How Detroit can do better, not just more

Just as I finished my last post on doing better, not just more, I thought about another great example.  I have been following a company named Better Place since last August.  I have also met with some of the executives to learn more.  Better Place is the company planning to make a broad infrastructure around electric vehicles including a widespread of recharging and battery change stations.  Better Place has an absolutely great vision, not to mention a Steve Jobs like leader (Shai Agassi, CEO) who has already lined up not only big corporation but also countries behind this vision.

As I was thinking about how we, as an economy, or as a planet can do better, not just more, I thought about Better Place.  As discussions and policies are taking place on bailing out the US automobile manufacturers, all I was seeing proposals on how to do more with less.  If you saw my last post, I made the point of doing more with less is focusing on the wrong things.  We always need to step back and think of doing better with less.

As Detroit is looking for ways to do more with less (and with taxpayers' money), there is no doubt there are lots of innovation occurring around electric cars.  You just have to browse the internet for 10 minutes to see how much is actually happening and how much dollars are being invested in it.  As long as Detroit thinks about doing more with less, I can bet that the new innovations will not come from there.  I won't be surprised, however, if the innovation comes from somewhere else (e.g. most likely Silicon Valley).  If it can be done - it will be done. 

If Detroit doesn't shift their mindset off of Auto 1.0 - regardless of how much and how often the US government bails them out, they will totally be left out when Auto 2.0 comes around.