If you could do something entrepreneurial in the EV industry,what would you do?

I'm doing an assignment for school, on the topic of what's something entrepreneurial you'd most want to do in the field of EV vehicles and the EV industry, plus how would you go about launching it, monetising it and finding interested customers for it.

Anything to do with just starting your own EV car conversion service, or starting an EV car manufacturing company is excluded.
I'd be interested to hear anyone's thoughts.

If it were me, I'd start a poll seeking others unsolicited advice on what they hope to do, and use it to further my own interests while defeating the competition!



Seriously though, we need to start recycling Li-ion batteries. Once they are useless for home storage they need to be returned to the elements they came from and turned into battery cells again.

Start offering electrified buses, trams, aeroplanes, ferries, catamarans and other public transport. Less resources per person moved that way, so the economies of scale are favourable.

Develop a reliable vehicle-to-home system for powering the place at night without draining the car down, and then set up cheap solar charging installations at workplaces.

...

Over the years, there's been a lot of good ideas discussed here. One issue is that if anyone spends money developing a product and then ordering a large enough quantity to get a good "per unit" price...there is always the fear that it will be copied by some Chinese company.

I'd say it's possible to have a solid year of being the only vendor for an innovative new product, if you do everything "just right"...

The Faraday ebike company recently filed for bankruptcy, is my product better and has a marketing program as good?

spinningmagnets said:

Over the years, there's been a lot of good ideas discussed here. One issue is that if anyone spends money developing a product and then ordering a large enough quantity to get a good "per unit" price...there is always the fear that it will be copied by some Chinese company.

I'd say it's possible to have a solid year of being the only vendor for an innovative new product, if you do everything "just right"...

The Faraday ebike company recently filed for bankruptcy, is my product better and has a marketing program as good?

Click to expand...

Don't look for china to produce it the first time! On the other hand, if we'd stay with established names of the industry like bosch or shimano, there would basically be no diy ebike scene to speak about. The chinese copied stuff, and made it available to mass use and mass tinkering, because those cheap chinese copies proved much easier to hack.
Anyway, I think the top priority is what already has been said: a proper way to recycle li-ion cells. What they do now (shredder it to pieces and recover nickel / cobalt via electrolysis) is just plain non sustainable.
A good 1000W GEARED hub motor for cargo would also be nice.
An finally ONE mounting standart for all mid drive motors would also make sense. This prioprietary war is just ridiculous, and produces huge amount of aluminium frames with a very short lifetime.

spinningmagnets said:

.The Faraday ebike company recently filed for bankruptcy, is my product better and has a marketing program as good?

Click to expand...

More to the point, product as good, marketing BETTER!

Develop a production friendly and cost friendly solid electrolyte.

Develop a recycling process that can re-use the waste of worn out EV packs in a cost effective and environmentally friendly way.

1. Create effective open source EV technology to help accelerate overall EV awareness, implementation, and development. Establish reputation on niche forums by announcing development, providing updates, and accepting feedback. Start small webstore that sells open source EV hardware. Not fret over Chinese ripoffs (they happen regardless). Expand into mainstream web via Amazon/ebay/whatever. Accept offers to do contract/consulting work for EV technology development. Sustain family and self on doing cool EV projects from anywhere I want...cause I hate my commute.

2. Create sustainable battery cell that can meet energy density/output demands for long range EVs.

I'd advance and promote a.c. onboard fast charging to out compete d.c. fast charging.

I'd build something like the elio car, but with electric power of course, minus the whole vaporware part.

liveforphysics said:

Develop a recycling process that can re-use the waste of worn out EV packs in a cost effective and environmentally friendly way.

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That's a big one right there. Everyone knows it has to happen - but hasn't yet.

The trouble with recycling is the motivation. Some of the most successfully recycled products are those where the raw materials are expensive, but also would do substantial harm if left in the environment. Like lead starter batteries.

Copper is recycled in good rates around the world, again because it has a high value, but also because it tends to exist as fairly pure scrap (not part of a composite which is hard to separate).

Household garbage is rarely recycled because the raw materials are so cheap, and the mixture is too hard to separate reliably. Diverting it from landfill is great, but if the products it's turned into aren't wanted, it might as well just get burned.

With Li-ion batteries, stockpiled cells represent a very high grade ore which can be recycled, but only if the raw resources are sufficiently expensive.

I'd have a YouTube show where they pay me to build things with their parts. I'd be more at home making the show about other people, but that's not how YouTube works.

jonescg said:

The trouble with recycling is the motivation.

Click to expand...

Yep. I fear it will take new law to make it happen.

I would like to design and build an IGH 3,4, and/or 5 speed that can handle 5-7 kw. In addition to that, I think some kind of oversized, overbuilt version of the BBSHD that has external grease ports, hardened helical cut gears, and external programmable controller would be the bomb, that retains all of the best features and compatibility as the bbshd.

I think the "electric flying Taxi" has a big future. If I was entrepreneurial billionaire this is what I would get into.

When I look at the already available Hydrogen Fuel Cell quadcopters that can fly for up to 4 hours depending on the model/size of the hydrogen tank, it's clear that it scales even better for full-sized human transport for electric zero-emissions flight.

NO ARGUMENT this will come at a cost premium compared to just being driven around in a 4 wheeled car, but the private jet industry is very successful/popular with the rich, they all get around on their own private Gulfstream jets.
These people like Leonardo Dicaprio/Arnold Schwarzenegger often to go to SJW events like conferences on CO2 emissions and tell the middle-class/poor that they must lower their carbon footprint, but they ignore the fact that their flight in a Gulfstream is about ~300 times the amount of co2 then travelling the same distance in a regular combustion car etc.
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/private-planes-jets-tech-billionaires-2019-3?r=US&IR=T
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/elon-musk-should-fly-his-gulfstream-g650er-jet-anywhere-he-wants-2019-1?r=US&IR=T

Hydrogen Fuel VTOL taxies will be far more accessible to more of the general public than private-jets ever will be by ~10,000x times.

Check out some of the Hydrogen fuel-cell drones that are available with multi-hour flight ability.
[youtube]AHlrLU7kTys[/youtube]

[youtube]IdOdyhNM4uk[/youtube]

Doosan Mobility recently demoed their Hydrogen Fuel-Cell drone flying 43miles/70kilometers between two islands over the ocean to transport medical supplies/gear. And the drone is rather tiny, this proves this is just the beginning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3Yo4eaJ8o4
[youtube]R3Yo4eaJ8o4[/youtube]

Hyundai is all over fuel-cell and electric flying car development, but I think they are trying to fly under the radar for the most part.
Hyundai Motor eyes thrust on electric vehicles in $52 billion investment plan
Hyundai Motor is also looking at developing flying cars, which could be commercialized ahead of the most advanced self-driving cars, its executive vice chairman, Euisun Chung, has said.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hyundai-motor-investment/hyundai-motor-eyes-thrust-on-electric-vehicles-in-52-billion-investment-plan-idUSKBN1Y8054

Hyundai S-A1 Air Taxi first look at CES 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6K7GAG1Aas
[youtube]L6K7GAG1Aas[/youtube]

SKAI has been the most transparent about their aim to build a hydrogen fuel-cell VTOL.
These are real pictures below was the unveiling for public viewing/inspection of their model of what their aim to scale up the technology that's already being used in fuel-cell drones now https://skai.co/
https://fuelcellsworks.com/news/alakai-technologies-launches-worlds-first-hydrogen-powered-air-mobility-system/
https://www.zdnet.com/article/hydrogen-powered-air-taxi-yup-its-real/
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/techandscience/hydrogen-powered-flying-vehicle-touted-as-southern-california-traffic-tonic/ar-AACa12C#image=8
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-hydrogen-aircraft/hydrogen-powered-flying-vehicle-touted-as-southern-california-traffic-tonic-idUSKCN1T0078
https://www.thestreet.com/video/worlds-first-hydrogen-powered-flying-car-skai-video-14977875


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhMP5237dGA
[youtube]uhMP5237dGA[/youtube]

The problem people don't get with pure Lithium battery celled aircraft is that lithium cells degrade, and often degrade very quickly and unpredictably when stressed via flight.
Everyone here who has built a high powered e-bike and then used a small lithium battery knows the cells degrade really fast. Same with lithium-powered quadcopters. Electric cars do the very opposite, they use huge batteries that barely get stressed and can degrade very slowly over time, they can "cheat" because it simply doesn't matter how heavy a 4 wheeled car is.

We can already see lithium battery failure in flight for the very first commercial electric aircraft that was designed to train pilots on how to take off and land, because takeoff/land was the only thing it was good for because it had no range.

https://insideevs.com/news/366037/alpha-electro-g2-electric-airplane/
https://ww.electrek.co/2019/08/18/electric-plane-crash-lands-into-lake/#
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-norway-crash-idUSKCN1V423N
Norway’s first battery-powered plane ends up in a LAKE after crash-landing while being flown by the boss of the firm hoping to revolutionise the aviation industry
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7357941/Norways-battery-powered-plane-ends-LAKE-crash-landing.html
https://youtu.be/rsCLJ27pIm0
[youtube]rsCLJ27pIm0[/youtube]


^This will be a problem FOREVER for pure lithium battery flight, unless we have a TRULY miricle breakthrough in batteries, I have read every post in here https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=57256 and 100x more around the web over the years and I just don't see it happening.

I want to sell 10s of thousands of electric 2 and 3 wheelers across Central America...cheap reliable transportation for the masses. Then as that market becomes fully established, I want to be the source for aftermarket performance mods and parts upgrades.

I would like to try putting charging stations at strategic locations in Colorado, especially in the mountains, but also in the eastern plains and charge a reasonable fee to defray the cost of maintaining the charging stations.