By JOHN VAN KLAVEREN
AN IMMIGRANT Portuguese architect and urban planner believes Geelong’s car industry can be saved with radical innovation, including a “bionic” car.
Lara’s Telmo Lima has written to Mayor Darryn Lyons with an outline of how to phoenix a car industry out of the Ford, Holden and Toyota ashes.
With a litany of ideas and concepts spilling out, Mr Lima enthuses about the potential for Geelong to take hold of its own manufacturing destiny.
He sees the future in electric or hydrogen-powered cars using bionic power, utilising a vehicle’s own motion to regenerate, amplify and redistribute electrical energy.
“I can see there is a spirit for cars in Geelong and it should use its experience and skills to create a new independent, community-based business.
“It would not take much for many people to buy small shares in a community company to generate investment for local people.
“Geelong should take the lead and do it ourselves. We need a ‘yes-we-can’ attitude,” Mr Lima said,
“There is an opportunity to create a new interaction between universities and companies in the process of achieving new technologies in robotics, alternative energies, carbon components and more.”
Mr Lima is in Australia on a student visa and completing a business course but holds degrees from Lusofona University in Lisbon.
He designed a Utopic City as part of his thesis for his Masters in Architecture, focusing on self-sustainability.
Mr Lima, who witnessed the decline of the Portuguese economy over the past decade, said similar warning signs were apparent here. Geelong must dismiss its doom and gloom thinking and be motivated to action, he advised.
“Innovation arises out of crisis.”
