With all the buzz around Green Tech and Alternative Energy lately, we decided to take a peek at what’s happening in our own facility. You may have heard or maybe even seen a Tesla Roadster – a small, but incredibly quick, fully electric sports car – or you may have seen commercials, buzz, or live marketing events for the new Nissan Leaf – a small fully electric metro commuter targeted at chipping away the Toyota Prius’ market dominance.

A few weeks ago we moved into Club Auto Sport of San Jose, CA and they have a whole section devoted to Green Automotive Technology Incubation – a lab of sorts dedicated to advancing Green and Alternative energy for the automotive industry. To launch this new incubator, Club Auto Sport invited many local venture capital firms and angel investors out to “Fast Lane to Clean Technology,” an introduction to the current technology trends of the clean/alternative energy focus.

Highlights of this event included Saba Motorsports entry for the Progressive EV X-Prize which does 0-60mph in less then 5 seconds.

Also noted were the slew of green/electric transport options – everything from ticket maid carts, to golf buggies, to full size buses. We definitely could imagine the eco friendly buses in Yosemite Valley being replaced by these fully electric transport machines. Finally on display were these circular discs which are stack-able to achieve desired horsepower. Each disc we believe is good for 80hp and to get to your desired horsepower output one just does simple arthritic to stack these discs. These discs are the same units which power the Radical SR0 a zero-emissions race car from across the pond, which is currently set to tackle at 16,000 miles of the Pan-American Highway.

The technology is here.  It’s just a question of bridging the gap between ideas to actual consumer reality. This segment of the automotive industry is moving at a blistering pace, and we’re sure that we’ll begin to see more vehicles like the Nissan Leaf or Tesla Roadsters out on our public roads real soon.