I continue to marvel at how many intelligent, educated people are completely missing or underestimating the energy and transportation revolution underway today.
For consumers, the changes offer meaningfully lower operating expenses and increased productivity along with less pollution and improved health benefits. For businesses and investors there are incredible opportunities but also enormous downside risks for those committed to status quo thinking, products and services. This creative disruption is massive and happening much faster than most people realize. For a good review and discussion see: Inside Tesla–And What’s really disrupting the auto industry:
Some companies are moving quickly and innovating within the automotive industry, but others are stuck in the past. In March, for instance, I criticized GM for spending $17 billion on wasteful stock buybacks and, in my opinion, not pivoting quickly enough to electric. (Buybacks, we believe, are a major cause of harm to the U.S. economy).
…Within a year or two we could have EVs that are cheaper to buy than the median new car in America. And they will be 90% cheaper to fuel on a charge, on a per mile basis, and 90% less to maintain. So essentially the operating cost and the marginal costs are next to nothing.
In other words, the economically rational choice to make will to be to buy an electric vehicle.
So within two or three years, the mass market could go toward electric vehicles because they’re believed to be superior products—they’re cheaper to buy and to maintain and to fuel than the ICE car.
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