Collection: Li Lu - #13 'The Ultimate Winner in the Electric Vehicles Race'
[Transcript]
BRUCE GREENWALD 00:00
So let’s talk about a specific example. A lot of smart people believe that renewable energy is the next big revolution. And you’ve done a lot of work on battery technology and BYD. So is that something that you think about beyond batteries?
What’s your outlook for the electrical vehicle industry say in the next five years, or is it overheated now? Where is Tesla going? (Laughter)
LI LU 00:29
So the car industry is simultaneously kind of being impacted by you know, four or five big megatrends. Electrification, ride sharing, autonomous driving, and the intelligent design. All of those really going into the industry simultaneously. And so that really attracted more entrants and that really heated the competition.
Also, against the broad background of climate change, the carbon neutral revolution in the sense. So as a result of the industry that really have lasted for 100 years is really being turned upside down.
On the other side, it is a gigantic industry. So other than housing, that’s probably one of the biggest industry. So the prize is also in the end. In the process though, the competition is going to become very, very intense.
Still it does still have that characteristic of being a scale economy, as we talked about it in the beginning of our dialogue. So the survivors or the winners do need to have a certain scale in order to be able to win in the end. So it is still early to predict who will be the ultimate winner, but it is not early at all to predict those megatrends are here to stay.
So five years there will be far more electric cars sold. We have seen the European countries began to declare a deadline to stop basically gasoline powered cars. China is following that up, I think, in due course. And we are going to see those megatrends here to stay.
And five years from now, that trend will become even more prominent than what it is today. But it is very difficult to predict the ultimate winner and it continues to attract new entrants at this point. But I do think that the ones that really possess unique technology, have the scale and have the right strategic focus ultimately will do well.
BRUCE GREENWALD 02:54
Do you have a sense of which companies those are?
LI LU 02:57
Well I bet once. (Laughter)
So I let my money speaks for itself. (Laughter)
But we’re not going to be the only ones, there will be a few. But it is a gigantic industry.
(Source: https://youtu.be/FiHrWy2jGbA)