Sam Smith discusses Bermuda’s migration to electric vehicles with me on a recent episode of the 2GreenEnergy Report.
Full disclosure: I’m part of the effort to bring EVs to Bermuda.
Sometimes I challenge myself with tough projects, but sometimes I snap up the easy ones — like this. Hmmm. How to sell EVs in a place that has expensive gasoline, short driving distances, wealthy citizens, huge government incentives, and eco-sensitive tourists?
I’m not sure I need Madison Avenue for this one.
I just had an interesting experience that I thought I’d share. I’ve mentioned that I’m a partner in a company that imports and sells electric vehicles into island nations – starting with Bermuda. And what’s not to like about that? You’ll work hard to find a better set of factors militating toward EVs anywhere in the world: expensive gas, huge tax incentives, low speed limits, short drives, wealthy people, etc.
But here’s an interesting wrinkle: What to sell? Sure, the big OEMs are near to their proposed launch dates for cars like the Nissan LEAF and the Chevy Volt – and dozens of others are right behind them. But here’s an opportunity to sell something right now – if we can find the right car. Of course, there are several Chinese EVs rolling off the assembly lines, so why not consider them? In a word: quality.
I just got off the phone with a friend who has a relationship with Chinese manufacturer that’s been cranking these out for years. In fact, we bought one a year ago for a test in the real-world conditions in Bermuda. After about 14 months in that salty environment, it has rust holes the size of baseballs.
“Oh, I think what we have now is far better,” he told me. “You think?” I asked. “Sure, he replied. Why don’t you inspect the new model for yourselves.” Dude: we’re not metallurgists; we’re car dealers.
“Well, you can have some tests done,” he offered. But since when did it become the responsibility of the dealer to test the quality of the cars he sells? Isn’t that what manufacturers do? I know there are issues with China generally, but give me a break. Can he seriously expect us to distribute a product whose quality issues are completely unknown? How many Honda dealers would there be if Honda shifted the responsibility of QC to its dealers? Our job is to sell high-quality, high-value cars. His job is to make damn sure that the cars he’s selling us meets those criteria — regardless of what it takes to do that.
I’m unwilling to paint an entire nation and all of its product with the same brush, but we really do have a quality issue here. Any suggestions?
It was an incredible day here on Bermuda – seven fast-paced 45-minute-long meetings on electric transportation with senior people in business and government. Some folks were, perhaps, a bit stand-offish, but most were clearly appreciative of our ideas.
I may have mentioned that I’m a partner in a consulting company called Island Green, whose purpose is to drive gasoline and diesel from island nations with the same ferocity that the Pied Piper rid Hamelin of its rats. At issue in today’s talks is a 2010 event in which dozens of different kinds of electric scooters, passenger cars, trucks, ferries, etc. will be featured to approximately 300 participants from Bermuda and the Caribbean.
Our proposal for sponsorship was received warmly by most of the organizations we met with in this tiring but satisfying day. As the lady who scheduled the agenda for day told one of my partners and me at breakfast, “The last meeting ends at 5. You boys’ll probably be ready for a cold beverage.” She nailed that one.
More later.
Greetings from the Empire Hotel, right across the street from the Lincoln Center on New York’s West Side.
Today’s meeting with rewnable energy legend Bill Paul was amazing. I’d have to go a long way back to find a time that I learned as much in three short hours. Hate to use cliche’s, but it was truly like drinking water from a firehose. In brief, we planned a collaboration that will help clean energy investors make better sense of this world that seems to be changing so dramatically every day.
More meetings tomorrow and Wednesday, then off to Bermuda.
As I mentioned, I’m spending the week in New York City and Bermuda this week for a string of meetings that I believe will ultimately bring a great deal of additional value to that which 2GreenEnergy offers its readers and clients.
I landed in Philadelphia last night to spend some time with my parents and brother’s family before these meetings began. Driving around, listening to the radio, talking to people, and re-acquainting myself with the flavor of the area in which I grew up gave me a renewed appreciation for the scope of the task facing proponents of clean energy — it’s not at the top of the list of things that occupy people’s attention here. In fact, very few conversations, advertisements — anything — focus on environmental topics. A traveller’s tip for those wishing a sure winner as a subject of discussion: the terrible danger represented to us all by the recent failed terrorist attack.
A few months ago I wrote a post about my consulting company’s relationship with the island nation of Bermuda, in which I mentioned how proud I am to be a part of an entire country’s movement away from fossil fuels. A quick update:
This week, I’m on my way to Bermuda for a series of meetings with governmental agencies and private sector sponsors, each of which will be integral to making this whole thing happen. And as I just happened to see this morning, this will be occuring in the context of a great number of governmental stimuli affecting this region of the world.
It seems that virtually no one approves of the exact tack the Obama Administration is taking. Progressives are disappointed with his pandering to entrenched interests and failing to take a hard line on things like healthcare reform, the war(s), and regulation of the big banks and Wall Street; conservatives, true to form, reject him as a socialist. But let me tell you this: in terms of confronting the environmental nightmares that lie ahead of us if nothing is done to wean us from our oil addiction, far more has happened in the last few months than happened in the previous three decades.
When I was a little boy, the concept of the domino effect occupied a large and scary part of the national consciousness. For those too young to remember, the idea at the time was that, if one country in Southeast Asia fell to communism, then surrounding countries — like tumbling dominos — would as well.
50 years later, we see the same concept applied to electric transportation. Examples of entire nations that are replacing internal combustion engines in favor of electric vehicles (EVs) will soon show the world that this migration process is achievable, and serve as working models for the numerous benefits of eradicating petroleum – engendering the envy of all other nations on earth.
Understandably, this transition is occuring first in places where the benefits of electricity vs. gasoline are most pronounced, e.g., islands nations. Witness Liuqiu, an island off the southern coast of Taiwan, which is in the process of spending $15.5 billion to effect this change. Closer to me personally, check out Bermuda and the actions they are taking, partially under my team’s direction, to do the same on a somewhat larger scale.
It won’t be long until the world can see how painless this transition can be, and how a nation can serve as a beacon of leadership to others in the quest for environmental sustainability.
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