To my fellow EVS 23 participants:
As a new entrant to this market, I’m delighted to be a part of the excitement and passion this industry has for today and for the future.
As you all know, the International Electric Vehicle Symposium and Exposition (EVS) series took root in 1969 – the same year that man first walked on the moon. The Apollo Mission required enormous industry collaboration, smart engineering, and the imagination and vision to ignite an entire industry to rally behind it. It was a unifying vector for all of mankind’s ingenuity to put together the science we had already known at the time into an integrated solution that was a wonder of technology. That race to the moon created many opportunities for many new companies in innumerable fields of technology which advanced society and science more in one decade than ever before.
Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon commented, “The important achievement of Apollo was demonstrating that humanity is not forever chained to this planet and our visions go rather further than that and our opportunities are unlimited.”
Nearly 30 years later, I believe that to start addressing our planet’s burning issues of climate change and oil dependence, we need a new galvanizing mission – one that will capture the attention and excitement of the common consumer at home, even if they do not understand the science. At Project Better Place (www.ProjectBetterPlace.com), we believe that the answer to our inconvenient truth starts at a convenient car. Cars capture the public’s imagination, their aspirations for a better place for their children, and their self-perception. We can make every person a part of our industry’s exciting journey.
We believe that for certain markets around the world, the time is right now. We believe that “transportation islands” – regions with dense populations where people drive 99.5% of the time less than 100 miles per drive – hold the most immediate promise for providing the consumer with a complete solution: car, infrastructure and energy at an affordable price.
We believe that we can integrate existing technologies – many of them will come from you — which can be scaled like never before, as we build out electric recharge grids much like the cellular industry in the early days of building cell towers.
We believe that it will be the consumer, not the industry, who drives the tipping point for EVs to go mainstream. The consumer’s contract for the EV must be the same – or better – than the consumer’s current contract for gas-powered cars. We need to change the way consumers buy an EV so that it fits the current social contract we have with our cars, providing a normal car ownership experience even if the car has an electric drive train.
We believe that with the right infrastructure, the right car, the right battery and the right consumer experience that the industry as a whole will benefit and that there’s enormous economic opportunity for all of us. We also know that certain countries around the world are ready to put in place the right policy to make this reality come true today, not in the distant future.
And much like the moon shot in 1969, we believe that if we get this right, our children and grandchildren will benefit the most and our world will be a better place. We don’t need to see our planet from space to know it, we need to stay with our feet on the ground to make it happen.
The Project Better Place team looks forward to meeting you all and to what we hope will be many years of future collaboration among this esteemed group.
Best regards,
Shai Agassi
Founder and CEO, Project Better Place
