EV market Predicted to Grow 7%-30% depending on which study you believe.

The WSJ this week published an article looking at the "overhype" of EV's....."A well known auto-industry forecasting firm on Wednesday suggested that the heavily promoted battery-powered vehicles about to appear on roads around the world are "overhyped" and headed for a much slower takeoff than some auto makers and industry analysts expect.

In the new study, J.D. Power & Associates said sales of electric cars are likely to remain low for the next several years and won't make up more than a small slice of the global market even 10 years down the road.
The combined sales total of hybrid cars such as the Toyota Motor Corp. Prius and all-electric models like the Nissan Motor Co. Leaf will come to just 5.2 million in 2020, J.D. Power said. That would represent just 7.3% of the global market in 2020, which J.D. Power sees reaching 70.9 million passenger vehicles then.

Some auto makers and other forecasters are more bullish. General Motors Co. and Nissan are spending billions of dollars to market electric cars they hope will become mainstream vehicles. The Chevrolet Volt, made by GM, and the Nissan Leaf are due to arrive in showrooms in the U.S. in the next few months. A separate study by Boston Consulting Group sees hybrids and electric vehicles making up 26% of the global passenger car market in 2020. PRTM, another research firm, estimates the total may be closer to 30% as battery prices fall and the price of the vehicles comes closer to standard models.

Many countries around the world, including the U.S. and Israel, are supporting the introduction of electric vehicles with tax breaks and other financial incentives as part of an effort to reduce petroleum consumption and cut greenhouse gas emissions.
"Everybody feels that everybody else should be driving environmentally friendly vehicles. Although consumers generally want to be environmentally conscious, they are much more conscious of their personal economics," said Dave Sargent, J.D. Power's vice president of automotive research. "Right now, consumers have a lot of unanswered questions about the purchase premium of a hybrid or all-electric vehicle."

J.D. Power said that without a dramatic rise in fuel prices, a coordinated global governmental push or a technological breakthrough that lowers the cost of the cars, consumers are unlikely to adopt the vehicles. The researcher didn't find that any of these were very likely to happen.

J.D. Power pointed to consumer surveys to underpin its findings. Buyers didn't like the physical appearance and perceived performance of hybrids and worried about the limited range and recharging times for all-electric models.

"Based on our research of consumer attitudes toward these technologies—and barring significant changes to public policy, including tax incentives and higher fuel-economy standards—we don't anticipate a mass migration to green vehicles in the coming decade," said John Humphrey, J.D.'s senior vice president of automotive operations.

More than 20 electric vehicles are planned to go on sale in the U.S. in the next three years and the U.S. government has backed $5 billion in investments for battery technology and consumer incentives to kick-start the market.

The alliance of Nissan and Renault SA has invested $4 billion in a suite of electric vehicles due out over the next several years and anticipates 10% of global industry sales in 2020 will be all-electric models. That would equate to about seven million vehicles based on J.D. Power's industry forecast for sales in 2020.
J.D. Power estimates that the U.S. market in 2020 will account for purchases of about 100,000 pure-electric cars in total, or about two-thirds of the annual U.S. sales of Toyota Prius hybrids last year. Hybrids will make up 1.7 million in sales that year under the forecast.

Europe will be the largest market for electric cars, making up more than half the projected 1.3 million sales, J.D. Power says.

Seifi Ghasemi, the chairman and chief executive officer of Rockwood Holdings, which produces the lithium chemicals needed for advanced batteries as well as other chemicals, said in an interview Tuesday that some people underestimate the potential attraction of electric vehicles.

"I think we might be underestimating the enthusiasm of the customers," Mr. Ghasemi said. He said governments could and should be doing more to press for the adoption of electric vehicles as a national security and economic concern.

"Unless we change the internal combustion engine to something other than that—it doesn't solve the fundamental issue of energy security," he said."

- Mike Ramsey at michael.ramsey@wsj.com

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What Good Bosses Do

bosses aren’t usually aware that they are bad bosses. The fact is that nobody wants to believe they’re the problem. Nevertheless, there’s a bell curve for all things involving people, which means there are few really bad bosses, few really good bosses, and most of you fall somewhere in the middle.
To me that says, for the vast majority of you, there’s lots of room for improvement.
So, if you’re not exhibiting any of the 7 Signs, that’s great, pat yourself on the back. Still, if you really want to up your management game, maybe even vault into the executive or ownership ranks someday, you’d better start doing at least a few of these 10 Things That Good Bosses Do.
Incidentally, this isn’t from some academic study. These are real attributes of real bosses, culled from decades of observation, which motivate and inspire employees to perform at their best.
1. Pay people what they’re worth, not what you can get away with. What you lose in expense you gain back several-fold in performance.
2. Take the time to share your experiences and insights. Labels like mentor and coach are overused. Let’s be specific here. Employees learn from those generous enough to share their experiences and insights. They don’t need a best friend or a shoulder to cry on.
3. Tell it to employees straight, even when it’s bad news. To me, the single most important thing any boss can do is to man up and tell it to people straight. No BS, no sugarcoating, especially when it’s bad news or corrective feedback.
4. Manage up … effectively. Good bosses keep management off employee’s backs. Most people don’t get this, but the most important aspect of that is giving management what they need to do their jobs. That’s what keeps management away.
5. Take the heat and share the praise. It takes courage to take the heat and humility to share the praise. That comes naturally to great bosses; the rest of us have to pick it up as we go.
6. Delegate responsibility, not tasks. Every boss delegates, but the crappy ones think that means dumping tasks they hate on workers, i.e. s**t rolls downhill. Good bosses delegate responsibility and hold people accountable. That’s fulfilling and fosters professional growth.
7. Encourage employees to hone their natural abilities and challenge them to overcome their issues. That’s called getting people to perform at their best.
8. Build team spirit. As we learned before, great groups outperform great individuals. And great leaders build great teams.
9. Treat employees the way they deserve to be treated. You always hear people say they deserve respect and to be treated as equals. Well, some may not want to hear this, but a) respect must be earned, and b) most workers are not their boss’s equals.
10. Inspire your people. All the above motivate people, but few bosses have the ability to truly inspire their employees. How? By sharing their passion for the business. By knowing just what to say and do at just the right time to take the edge off or turn a tough situation around. Genuine anecdotes help a lot. So does a good sense of humor.
All this adds up to an environment where people feel appreciated, recognized, challenged, and appropriately compensated.

By Steve Tobak
http://www.bnet.com/blog/ceo/10-things-that-good-bosses-do/5868?promo=665&tag=nl.e665

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Small Ways to Solve Big Management Problems

4 Small Ways to Solve Big Management Problems

Whether you’re a product manager, an Line Manager, or a CTO, we all face difficult challenges. That comes with the territory. But sometimes, critical issues are also the hardest ones to solve because they’re outside our functional expertise or there simply is no training to help resolve them.

For example, what if you’re not connecting eye-to-eye with your boss, an important peer, or a key employee? I’m not talking about a conflict; we’re all trained in conflict resolution. I’m talking about a relationship that’s just not clicking. You’ve racked your brain and can’t figure it out. Even the other person doesn’t know why.

Or your staff meetings are lifeless and unproductive, nobody’s engaged. You’ve bounced some ideas around and nothing seems to work. Or you’re constantly double-booked in meetings and deluged with interruptions and just can’t seem to find time to get any real work done. Something’s got to give.

Well, I’ve often found that small, simple changes can solve some of the most daunting management problems. Here are a few stories that will offer some interesting ideas. More importantly, they’ll get you thinking about how to solve your biggest challenges in a different way. You’ll see what I mean:

1. The curious case of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde CEO

Years ago, I was having one helluva time connecting with my boss, the CEO of a public company I’d just joined. He was a stoic, methodical, and controlling guy. I was having difficulty with his micromanaging style and the mismatch seemed uncomfortable for him too.

I was commiserating with a peer who had worked for the guy for years, when he asked:

“When do you have your weekly one-on-ones with him?”

“On Tuesdays,” I said.

“No, not the day,” he said, “What time are your meetings?”

“Um, 10 o’clock,” I replied, wondering what that had to do with anything.

“Try moving them to the afternoon, after lunch,” he said. “It’ll make a big difference. You’ll see.”

“Okay, I’ll try it.”

To say I was skeptical is an understatement. Still I was willing to try anything. So I did. And you know what? That was it. Everything changed. He was like a different person after lunch, more open and collaborative. No idea why. We got along famously after that. What started as a nightmare, probably for both of us, ended up as a great relationship.

2. How taking walks saved a company

Then there’s the CEO who showed up for our usual weekly meeting and asked if I wanted to take a walk. I said sure. I love to walk. It didn’t occur to me at the time, but it had to do with growing up in Brooklyn, where my family didn’t own a car. My dad loved to take walks, so that was like our bonding time, when I had him all to myself. I loved those walks.

Anyway, the weekly meetings with my CEO turned into weekly walks around the neighborhood surrounding our headquarters. I don’t know if it was the open air, the exercise, or the father-son thing (for me, anyway), but something clicked. We were in the midst of restructuring the company, and those walks became our strategy sessions that solved a host of critical issues.

3. Dilbert fixed my staff meeting problem

I used to hold my weekly staff meetings in the morning and, for some reason, they really sucked. Then, in a Scott Adams Dilbert book, of all places, I read that managers should hold meetings in the afternoon because most people did their best thinking and were most productive in the morning.

Well, I floated the idea to my staff and they all concurred. We changed the time to afternoon and, lo and behold, everyone was happier and more engaged. The meetings were more effective. Go figure.

4. Can’t work at work? Try working somewhere else

Executive life can be hectic, especially in the fast-paced technology industry. I was always struggling to find time to get any “real” work done. Most days I had back-to-back meetings I couldn’t get out of. And during my rare office time, there were constant, but important, interruptions. That was the nature of our business.

So I started doing my “real” work — strategy, thinking, presentations — in the evenings at home. I’d relax with a glass of wine and be remarkably productive. It wasn’t an everyday thing, just when necessary. And you know what? That was the ticket. It’s been part of my “process” ever since.

Those are just a few examples of how a simple tweak can solve a big, thorny management problem. What big challenges have you solved with small changes?

By Steve Tobak

http://www.bnet.com/blog/ceo/4-small-ways-to-solve-big-management-problems/5747?promo=665&tag=nl.e665

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