Driving with Dunne
Electric vehicles are the future. But with new technologies comes confusion! What's real? And what is hyperbole? Who are the people to know and what are their visions? Leading global electric vehicle innovators and executives join Michael J. Dunne in no-nonsense conversations about what that electric future looks like. Speaking with some of the biggest in the field like Fisker, NIO, Lucid, Xpeng and more, Dunne - author, entrepreneur and keynote speaker – knows the business of electric vehicles. He’s going to answer questions like: Which EV brands are the best? Why is the charging experience so unpredictable? Who makes the best battery? The electric vehicle revolution is a global race that China now leads with America way back in their rear view mirror. Who will win out - and why? Every episode of Driving With Dunne equips you with powerful new knowledge about the future of these battery-propelled computers on wheels.
Episodes
Dr. Ilaria Mazzocco and her colleagues at CSIS found that Chinese subsidies to companies in strategic industries are more than twice as high as in other countries. The numbers are not insignificant. This week, we learned that BYD secured some $3.4 billion in subsidies in 2023 alone. As a group Chinese automakers have benefited from tens of billions of dollars in supply side and consumer subsidies since 2010. Complicating the pictu...
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The world is in the midst of a monumental transition from fossil fuels to critical minerals. Those critical minerals, like lithium, cobalt and nickel, are the key ingredients in the batteries that power electric cars, cell phones, electric lawn mowers and more. Today, the minerals are extracted from the ground at mining sites around the world. Massive lithium deposits, for example, are located in Australia, Chile and Argentina. Chi...
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March 14, 2024 • 46 mins
By now everyone understands US-China relations are at their worst in 50 years. There is mutual distrust. And mutual animosity. China complains bitterly that America is trying to keep it down. America, meanwhile, is wary of China's new-found aggressiveness. Are the world's two most powerful countries heading for a showdown? If so, how should companies in the West prepare. Stay the course in China? Pare back operations? Or beat it f...
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February 22, 2024 • 29 mins
What is an autonomous vehicle? And how will we know one when we see one? Today, the picture is pretty confusing. We have all sorts of names out there: autonomous, self-driving, fully self driving, drive pilot, autopilot, blue cruise, super cruise, Sensing 360, Apollo and NGP navigated guided pilot. Further complicating the picture: In recent months, two of the leaders in the autonomous vehicle industry - Cruise and Waymo - have eac...
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February 8, 2024 • 36 mins
It is time to take an honest look at battery technologies. The fact is that batteries that power electric cars today have many limitations. There are limits to the range they can deliver. There are limits to how quickly you can charge them. And there are limits to how many times they can be charged before they start losing their full capacity. And then there are limits to their safety. Lithium-ion battery fires are rare. But once a...
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January 19, 2024 • 36 mins
In this episode, we use our imagination, well, to imagine a totally different kind of future. One in which we get to where we want to go in town not in several thousand pound SUVs but in sensible light weight vehicles that save on fuel and are good for the environment. Our guest is Hakan Lutz, founder and CEO of Luvly, developer of the Luvly O, a two-seater vehicle that can travel up to 60 miles on a single charge. The Luvly O (tha...
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Many say that price is the single biggest limiter to EV demand in Western countries. In the United States, the average price of a new EV is $53,000. In Europe, the number is even higher - $60,000. On the other hand, China produces EVs across the price spectrum – from $5,500 to $160,000. Why is it so hard to match China on cost? What steps must Western automakers - and governments - take to compete with Chinese firms? The key is bat...
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November 30, 2023 • 54 mins
When a Western executive is called on to build business in China what should be his or her mindset? What are the most important things they need to know before they go? Ken Wilcox, former CEO of Silicon Valley Bank, has answers. For three years, Mr Wilcox ran a 50-50 joint venture with the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank. On paper the two partners' mission and objectives were totally aligned. Reality was a different story. In this...
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November 9, 2023 • 38 mins
What is the truth about China' economy today? Read the headlines or social media and we could be forgiven for thinking that the People's Republic is falling apart. The 42 trillion property market seems to be in a death spiral. Youth unemployment is at record highs. Government debt keeps rocketing higher. And just this week, reports that foreign companies took $160 billion out of the country in the past 6 quarters. All of this makes...
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October 26, 2023 • 38 mins
When it comes to batteries for Evs, can we be done with the incremental, inch by inch improvements? Everyone in the battery business is looking for a breakthrough. Dramatically more range. Lower costs. Faster charging. And, of course, make them safer. Today we meet a potential game changer: AI. Artificial Intelligence has the ability to assess and make sense of mountains of data at very high speed. This, in turn, let's engineers de...
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China is surpassing Japan in 2023 to become the world's leading exporter of cars. BYDs, Cherys and Zeekrs are finding their way to more than 100 markets worldwide. Top destinations include Russia, Mexico, Australia and Spain. Never before in the history of the car has the world witnessed such explosive growth in car exports from a single country. Not surprisingly, the blitz of Chinese cars on global roads has unsettled auto executi...
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Tesla and BYD steal the headlines as they race for global leadership in battery electric vehicles. But on the near horizon there is another technology that delivers zero emissions: hydrogen fuel cells. General Motors has been developing fuel cell solutions for more than 20 years. They are doing important pilot testing of fuel cell applications for Class 8 trucks, with the US military on battlefield applications and in mobile chargi...
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September 28, 2023 • 45 mins
We begin Part II of this conversation with David Barboza in the days leading up to publication of arguably the most explosive and dangerous story out of China in 50 years. For the past 18 months, Barboza has been systematically collecting records and data and information about a massive amount of wealth accrued by the family of China's Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. Nothing is easy, clear or straightforward. There are layers of ownersh...
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September 21, 2023 • 48 mins
David Barboza won a Pulitzer prize for a blockbuster story he wrote while reporting in China for the New York Times. The story took years to research and write. Here is how things got started: Barboza had challenged himself with a daring and impossible goal. Would it be feasible, he wondered, to gather evidence that powerful leaders in China's Communist Party were amassing great wealth? He figured that if he were able to prove that...
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September 7, 2023 • 37 mins
For most of his career, Tony Posawatz was a highly successful engineer working in GM's lucrative truck division. That meant big rigs powered by gasoline and diesel engines. Then one day in 2006 GM's top leadership appointed him to lead a breakthrough initiative. "Build us an electric car that will make people forget all about the Toyota Prius," they said. GM had taken a shot at an all-electric vehicle in the 1990s called the EV1. T...
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Here is the powerful China formula for commercial dominance that everyone needs to know. Build up massive capacity. Achieve scale. Reduce costs. And then export like a bat out of hell all over the world. This is exactly how China overwhelmed the solar panel industry. Will cars be next? You bet. In fact, it is already happening. China today has the capacity to build 40 million cars and trucks a year. Domestic demand is about half of...
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Who supplies the most cars to the Mexican market? If you guessed China, you are not wrong. China is flooding the market with low cost gasoline-powered and electric vehicles. Leading brands include SAIC-MG, Great Wall and Chery. But there's more. One of every two vehicles GM sells in Mexico is built in China. Meanwhile, Chinese suppliers are pouring into supporting Tesla's Giga 6 factory in Monterrey. What do Mexico's leaders make o...
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August 17, 2023 • 42 mins
Never before in the history of humanity have we had so many choices when it comes to what we drive. Think about it: We have cars, pickup trucks, SUVs, crossovers. station wagons. On size we run the spectrum from the tiny Mini Cooper beastly Hummer. And now these vehicles might be powered by gasoline engines, hybrids, batteries or hydrogen. Some of them even drive themselves, well almost. The average consumer has hundreds of options...
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August 10, 2023 • 48 mins
China is now the world's No. 1 exporter of cars and trucks, blowing past Japan. In 2023, Chinese automakers will ship more than 4 million vehicles to over 100 markets markets worldwide. Leading destinations include Russia, Saudi Arabia, Chile, Sweden, Malaysia and Mexico. How good are these Chinese cars? And what kinds of challenges are they bound to encounter as they invade global markets. To get answers today our guest is Carlos ...
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Ready or not, we are in the midst of a global battery arms race. China enjoys a commanding lead. America and Europe are racing to catch up. This week we are joined by Simon Moores, CEO, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. No one on the planet knows more about the lithium ion battery industry and gigafactories than Simon. He's been laser focused on it for more than 10 years. Today I will ask Simon some tough questions, including: Can Am...
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