Dave Haft

People ask me a lot about 1776. It’s my place of choice to work alongside other entrepreneurs. 1776 tailors the support it provides members, including events and an online, informative community. A Managing Director there, David Zipper, wrote a nice piece about Electric Vehicles (EV) and China’s recent commitment to curb urban air pollution.

Chinese purchasers of Electric Vehicles can get a government rebate of $30,000, enough to cover half the car’s original cost.
Analysts expect the Chinese government to invest $15 billion by 2020, and the country urgently needs Electric Vehicle infrastructure like charging stations.

In 2010 I noticed countless EV mopeds, but few charging stations. This is a huge opportunity and I’m sure there are many players.

David goes on to write “The growing enthusiasm for Chinese Electric Vehicles creates tremendous opportunities for entrepreneurs. Samsung, Berkshire Hathaway and Tesla are all players in the Chinese Electric Vehicle market.” With such business interest and investment momentum, we need to be careful.

I’d like to see a wholistic, environmental sustainability perspective promoted and executed around China’s new investment. Ground water and other aspects of the environment become threatened with increased production of EV batteries and charging infrastructure, especially in a Chinese, build-build-build mentality. We don’t want this to be yet another ironic development in green investment. I really want to believe the industrial development this spurs will be implemented properly. I would encourage entrepreneurs and others involved to think of this as so much more than an initiative to reduce the number of combustion engines in use.

Think about what a zero carbon version of this investment looks like. The USA makes up quite a bit of the supply chain for battery materials. Manufacturers need to be making sustainable supply decisions to match their technologically-advanced manufacturing and assembly. Nissan has three factories, the video below is their EV battery process in the UK.

Looks like these are the manufacturers to influence and partner with:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_electric_vehicle_battery_manufacturers

Go forth and conquer, fellow entrepreneurs! Just keep mother earth in mind.