If you don’t drive a Tesla, don’t bother!

14

October

2017

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If you don’t own a Tesla now, then don’t bother! Cooler and better products are on its way. Solar cars have been a dream for a while and it seems that we are now finally reaching it.

Is Tesla really that clean and eco-friendly? Think about it. Yes, you might argue, that the car doesn’t emit any CO2 or other greenhouse gases while driving. But think about the source of the electricity. Often times, the source of energy that is charging the batteries used are coming from conventional sources of energy such as coal and gas. So, in reality, all we are doing by driving electric cars, is we are deferring the pollutants from the city centers to the plant locations. What if the generation of energy and the use of that energy was at the same place. We wouldn’t need Petrol stations which are always busy and definitely wouldn’t need to wait hours at the charging stations to get moving again. Well, a team in Eindhoven is trying to make it a reality using solar power. Yes, using solar to drive cars. They are creating a car that charges itself,and it does it using the sun.

The reason why we you are not driving an electric car is because it is not practical yet. They are facing the problem of scalability. It is a simple chicken and egg problem where unless there will be enough electric cars, there won’t be enough stations and unless there are enough stations, there won’t be enough electric cars bought. The lack of well-distributed charging stations makes it difficult to rely on the infrastructure to plan longer trips. Since solar cars do not need the charging stations, they overcome the chicken and egg problem and will make the roll out much smother.

You might be wondering that we have heard about solar cars for years now and where are they? Are they still in concept and when will they roll out their first cars to the market? Well, in fact the team at Lightyear.one is planning the roll out for the first 10 cars in 2019 and then 100 more in 2020. And given that their source of energy and the point of consumption is at the same place, they don’t need the charging infrastructure to support it. You might be wondering if the car will even work in the gloomy weather of Rotterdam, they say Yes. Their tests estimate that in Amsterdam the car can drive 10,000 km per year on sunlight alone. Additionally, for the peace of mind, they have included an electric battery that shall supplement the solar power for the additional 800km if you need to cross Europe at night.

Buckle up for the next change in automotive.

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Asia is the real battleground for all things internet

24

September

2017

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This blogpost shall be a commentary on the Gulf News Article ‘Asia is the real battleground for all things internet’ by Annet Aris, INSEAD’s Adjunct Professor of Strategy, published on the 8th of Sep, 2017. 
Aris, of INSEAD, states that last year marked a historical milestone: For the first time, more than 50 per cent of the world’s internet users are in Asia. The Asia-Pacific now accounts for more than 50 per cent of smartphone users. More than 21% of them are coming from China alone and 14% are coming from India. Given that only 1 in 2 Chinese and 1 in 3 of Indians are currently online, this statistic is bound to grow in a staggering rate year to year.
Given such rise of connectivity and market size, it is expected that Western, especially American internet giants like Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple would be hungry to capture the market share in Asia. Yet, in many cases local competitors  could withstand the American pressure due to the large local market and the national regulations. Moreover, the peculiarities of the local conditions restricted many western companies to just copy and paste their business model on the Asian consumers. Such peculiarities include differences in infrastructure referring to low or lack of internet in many areas, differences in consumer behavior and expectations as well as the lack of supporting services such as banking that allow for successful render of internet services in the west. Innovating in such scrutinized environments led Asian internet firms create competences that are better fit and are immune to the local changes. 
China took a restrictive path not allowing Google and Facebook to enter the market allowing for its own creations such as Baidu and similar services. India on the other hand, played a more democratic game allowing for foreign competition from the East and West making itself a battleground of all internet. Given that Amazon is competing with locally grown, but Chinese half-owned Flipcart only reiterates the fact that it is a battle-field that benefits the consumers at the cost of local competence creation. Similarly, the Indian mobile payment system PayTM and Uber competition, Ola are majorly financed and owned by the Chinese giving both control and equity away.
 
On one hand, by allowing global free competition from West and East, Indian consumers are benefiting the most through everyday lower price of services due to the throat-cutting competition. Yet, on the other hand, India could remorse the fact that it didn’t build and own its own competences in the field of Internet in the future given that these services are way beyond just the service. It is about the indispensable data that it generates. Such valuable data of Indian consumers in the hand of other countries including its disputed neighbor China could even turn into a national security issue. Given this intelligence that these companies are gathering, should they stay within the national borders or not? 

Source:

Aris, A. (2017, September 08). Asia is the real battleground for all things internet. Retrieved September 19, 2017, from http://gulfnews.com/business/sectors/features/asia-is-the-real-battleground-for-all-things-internet-1.2086726No-Traditional-networks

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