Green Car Congress website, is the subject of an interview in the current Mother Jones. The discussion is a good one, and the interview could serve as a primer on the current and near-future trends in building more efficient vehicles. (And if you shy away from Mother Jones for political reasons, you don't need to for this piece -- it's almost entirely focused on vehicle technology and its social context.)

Millikin: ...one of the things I try to do is emphasize new engine concepts. It's very difficult to develop an engine, and it's hard for inventors and innovators to come up with something that can really make any headway. And so in at least one case – and I'll be doing this with other cases – I've thrown up a new concept on the site, and the inventor and the readers interacted and discussed it in great depth.

I've got the educated or leading-edge consumers, researchers from universities, engineers and developers from the auto companies checking in regularly. It's a good cross section. And I've been very pleased with the types of discussions and interactions that have developed. All I'm really trying to do is to get people learning and thinking and then taking what they've learned and doing more.