Intel Founder: Look to Silicon Valley for Electric Car Development

Intel is hard at work developing the next generation of low-power Atom chips, but company co-founder and former CEO Andy Grove has bigger ideas. In a guest editorial in Fortune, Grove writes that just as how power and efficiency of the internal-combustion engine were at the core of the development of the automobile, batteries will be a competitive advantage for the automakers of the future. Unfortunately, battery production is currently dominated by overseas consumer electronics manufacturers, not U.S. automakers.

As oil prices fall, "the push for new energy technologies is being shoved aside by the nation's other economic woes," Grove said. "That is a mistake that could cost the United States everything - especially if this recession is followed by a period of fast growth."

Grove points to the conditions that led to the invention of the transistor, and the early days of the microprocessor--something he knows a little bit about--as the model to follow for electric car development.