A Fascinating Look at the 5 Leading Personalities Driving the Transition to Electric Vehicles and Reinventing the Auto Industry
The leading car manufacturing firms have all essentially pledged to transition from traditional carbon dioxide-emitting vehicles to battery-powered electric vehicles. Tesla has led the way to date, recently producing its three millionth car since its first sale in 2009. General Motors has committed to carbon neutrality in its global products and operations by 2040. Honda has committed to carbon neutrality as well as zero traffic collision fatalities by 2050. These are ambitious and noble goals, yet they will take a supreme transformation to achieve.
In The Electric Vehicle Revolution, Kenneth K. Boyer highlights the promise, perils, and personalities of the world’s automobile makers as they re-engineer a post-carbon present and future. Driving the narrative is the key to it all: the green transformation of the global auto parts supply chain. This book includes never-before-reported stories of the leaders, designers, engineers, and inventors leading the charge to decarbonize the transportation sector from packaging to tires and more.
Boyer examines the prospects and plans for this disruptive change, starting with stories of several automotive visionaries: Tesla CEO Elon Musk; Vietnam billionaire Pham Nhật Vuong; Ceer CEO Jim DeLuca; Monolith Corp cofounder Rob Hanson; and GM CEO Mary Barra. Each protagonist has a vision for transforming the world of transportation into a greener, more carbon-friendly industry while also earning profits in our predominantly capitalist world. Readers will learn how their breakthroughs and struggles illuminate the future while facing the question: Will an auto revolution lead the world to a more sustainable economic future, or will it be too late?
Kenneth K. Boyer is a supply chain management researcher with over fifty peer-reviewed publications and the author of two prior books, Extending the Supply Chain and Operations and Supply Chain Management for the 21st Century. He is also a Fisher-designated professor of operations and business analytics in the Fisher College of Business, Ohio State University. Boyer has been researching and teaching supply chain management for three decades and has been an automobile enthusiast since riding in his father’s 1965 Corvette Stingray. His first car was a Ford and he currently drives a Tesla Model 3. He lives in Columbus, Ohio.
Preface
1. A Tale of Automotive Visionaries
2. Gears of Change
3. The Birth and Evolution of Muskla
4. Forged in Flint
5. Vietnamese Visions
6. Reinventing General Motors
7. Honda the Nervous Giant
8. Power Sources
9. Tires, Tires Everywhere
10. Driving it Home
Bibliography
Notes
Index
About the Author
Essential reading for those driving the EV industry transformation, The Electric Vehicle Revolution provides a captivating exploration of the global shift toward electrification. Boyer intricately weaves the stories of key players within his “three gears of change,” establishing metrics for an organization’s effectiveness in driving transformation. Mirroring our pursuits at the University of Michigan Electric Vehicle Center, these efforts underscore the pivotal role of innovation and collaboration in building momentum while shaping the future of transportation.
— Alan Taub, director, Electric Vehicle Center, University of Michigan
In his new book, The Electric Vehicle Revolution: Five Visionaries Leading the Charge, Kenneth K. Boyer captures and details critical insights regarding the birth and development of the EV revolution essential for understanding its impact and future course. He then goes beyond by surfacing and exploring the widespread implications this wave will have on society, energy, and the environment.
— Joe Cole, president, Advanced Mobility Solutions, a Technical Rubber Company
Kenneth K. Boyer’s The Electric Vehicle Revolution focuses on a handful of companies and players at the forefront of EV evolution, while applying his own “gears of change” formula as a yardstick for success. A key cog, in Boyer’s eyes, is transforming the supply network, an element that has been skillfully deployed by Elon Musk and his team, underpinning the success of EV leader Tesla.
— Paul Lienert, founder, Felix Strategy
Thank you, Kenneth K. Boyer, for empowering insights from leaders who are pushing vital and challenging frontiers. The Electric Vehicle Revolution: Five Visionaries Leading the Charge offers insights into their inspiring mindsets, practices, courage, and vulnerability. Further, the global automaker sector, from the industrial to the electric revolution, remains a critical realm for learning and impact. Boyer opens the hood, leveraging historic insights with deep modern research, unpacking patterns and variations across the visions of Elon Musk, Mary Barra, Pham Nat, Jim DeLuca, and Rob Hanson.
— Marianne W. Lewis, PhD, dean, University of Cincinnati Lindner College of Business; author, "Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions To Solve Your Toughest Problems"
Kenneth K. Boyer is a car lover, an enthusiast, and a respecter of the automobile sector and its history who as a passionate observer has shared an honest, fascinating, understanding assessment of what is truly an electric vehicle revolution. He outlines in straightforward detail the history of the humanness of key auto industry visionaries, which he states were not always guaranteed success, and then digs deeply into the realities of the EV transition, including “elephants in the room” of global and domestic opportunities. He doesn’t sugarcoat anything as he lays out on the table of our minds key realities from an environmental sustainability perspective, so many opportunities and challenges facing the automobile and mobility sectors, and the leaders that are transforming with extraordinary speed how we will be traveling to and from cities and towns across America in the future.
— Steve Hellem, executive director, Suppliers Partnership for the Environment
A fascinating and compelling study of the rise of the electric vehicle from its origins until today, focusing on the well-known players but also less-well-known but important new firms such as Vietnam’s VinFast. The book also examines the potential reinvention of how we make tires, in a bid to reduce emissions. An essential addition to the growing literature on the electric vehicle industry—which will be one of the key economic growth sectors this century.
— Henry Sanderson, executive editor, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence; and author, “Volt Rush”
