GM's vice president for research and development, Lawrence Burns, says consumers have to start thinking of their car as a power-supplying appliance as well as a means of transportation. (A hybrid car, for example, might be an alternative to an emergency generator during an ice storm.) Meanwhile, GM is endorsing Huber's thinking with plans to introduce plug-in versions of the Chevrolet Volt and a Saturn vue crossover by 2010.

FORBES: A Light Bulb Goes On

On Christmas Eve 1999 the road from Macedonia, the only supply line to Pristina, had been closed by ice storms, and Meyer had to borrow a jerry can of diesel to keep his Internet service provider's generator going.

FORBES: Low-Tech Prophet