Design Victoria - The Deakins 09

DEAKIN Innovator 01 - ‘Electric Horizon’

Seminar Overview

Shai Agassi, founder of Better Place shares his inspired vision of freeing cars from oil, reducing harmful exhaust emissions, and ushering in a new era of sustainable transportation.

Agassi will discuss the economic factors, industry dynamics, geopolitical pressures and mounting environmental concerns that are combining to drive this profound change, as well as the challenges we face in realising this vision.

Described by TIME Magazine as one of its "Heroes of the Environment 2008”, Agassi will share his vision inspired by a profound question posed at the World Economic Forum in 2005, "How do you make the world a better place by 2020?". With a passion for tackling large-scale challenges, Agassi’s answer to this question is to implement a visionary but pragmatic plan to usher in an era of ‘sustainable mobility’ based on zero-emission electric cars fuelled by a ‘clean energy grid’.

Agassi sees consumers subscribing to transportation as they do to mobile phones; he wants car companies to make electric cars that plug into Better Place’s distributed recharge network, and for energy companies to provide power through renewable energy projects. Agassi’s vision involves innovative new technology for battery replacement and agreements on standards for design with auto and battery manufacturers. However the real innovation of the Better Place model is that it redefines the concept and organisation of mobility. This is an underlying theme for all The Deakins: the low-carbon economy will operate in different ways to the current economy. Better Place is a leading example of the kind of revolutionary thinking that will underpin the new economy - aiming to change systems forever.