Max, Back, & Crack - The 21st Century's DNA?

1. Maximising efficiency and utilisation.
2. Backing businesses that can deliver that.
3. Cracking open inefficient and under-utilised services/assets/industries. 

1. In regard to mobility, we are now moving inexorably to electric motors from internal combustion engines. For sure the superior energy density of fossil fuel has been ICE's wingman for some time, but countermeasures deployed by the charge of the electron brigade are rapidly making good that gap. Specifically, in fast charging and appropriate blends of wireless and swap as and when appropriate, and I'm 100% certain of some very big EV Infrastructure plays very soon.

Connecting the sun to mobility's wheels and removing the tailpipe is a construct borne out of necessity. It is not a Californian dream-time concept.

Away from EV's for a second, a wonderful illustration of efficiency progress from backing the right technology was recently reported by Google (here) - so much to be harvested if we put our mind to it...  

Utilisation can be realised like never before with the advent of machine learning and all that other digital jazz. I reckon that companies already great at logistics will hook up with it all and marry the best of the old to the shock of the new.

The much heralded Mobility-as-a-Service may well flip the value proposition for producers and consumers alike. I haven't run the numbers, but perhaps the vehicle manufacturers will make more profit-per-unit from MaaS than they ever made from a sales/finance/parts margin. 

2. Billions are being bundled into all of the above from the great and the good - VC's, OEM's, JV's...but is it all just a big bubble of baloney some are thinking?

I think not.

I think it's necessity as Mother of Invention in full swing and in a hurry, and I'd say the great Arthur C Clarke nicely nailed it thus..

"This is the first age that's ever paid much attention to the future, which is a little ironic since we may not have one. "     

Whilst that may seem a touch pessimistic, the reality is that a key ingredient of it all is that there are fortunes to be made in migrating much of what's 'wrong' into the 'right' stuff - and I'm beginning to think that some of the players with most of the vested interest in the status quo are ironically in the best position to pivot.    

3. A few contemporary examples of cracking open inefficient and under-utilised assets are Uber with Taxis and AirBnB with Hotels. Neither are the perfect example of it yet - but they are impressive Outliers. I'm sure there are many more  'now why didn't I think of that' businesses just about to emerge - and no wonder when so many of us now wander around with a supercomputer in our hands. 

Whilst much of the above might seem like an indulgent side-show to 'the real ills of the world' - those sad and tragic things we see flashed up relentlessly in front of us these past days and weeks...it might just be that realigning how we make and use energy and how we produce and consume stuff, will impact positively on a few of the 'drivers' of the chaos that cascades all around...

Maybe The War On Waste is the only war we should all be fighting - with its prospect of a single victor - Humanity. Maybe if we deploy all our forces on that campaign, on that opportunity - we'll have cracked it!  

The Circular Economy in a nutshell of course.

Oh! - and whilst I've got your attention - THANKS for taking time out to cast your eye over this latest musing...I tried hard not to bang on too much about EV's for a change - I failed! 

Oh - and another thing people. All you Need is Love. Love is All You Need.

 www.electricvehiclesoutlook.com