Shai Agassi and the Transformation of Transportation

Submitted by Peter Leyden on 3/4/08

One of the speakers at our Moment of Transformation day-long conference on March 12th will be a high tech entrepreneur with no experience in politics. But, like everyone else at this event, he is in the transformation business. And political people will find it useful to listen closely to what he has to say.

Shai Agassi is trying to transform the $1.5 trillion-a-year auto industry and eventually make the $1.5 trillion-a-year gasoline industry obsolete. He is the CEO of a Silicon Valley start-up called Better Place that is trying to jumpstart the electric car business with an approach to building an infrastructure for swapping out batteries in a practical, quick way.

Agassi is no wide-eyed dreamer. He was one of a handful of top executives at SAP, the third-largest software company in the world, and he barely was edged out for the top CEO position in 2007. When he did not get that job, he left to become the founder and CEO of Better Place. Since then he has successfully lobbied the Israeli government to back his plan to quickly scale up electric cars in Israel. He has raised more than $200 million in venture capital, and found a auto-company partner in Renault Nissan. This plan is for real. For the detaield version of this amazing tale, check out a recent BusinessWeek story.

Agassi will be speaking late in the morning on March 12th about his big, bold idea and what it takes to think and act in a transformative manner. With all the talk about change and even transformative change coming to politics, we will be stepping back and talking about just how transformative the changes could be in America and the world as we come off this historic election. Agassi will be just one of about a dozen people talking about the transformations happening in their fields of expertise.

We hope that you will come and join many others in giving your insights into what kind of change we will see coming in the months and years ahead. Spread the word about this free, open event among your friends and colleagues. And then make sure you come and RSVP. Thanks .

Peter Leyden
Director of the New Politics Institute

Peter Leyden's blog
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Comments

Transportaion

Submitted by EricG on 4/3/09.

Transformation in transportation is really helpful for everybody.
Shai Agassi is trying to transform the $1.5 trillion-a-year auto industry and
eventually make the $1.5 trillion-a-year gasoline industry obsolete. And it’s
really fantastic. With the global crisis that our economy suffers from now, it
would surely help. Transportation is a great requirement of modern living. However, just because you need it doesn't
mean you have to let GM or any one else's marketing department tells you how to
do it. If you let them tell you how to do everything, you will need cash
advance loans just to be able to get to work every day. For instance, you could carpool. Lots of people do it and have done so for a
long time. Also, if you live close
enough to work, you can start riding a bike.
No gas and you get in better shape.
(Win – win.) There's also public
transport, and all of these are cheaper modes of transportation.