Energizing the rollout of plug-in cars

Andy Grove, the former chairman of Intel, has made it his mission to trumpet the virtue and urgent necessity of plug-in vehicles. "The drumbeat of the electrical transportation is accelerating like nothing I've ever seen in my life," he said. He's not only working to encourage development of new cars, but also to encourage the practice of retrofitting old cars with new engines.

Former Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) Chairman Andy Grove has a knack for sensing when circumstances should force changes at a company or an industry -- and how to respond.

He even has coined a term for it: the "strategic inflection point." Now the retired chairman of the world's largest computer chip maker thinks the term applies to energy and transportation, where record-high gasoline and oil prices have spurred interest in alternative energy sources and next-generation vehicles.

During the past year and a half, Grove has created his own crash course in electric power, plug-in hybrid vehicles and finding ways of shifting the nation's fleet of vehicles from gasoline. His goal: To draw more attention to electric vehicles.

"The most important thing I would like to do is light that almost half-assumed truth up in neon lights: Electricity in transportation has to be done. It is urgent. It is important that everything else is secondary," Grove said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

"The drumbeat of the electrical transportation is accelerating like nothing I've ever seen in my life," he said.

Read the full article