The automotive sector is one of the largest in the world, a market over $3 trillion in value if one also counts in the auto component sector. The market has developed over 100 years, and today has a long, complex value chain spread across dozens of countries for many OEMs. Tens of millions of jobs depend on […]

  This is a part of the EV Innovation Intelligence series Innovations are taking place in many points along the electric vehicle value chain. Even some of the value chain components thought to be commodities are undergoing transformation and innovation. Many innovations being attempted require significant resources – both financial and otherwise, and a good many of these […]

  This is a part of the EV Innovation Intelligence series Oil goes into many things. It goes to make plastics, for instance. It also gets used in some power plants. It is used in backup diesel generators. But the bulk of the revenues for the oil companies come from its use in automobiles. If, in […]

  This is a part of the EV Innovation Intelligence series E-mobility and electric vehicles present an exciting domain for startups. For many bright brains from the sciences and engineering (and not just software whiz kids), this domain offers a rare opportunity to use their engineering skills and build exciting ventures. This alone – the diverse profiles of the founders compared to many […]

  This is a part of the EV Innovation Intelligence series History tells us that the very first electric motor was made by Thomas Davenport of Vermont, who invented a battery-powered electric motorway back in 1834. That was a long time ago. With an almost 200 year history, it will be no surprise that electric motors can be considered […]

This is a part of the EV Innovation Intelligence series Electric vehicles are giving the opportunity to many industry stakeholders to reimagine the vehicle as we know it – be it a car, truck, van or a bus. As completely new minds such Elon Musk and other bright pioneers from diverse domains such as design, software […]

  This is a part of the EV Innovation Intelligence series A once-in-a lifetime-pandemic can also become a once-in-a-lifetime period when many things – even some of them fundamental – change. COVID-19 is still on, and it will perhaps be only by end of 2021 when we can breathe easy – literally. But there is little doubt that […]

  This is a part of the EV Innovation Intelligence series Electric cars have no tailpipe emissions, but that does not mean your trip on the electric vehicle resulted in no lifecycle emissions. Making batteries (or electric vehicles) consume energy, which in turn result in CO2 emissions somewhere in the EV value chain. More important, the […]

  This is a part of the EV Innovation Intelligence series Many e-mobility industry watchers would doubtless have come across new articles and TV shows centered around the theme of Lithium scarcity. Estimations show that by 2025, 75% of the world lithium consumption will be for batteries. If Lithium forms the core part of the dominant battery […]

  This is a part of the EV Innovation Intelligence series Until recently, conventional vehicles were dominated mainly by mechanical engineering and petroleum engineering. The former ensured the vehicles were safe and robust. The latter ensured that the vehicles had fuel from any place imaginable, at a reasonable price. Since 2000, even the conventional cars were being […]

  This is a part of the EV Innovation Intelligence series A large car could weigh about 1.5 tons, the largest truck could weigh 25 tons (15-20 times as much as a large car), and could be required to travel much longer distances on a single trip compared to a car. If car owners think electric vehicles […]

  This is a part of the EV Innovation Intelligence series In its early days, charging an electric vehicle could take 8-10 hours. Surely no one would wait that long for a vehicle to be charged, unless of course it is charged while the owner is doing something else – sleeping, for instance, or at work. […]

  This is a part of the EV Innovation Intelligence series It was said that the stone age did not end because of the lack of stones. It can be similarly argued that the reign of oil as the fuel for transport could end much before scarcity of oil hits the world, or even before electric […]

  This is a part of the EV Innovation Intelligence series The battery is a fairly old industry, over 100 years old. (The very first lead-acid battery was invented in 1859 by a French physicist, Gaston Planté). Even the relative newcomer, Li-ion battery has been around for over 30 years, as part of a slew of […]

  This is a part of the EV Innovation Intelligence series For about a year now, there has been buzz around the concept of million mile battery. Now, I think it was Tesla that started it all, though there are some variants of the million mile battery we keep hearing about in the e-mobility innovation circles. […]

  This is a part of the EV Innovation Intelligence series Li-ion is the dominant standard for batteries for the e-mobility industry. And most industry experts think that Li-ion chemistry has established a strong foundation that will last at least for a couple of decades. Or will it? While some battery chemistries or battery types such […]

  This is a part of the EV Innovation Intelligence series In 2011, I was at a conference on biofuels at Orlando, Florida. During one of the breaks, I caught up with a senior Boeing executive. We got chatting, and out of curiosity, I asked him what Boeing thought about use of biofuels in aviation. He […]

  This is a part of the EV Innovation Intelligence series Micro-mobility refers to very short distance transportation – of the kind almost every one of us to many times a week. It could be running to a grocery store nearby or just taking your bicycle out for a 3 Km fun ride. For a business, it […]

  This is a part of the EV Innovation Intelligence series Some years back, when most of us thought electric vehicles were far into the future, a bright entrepreneur set up an ambitious idea in Israel called Better Place, which he felt could actually do away at least one key problem with electric vehicles  – their long charging times. […]

  This is a part of the EV Innovation Intelligence series It’s early 2021. The way the rest of the world has been looking at China has changed dramatically in the last ten months. While there had been always been ideological conflicts between many western nations and China (even though what China follows is also capitalism, albeit without […]