Скачать или смотреть Charlie Fine - Entrepreneurship Returning to Automotive Industry: Electric Vehicle as a case study

Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E) often go together. Following the 19th Century product innovations of Karl Benz, the most important auto industry innovator/entrepreneurs in the 20th Century were probably Henry Ford and Eiji Toyoda/Taichi Ohno, noted primarily for process innovation. Although Ferdinand Porsche built and sold the first-known hybrid-electric vehicles in 1901, it wasn’t until the late 1990's that Toyota reintroduced hybrids to then relatively slow moving auto industry, and triggered a soft re-introduction to the world of electro-mobility. In this century, Tesla has catalyzed dramatically increased clockspeeds across the industry, with (at recent count ) over $850B committed to EV development and production during the remainder of this decade. Electrification has reignited I&E across the automotive and transportation value chains.

As companies grow and mature, their I&E muscles can begin to atrophy, as young startups race ahead, typically unencumbered by the organizational complexities inherent in the industrial giants. As such the automotive industry in this decade seems to be populated with numerous large, incumbent auto makers trying valiantly to re-ignite dormant I&E cultures within their walls, racing against the dozens or hundreds of startups, ready to take risk in search of outsized rewards.

One domain of some interest is in the development of public EV charging networks. Europe seems well underway in building out a viable EV charging network. In the U.S., Tesla’s still-mostly-closed network works well for its customers, but many non-Tesla EV owners find that state of public charging to be quite poor, limiting the market to those who have single family homes or other situations where they can get assured charger access.

In this talk, we will share some thoughts on the challenges facing the auto industry’s transition to EV’s, with particular emphasis on the dynamics of I&E in large and small players and — possible paths to scaling public charging in the U.S.