Is Silicon Valley the Detroit of electric cars?
San Jose Mercury News asked an interesting question in a recent article: "Silicon Valley is already the capital of the world's high-tech industry. Is it also becoming the Detroit of the electric car industry?" The San Jose Mercury News article includes an interview with Shai Agassi of Project Better Place (based in San Carlos, California) who is known for calling his battery exchange start up Google-like. "In the valley, we know how to do technology disruption. We know how to do business models, how to develop proof of concept and get it adopted around the world" says Shai.
The cost of starting an electric car company also came up in the article. "$100 million is the ante up to play the game" says Neal Dikeman, partner with Jane Capital Partners. What about the costs for everyone to transition from gas cars to electric? $6 trillion a year according to Shai's calculations! The article includes a list of electric car companies based in California including Tesla, Calcars, AC Propulsion and WrightSpeed. It's an interesting idea that the dot com kids will spark the electric car revolution, but I think the Detroit of electric cars will be China.
[Source: San Jose Mercury News]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kardax 11:36AM (11/08/2007)
I think, in the end, the Detroit of electric cars is going to be... Detroit. They're slow getting into the act, but their massive resources ensure that when they finally commit themselves to it, they'll do it with great success.
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why not the LS2/LS7? 3:03AM (11/09/2007)
Silicon Valley builds a lot less stuff than it used to. Intel is closing down all their non-research fabs here.
So even if the new cars are designed here, they'll be built elsewhere.
But I honestly don't think any of these companies is a big factor. Jeez, Tesla hasn't even shipped their car yet, and it's far from priced competitively. It's little more than a novelty right now.
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