Google offers $10M for best for-profit green car ideas

September 12, 2007 | Matt Marshall
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larry-sergey-electric.jpgGoogle continues to look for electric and other alternatives to gas-guzzling, earth-warming cars.

Today, Google.org, the company’s philanthropic arm, said it will offer $10M to start-ups offering the best ideas for advancing “sustainable transportation.”

Google has supported non-profits in this area before, but this time it is backing for-profit ventures. “Consumers still can’t buy plug-in vehicles – and that’s a problem,” the company said in a statement. “The severity of global warming requires solutions from NGOs, governments, individuals and (very importantly) the private sector.”

The company has already made $1 million in grants to non-profit organizations.

Google said existing automakers need to bring their own cars to market, but that plug-in vehicles — ones you plug into a socket to recharge with electricity — also need its own ecosystem of companies in order to flourish.

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About the Author,

Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.

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