Why Elon Musk’s Gigafactory is Brilliant.
I think electric cars are the future. I’ve driven a Tesla Roadster and a Nissan Leaf. There are virtually no moving parts, extraordinary torque and performance, no emissions, nothing to service except brakes, tires and windshield washer fluid. All this adds up to great transportation. The big challenge is overcoming “range anxiety” due to the limited energy storage in today’s batteries.
Great advances are being made in this regard, however. One report I saw recently said that the energy density in Teslas has improved by 40% since the company opened. Other materials systems are showing great promise. Once the normal range of an electric car is around 300 miles, and can be sold for $30,000 or so, I think the market will take off. It’ll be a gold rush.
But in a gold rush, it isn’t the miners who make the money. It is the merchants who supply them, particularly if they corner the prospecting equipment market. That is what I see the Gigafactory as doing — cornering the battery market.
This will enable all sorts of other vehicle companies to pop up, offering all sorts of innovative designs and product, all built using Gigafactory-supplied parts. Looks like brilliance to me.
Greg is a visionary, entrepreneurial executive with broad experience in formulating effective, actionable strategies for technology-based solutions. He brings leadership skills and knowledge in strategic analysis and planning, innovation management, and strategic marketing to create customer-focused competitive advantage. His extensive industry experience in companies large and small, in industries from high tech to healthcare, in product development/management, executive management, marketing, and strategy positions gives him the experience to know what works. Greg is an adjunct professor at Duke University, where he created and teaches “Competitive Strategy in Technology-based Industries” in the Masters of Engineering Management Program. He is chairman of the NCSU Technology Incubator Advisory Board, a member of the NCSU Industrial Extension Service Advisory Board, and co-founded a venture-backed startup. Greg is a Senior Member of the IEEE and a member of the Engineering Management Society, a member of the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA), and a member of the Association for Strategic Planning (ASP). He received a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from Lafayette College, and a Masters degree in Entrepreneurship from Western Carolina University. Greg is an excellent and inspiring speaker, presenter and educator. He is a frequent judge at business plan competitions and hackathons, including MetLife TechJam, Triangle Startup Weekend, and case study competitions at Duke and North Carolina State Universities.
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