Shai Agassi’s plan for electric, zero-emission vehicles makes so much sense and is such a radical departure from the old thinking on the subject of powering cars that I’m afraid it won’t get the hearing that it deserves.  People resist new ideas – truly new ideas – more fiercely than even obviously bad old ideas, and for a long, long time.  It’s why doctors still resist having to wash their hands before operating.  Still!

Agassi figured out that the way to get people over the fear of the dead electric car battery was to separate the ownership of the car and the battery.  So you’ll buy an electric car, but you’ll go to a station like a gas station where your battery is swapped for a fresh one in less than 2 minutes.  The whole range problem of the electric car solved in one flash of insight. 

Since cars and trucks emit roughly 25% of the world’s human-made carbon dioxide, Agassi’s idea could have a large, beneficial effect on climate change.  Not to mention that we wouldn’t have to depend as much in volatile parts of the world for imported energy.

So what’s the catch?  Obviously that we need a whole network of battery stations set up before we can all start driving electric cars with confidence.  So Agassi has begun to tour the world trying to persuade countries to go along.  So far, Israel, Australia, Denmark and Hawaii have signed up. 

How effective a speaker is Agassi?  You can see him speaking here: http://bit.ly/2XO6C. 

He’s quite practiced, but he suffers from the intellectual’s speaking problem – he’s too smart for his own good.  To be successful, a speaker must establish trust with the audience.  There are a variety of ways to do that, but we don’t trust intellectuals, so dazzling people with your intellect doesn’t do it.  We are impressed by Agassi, but we don’t immediately trust him, and the result is that we’re not moved emotionally to go along.  And it’s through the emotions that people are moved to action. 

Agassi needs to work on trust rather than intellectual argument, and his brilliant idea will spread much faster.  And because his idea is so important, I hereby offer to work with him for free in order to help the cause.  Next time you’re in the US, Shai, look us up.