Transcript
Interview with Jens Christian Lodberg Høj, project manager at Insero E-Mobility
To supplement the analysis of the communication process of the electric car market, a qualitative
interview has been made. The interviewee Jens Christian Lodberg Høj was asked to participate as
he was expected to have a deep insight into how the electric car market works, not only in Denmark
but also internationally.
Jens Christian is project manager in an organisation called Insero E-Mobility which is serving as the
gathering point for Danish actors in the electric car market. The organisation is a member-based
cluster organisation, which works in both national and international matters with the purpose to
strengthen the Danish sector for electric cars (sited in: www.e-mobility.insero.dk).
An interview has a major advantage, which is its adaptability. The skilful interviewer can follow up
ideas, probe questions and investigate feelings and motives, which the questionnaire can never do
(sited in: Bell, Judith, 1996).
Before any aspects about the design of the questionnaire are considered, it is important to decide
what the researcher wants to know. Firstly, I have been interested in getting information about how
the model by Pierre McDonagh in chapter 2.2; Model Description fits with the electric car market.
Secondly, it has also been necessary to ask questions about how the electric car market is promoting
the products to their customers for chapter 2.3; Green Advertising. Lastly, the information from the
interview will be used to support both the introduction and the conclusion of the paper. I wished to
make an interview containing the same topics for Apple, but unfortunately they told me at their
office in California, that it was against their firm-policy to do an interview with students - therefore
I was advised to find the information I needed on their website.
Considerations about the interview design have also been made. There are alternative types ranged
on what is called ‘a continuum of formality’ (sited in: Bell, Judith, 1996). At one extreme is the
completely formalized interview. Here the interviewer is behaving as much like a machine as
possible and highly standardized questions are used. On the other extreme, unstructured interviews
centred round a topic may produce a wealth of valuable data and here the type of question is more
open-ended. Most interviews carried out in the main data-collecting stage of the research will come
somewhere between the completely structured and the completely unstructured point on the
continuum. This is also the case for this interview; the respondent was freely allowed to talk about
what is of central significance to him, but at the same time some ‘loose’ structure was important to
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ensure that all the topics, which are considered crucial to the study, were covered. This was done to
eliminate some of the problems connected to entirely unstructured interviews (for example that the
interviewee talks about matters which are of no importance to the study).
Unlike quantitative questionnaires, in which the giving answers are relatively passive and were
respondents are not allowed or able to elaborate, interviewees in qualitative interviews can provide
the researcher with more detailed information in specific matters (sited in: J. Rubin, Herbert & S.
Rubin, Irene, 1999). The dialogue between me and Jens Christian was important, because I wished
to gather as much information on my questions as possible. Furthermore, it was my responsibility to
guide the conversation, leading it through stages, asking specific questions and encouraging the
interviewee to answer in depth and length. The dialogue also gave me the opportunity to verify
certain topics from the literature, I had found about electric vehicles.
Ethics are also important to consider when a questionnaire is made. Some respondents may fear the
potential use to which their responses might be put. Or, conversely, they may be enormously
flattered of being interviewed at all which make them engage in elaborate displays of friendship and
hospitality (Oppenheim, A.N., 2001). Because the personality of the respondent mostly is unknown
it is important not to ask questions that could be sensitive for the interviewee. In relation to the
questionnaire which I made, no sensitive questions were present. The questions asked were simply
made to capture Jens Christian’s knowledge about more general issues on the electric car market.
Finally, I asked him for his permission to cite him in my thesis. He complied and said it was no
problem as long as he was cited for what he had said in the interview and nothing else. Furthermore,
he wanted to see the final report, when it is finished.
The interview took place at the interviewees own residence in the centre of Aarhus on the 18th
November, 2011. Jens Christian was given the questionnaire one day before the interview took
place in order to give him the opportunity to elaborate on the questions beforehand.
On the next page a transcript of the interview can be seen. Line numbers have been added so the
reader of the thesis is able to see were exactly the information from the transcript has its origin.
All numbers (prices, costs etc.) are calculated into Euros. Right now 100 Euros equals 756,19 DKR.
(DKR= danske kroner, www.danskebank.dk)
Interviewer: Arne Christensen (AC)
Interviewee: Jens Christian Lodberg Høj (JC)
Date: 18th November, 2011
Duration: 52 min. 9. sec.
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AC: First of all, I would like to thank you for your willingness to participate in this interview.
JC: You are welcome.
AC: Let us just start. You are the project manager of Insero, so I would ask you if you briefly
could tell me what your work consists of?
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JC: Sure. Insero E-mobility, which is the full name of our organisation, is a cluster organisation
that belongs to a fund which is named ‘Energi Horsens Fonden’. ‘Energi Horsens Fonden’ is a
locally based foundation in the Horsens area, which invests in start-up firms and growth firms in
five categories where one of them has do with E-mobility – that means it is about everything that is
driven by electricity. One has found that firms in which people have invested are very good at doing
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what they do best, but they (the firms) need somebody on whom they can rely to develop an
international network and who can conduct some strategic development projects, which has a longterm focus and who are able to create some market opportunities for them in the future. So we work
as a cluster organisation which aims at getting members, and then we interact with these members,
and we try to give them the knowledge which they need. We arrange events, where they can come
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and show what they are able to do, and where we are able to earn some money. Then we try to put
up some development projects which are of interest for the Danish industry in the area of Emobility.
AC: All right. Part of what I am writing about is the introduction of electric and hybrid cars.
How do you think this can be done in the most efficient way? Is it up to the firms to make it
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preferable to have an environmental awareness image, should there be given some tax
reductions, should there be given some leasing opportunities for people who can not afford an
electric car because they are so expensive? Maybe the market is not yet ready?
JC: That is the good question. If I could tell you exactly what we could do and thereby get a
thousand more electric cars on the street, then my boss should give me a salary increase. But what
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we see on the market now has been working. In Denmark there is no registration tax on electric
cars until the year 2015. Also, the more alike an electric car can be with the traditional, gasolinedriven car, the more electric cars can be sold. The introduction of the electric car can be enhanced
by further tax reductions, in Norway there are no value added tax, in France the government gives
a customer 5000 Euro for buying an electric car. That is some of the things which one can do.
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Other stimulus can be used; at the moment considerations are made to let people park for free if
they have an electric car and make it an option for electric car owners to reserve a parking lot in
advance..
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AC: I have read that it is possible to park for free in Odense and Copenhagen?
JC: Yes, and this is actually possible in many areas, but it is still prohibited and therefore there is
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something that does not fit between local plans and the law set up by the government.
In Oslo and a few other places in the world, electric cars are allowed to drive in the bus lane of the
street. In Norway, they have found out that this has a huge effect, because then they can avoid
bottlenecks in the traffic. That is something which means a lot for the consumers.
Another thing is that the tax for electric cars for business use is very high, so these taxes have also
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to be regulated. To take Norway as an example again – and this is done because Norway can be
seen as the leader when talking about these things – in Norway it is possible to cross bridges for
free if you are driving an electric car.
If you drive a private car in connection with your job in Denmark, you can get at most DKR. 3,67
per kilometre (≈50 cents) of the governments official transportation reimbursement but in Norway
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you get DKR. 4,10 (≈55 cents) for driving an electric car. This means that there is a higher
transportation reimbursement for an electric car than for the gasoline car.
AC: Do these regulations also apply to hybrid cars, or is it only for ‘pure’ electric cars?
JC: That is a bit more complicated to answer, but I know that the tax exemption made for electric
cars are also applied for hybrid cars. This means that an Opel Ampera which costs DKR. 590.000
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(≈ €78.042) in Denmark is less expensive in Norway, where it is possible to buy it for DKR. 360.000
(≈ €47.619). So that is another important step – the plug-in hybrid, e.g. Opel Ampera is a natural
step from the gasoline car to the electric car, because then you begin to learn ‘how much can I
drive on the electricity capacity there is in my car’. This is the biggest challenge: it is about
changing the mentality of consumers to get electric cars on the market.
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The electric cars which are present now, no matter if it is Nissan Leaf, Peugeout iON, Renault
Fluence and what is else being introduced to the market here in the coming years, they are all able
to satisfy 80-90 % of our driving needs.
AC: Yes, so it is the consumer’s habits that has to be changed..
JC: You should change the way people think. That is very complicated and it is not something
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people do at their own will. Therefore it is also necessary to have some opportunities to do this, for
many consumers it will be car number two that could be a very good solution. Car number two is
used even more for short distances. If you have one gasoline car that can cover the long distances,
you can have an electric car to drive the short distances. But the thing is that the price is too high.
Now it was revealed that ‘My Castle’ a small company which located on Bornholm, is introducing a
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two-person electric car which will cost DKR 150.000 (≈ €19.841). Maybe this will offset some
things. But what is also interesting is that we can see that in those places where the Nissan Leaf has
been introduced, which costs DKR. 290.000 (≈ €38.359) and which has the same size as a VW
Golf… then we have the MiEV which has the same size as a Citroen C2 – they cost almost the same.
But when the Nissan Leaf is introduced to the market, we will see a price reduction on the other
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electric cars due to competition. And the more similar the electric cars are to conventional gasoline
cars, the more relevant they will be as alternatives.
AC: Yes. And there is no doubt that the target group for electric cars should be as broad as
possible. But what about the target group - how is it characterized? I suppose electric cars are
only sold for a small niche segment?
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JC: You should have a look at the report which is called ‘Etrans’ about the consumers of electric
cars. Here the focus is on consumers who enhance the implementation of electric cars. What
everybody believes here in Denmark is that it initially will be the companies who are the main
customers for electric cars, and that it will be the municipalities that will take a social
responsibility to buy electric vehicles. The reason is that they are less price sensitive, also because
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it gives companies the possibility to say they show Corporate Social Responsibility to the public,
and that is very important.
Yesterday, I made some calculations in regard to depreciation of cars where I compared Nissan
Leaf with a normal VW Golf 1,4 tci – two cars which easily can be compared, and the result was
that a Nissan Leaf is less expensive to drive than a VW Golf, and then it becomes very interesting:
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when people begin to think about the whole product life cycle.
AC: So in respect to the whole lifecycle, you mean that an electric car can win economically
over the gasoline car?
JC: Yes, it costs maximum 1/3 of what it costs to drive a gasoline car, when we look at the whole life
cycle. I saw a calculation yesterday which showed that MyCar costs DKR. 12 (≈ €1,60) to drive 100
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km. We can compare this to my old SAAB which runs 12 km/litre.
AC: Yes, there is a huge difference in the price, I see. The next question I would like to ask
you is how it is possible to get the car companies to follow up – there is a lot of information
about why it is important for companies to pursue green innovation to enhance the Corporate
Social Responsibility, and that it is good for the company’s image, but are the companies
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attracted by the electric car market, can they see profits in the market?
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JC: I think you should ask the car manufacturers about this. But I can give you my point of view: I
would say; yes they see it as an attractive market. It is possible to push the companies into the
market; for example Angela Merkel says that in the year 2020 she wants 1 million electric cars on
the streets in Germany. That means that if you, as a German car manufacturer, want deliver some
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cars to the government then you have to show that you are willing to do something for electric cars.
So all German car brands are doing something for electric cars, because they have to show
something to the government.
But many of them are saying that they are ready as soon as the market is ready. And if everybody is
saying, that they are ready when the market is ready, then there is no movement in the market.
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There has to be someone who takes the initiative and takes the first step. Some of the actors which
are present at the moment is the Renault-Nissan alliance, which really are doing a lot with respect
to this, but also some small upcoming firms begin to enter the market, for example ‘Fisker’, one of
those who make the plug-in hybrid vehicles. General Motors with their Chevrolet Volt and Opel
Ampera and we have Tesla: Tesla has changed the market completely. Toyota is not to be forgotten,
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but they are focusing on their hybrid-technology, which maybe will not be as efficient to persuade
customers in the long-term as the Opel Ampera is.
AC: This has also something to do with what I write about, because if we have a look at the
model (I am showing him the model by Pierre McDonagh on a piece of paper), it has (the ecocommunication) to do with the interaction which exists between the customers, the companies
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and the government. This interaction has to be in place before it becomes possible to get
success in the market..
JC: The customers are ready. If you ask the customers, they say: ‘When we can get an electric car,
which can perform as well as a gasoline car, then we will choose the electric car’. So the customers
are ready, but there is just no product.
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AC: So the firms have to work more with the development of electric cars?
JC: It is a paradox, because on one side we have the customers saying that they are willing to buy
the electric car, if it can perform as good as the gasoline car. The car manufacturers are saying
that they have developed the cars, but that they are not willing to mass produce them, because they
believe the customers will not buy them, but who is right? That is the paradox and it is here the
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government has to intervene and say: we can put some regulations on the cars so they are
becoming cleaner and do it easier for the producers to get some incitements. That is possible, but
you can’t say to the consumer: ‘Now you have to do this’. Then the government would control the
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market forces too much. You can also not prohibit use of the gasoline motor, because we still need
it.
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According to the model, there is some kind of triangulation in the electric car market. It is not only
one-sided, because the consumers will have as much as possible for the lowest amount of money,
the companies want to earn as much money as possible, and the government has a long-term
economic and environment-friendly perspective. There are, as you know, some national and
international agreements as the Kyoto agreement for example. All the things have to fit together.
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This is a very complex system, because who has to do something first? On one side, the government
has to do something to promote the technology, if we want this technology. The companies also
have to consider, if they want to pursuit this technology with consideration on Corporate Social
Responsibility. This is what we see that Renault and Nissan are doing, they say: ‘We believe that
the future will drive electric’. So it is important to gain first-mover advantages that everybody else
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have to follow, like Renault has done with ‘Better Place’ – in this way they will win a lot. Renault is
therefore investing a lot into this. Nissan is doing the same thing: they say that they will put 53 cars
on the market which are green, in one way or the other, during the next five years. Then we must
see what happens, but Renault and Nissan are dealing a lot with this.
AC: Can you tell me more about who are the leading electric car manufacturers – who have
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obtained the largest success on the international market? Because I think the success can vary
a lot from one country to the other?
JC: Yes. If we take Norway as an example again - again because it is here where it all is in most
progress; the Norwegians produced e-cars which account for approximately half of the market. The
cars named ‘Think’ and ‘Body’ and the success they got is based on the fact that these cars were
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present when consumers began to demand electric cars. There were many from Norway who
travelled to France to buy old, outdated Citroen’s, Peugeot’s and Renault’s because there was such
a high demand for electric cars in Norway. Citroen and Peugeot also have a considerable piece of
the market in Norway; this should be seen in connection with the new Citroen C0 and Peugeot Ion.
So there has been success in Norway, where it has been desired to support Norwegian companies.
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Think and Body are very bad examples of firms that earned money on this, because both of them are
bankrupt now.
AC: Did this have something to do with the financial crisis?
JC: No, they just did not have a good enough car.
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A lot has happened in the technology of the batteries for the electric vehicles. Take Tesla as an
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example, because they have the potential to earn a lot of money. Right now they are loosing money,
but they have a very strong brand which can be compared with quality brands like Audi and BMW.
Nobody would say that a Skoda and a Tesla is the same thing. Tesla is lying in the premium
segment, the lower-premium segment maybe. They have introduced their Roadster on the streets
and they have sold all of them. Now, they begin to produce their new Tesla-S which is a 7-person
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car – a very beautiful car, it has as much space as an Audi A4 and in Denmark it will cost the same
as an Audi A4.
AC: What about in Germany, have Mercedes and BMW made any electric vehicles?
JC: No, not really. Mercedes have made some hybrids, but actually it is not something that is worth
talking about. There is really no market for electric cars in Germany at the moment. There are just
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those vehicles that the car manufacturers have started testing. BMW have Mini’s called Mini-e on
the street, and then they have some vehicles called Active-e. Mercedes have some A-class cars and
some Smart electrics on the road. Mercedes is beginning to build something up, because they have
begun to sell the cars now, but that is also all what happens right now, and then they have started
to make car sharing’s – cars which are meant to be shared by people.
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In France on the other hand, a lot is going on. Also in Switzerland a lot is going on. That is some of
the countries, where something really is going on, when we talk about electric vehicles. In Spain
there is also going something on in some local areas.
AC: I just think that when big manufacturers like Mercedes and BMW are making cars, they
should have good opportunities to make good electric cars, because of competences which
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have been achieved from making gasoline-driven cars.
JC: Let me answer you this way; do you have a smart-phone?
AC: No..
JC: Which labels are smart phones?
AC: Iphone and HTC..
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JC: Right. Nokia was for 6 years ago the worlds biggest mobile producer. There is no doubt. If
somebody should be able to make a smart phone and develop it even further, that should have been
Nokia.
AC: Yes. How are the car manufacturers dealing with innovation? I mean, I guess there is
something which can be classified into a radical product innovation – something completely
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new, which the market has not seen before, but on the other hand, the manufacturers are also
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making incremental product innovations, where they build upon some existing knowledge
they already have?
JC: Yes..
AC: So what is the most problematic part? The most expensive thing are the batteries right?
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JC: Yes that is right. The battery accounts for about 60 % of the price of an electric car.
AC: And it is the technology of the battery, which has to be developed right? So the electric
car can drive for longer distances?
JC: That is like a dilemma: because as long as the production is on low-scale, then the batteries are
expensive. If we instead made batteries on large-scale, the price of the batteries would be lower
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than they are now. But you are not making a large-scale production for something, you are not sure,
you can sell. Therefore the producers make a low amount of batteries, then they put them on the
market and set a price which is high, and then they just wait to see what happens. But it is
completely unrealistic to put a product on the market, if it is DKR 100.000 (≈ €13.227) too
expensive.
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The car manufacturers are of course able to build upon existing knowledge. If you go back to the
beginning when cars were made, they were horse carriages without horses. And if you compare that
with how a car looks today, then it is definitely not something a horse can pull.
Have you seen the commercial that Renault has made? (He is showing me a commercial on his
laptop)
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AC: No..
JC: It is called ‘Gas powered everything’. The commercial is a good example, because it shows us
that some of the things we have today, and which we are dependant on are driven by electricity. If
these devices were driven by gasoline instead, then they would look completely different. And the
same thing is true for the gasoline car, just in the reversed order. Have you heard about the car
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called EcoMove?
AC: Yes.
JC: Good. They have said to themselves: ‘now we try to forget everything we know about cars’.
Now they have to think which technology to use, how they should make the car. For example they
say that they don’t want to place the motor where it typically is placed in a car. Instead they
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implement the motor in the wheels. The car also has to be built in a different way – new materials.
We build cars in steel today, but why do we do that? There are so many other materials. Maybe
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steel is cheap, but plastic is also cheap. The thing is that we are being dictated by the knowledge we
already have, of the experiences and of the habits we have.
Do you know why the rockets on a spaceship have the size they have?
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AC: No..
JC: No, that is because they correspond to the size of the behinds of two horses. If you go back to
the ancient Rome, it was decided that the wheels should be placed on the outside surface of the
carriage, because then it was avoided that the wheels drove through the faeces of the horses. That
later served as the basis for a railway wagon, which should have the same width between the
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wheels as a horse carriage.
AC: So it is difficult to diverge from former ways of thinking?
JC: There are some patterns which are repeated. And it was necessary to transport these steering
rockets by train – they can’t have a wider width than a train wagon. So the rockets are dependant
on the size of a horse carriage. The essence is that there are some patterns which we follow; we
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don’t think about it, it’s just the way it is.
AC: In continuation of what you said about the materials; is that something which the
producers think a lot about? For example do they use some materials that are easy to recycle?
JC: There is no doubt that they have to use light materials. BMW can be used as an example. BMW
is going in another direction than everybody else. They say that they don’t need to make an electric
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car in their 1-series, 3-series, 5-series or 7-series. They believe they need to make some separate
cars which are build to be electric cars. They have made a Mega-City vehicle, which is categorized
in their ‘I-series’. Here they have used materials like carbon and plastic to achieve light weight in
the vehicles. That makes them able to make an electric car that can drive 200 km. on a single
charge including batteries that weigh 250 kg. There is enough space for four people to sit in the car.
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That is something completely different from what we see for other electric car manufacturers.
AC: I see. Another question I would like to ask you is that, as you know there is used a lot of
energy to make an electric car on the factories..
JC: That is definitely also the case when making gasoline cars..
AC: Yes, that is right, but the advantages which is gained by introducing electric cars for
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minimising the CO2 release, are they greater than the disadvantages connected with CO2
release from the factories, when producing the cars?
JC: Yes, that is my opinion, but I don’t have any precise calculations of this. Therefore it is difficult
for me to comment on this. But I know that a huge amount of energy is used to make both a gasoline
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car and an electric car. Also lots of money is used for the materials for the batteries. So there is
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CO2 exhaustion in both cases. But a major advantage is that we don’t need to refine oil to get an
electric vehicle to drive. So if the electric car is just driving on renewable energy, when it is on the
road, then it is CO2 neutral.
AC: But there are also more and more firms which use renewable energy in the production
process..
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JC: Yes, that is right. But it will cost energy to make both gasoline and electric vehicles. There are
probably some persons on the universities, that are calculating how much a gasoline motor costs,
how much an electric motor costs, batteries costs etc. One thing I can say is that there are 20 %
fewer moveable parts in an electric car than in a gasoline car. This means, that there are
significantly fewer parts in an electric car. And a lot of the things which typically are made of steel
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are not necessary anymore.
Now look at these pictures, which I took on a trade fair in Frankfurt: These electric cars are very
small, there is only room for one or two persons. They have half the width of normal cars. These
cannot be produced as gasoline cars. So it gives some flexibility opportunities to make some things
on electricity, and this gives the opportunity for some completely different vehicle concepts. And
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that is what I think is interesting; we don’t have to think e-mobility as something which is only
related to electric cars, it is also all kinds of other things; electric bicycles and trains for example.
So there are a lot of possibilities. We are keeping track of these technologies, to see if there can be
a market for it.
AC: If we now look at the model which I sent you yesterday; is there something you can
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recognise when thinking about the electric car market? As you can see, the organisation can
enhance the corporate image with green advertising, for example. The model also shows the
interaction which exists between investors, shareholders, suppliers, the government and the
organisation itself and it shows that dialogue between the parties is important. I know it is a
pretty broad question, but can you elaborate on this?
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JC: It is a broad question yes, but I don’t think the car industry is deviating that much from all other
industries in regard to this model. What is very interesting, when we talk e-mobility compared to
normal mobility, is that it is a business that when electric cars have to be charged they have to be
charged on stations, which are set up, so that is related to the infrastructure. So the stakeholder on
the electric car market could be, for example firms that provide electricity. Stakeholders could also
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be big firms like Microsoft, Apple, Sisco, ITC etc. General Motors, Bosch and the VW-group are
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other groups, which also can be seen as stakeholders. Also big firms in the energy sector are big
players. They can be both national and internationally located.
So looking at the model again, I would say that instead of one model, we have three layers of the
same model which are overlapping – there are firms from different sectors, which influence each
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other in some way or the other. That is something which is very different from what has been seen
before. It is difficult for me to criticize the model, because it is so general and overall.
AC: Yes, but still we can say, that the car producers have to interact with the customers when
they communicate, for example to promote electric cars and to get knowledge about the
market, but they also have to have an open dialogue with the government in order to set some
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regulations up. The dialogue is also important between the organisation and their suppliers.
JC: Yes, that is right. Daimler who owns Mercedes and Smart for example has about 180.000
workers. I guarantee you, that they have minimum one person, that is not doing anything else than
negotiating with the government, or who is going from one meeting to the other between different
parties of the government. So it is very important for them to have a good relationship with the
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government; that is also the case for firms like BMW, the VW-group, Porsche etc.
AC: Okay. If we look at the model again, what about lobbyism, is that something you can
recognize on the electric car market?
JC: Yes. If we look at Denmark, there is an alliance called ‘Dansk El-bil Alliance’ (in English:
Danish electric-car alliance). They have two employees; one of them is called Lærke. I can’t
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remember the name of the other, because he is relatively new. Their responsibility is to go to the
government and say; we want this and this to be done’. So that is lobbyism – it is what we believe is
a necessity to earn money here and now. Dansk El-bil Alliance has paid Deloitte to make an
analysis of the market potential in Denmark for e-mobility. Their report shows that; if Denmark
goes for being a leading and active player for e-mobility, then there will be unoccupied 10.000 jobs
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in 2020 and further 10.000 jobs by 2030. So that is 20.000 jobs. This corresponds to the Danish
windmill industry today.
AC: That is a lot.
JC: It is. Today there is a big supplier which is supplying value worth DKR 600 (≈ €79) in each and
single car sold in Europe. This value can be increased with by DKR 1000 (≈ €132) if we really are
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doing this. So the pursuit of being a leading player is something which is important for the Danish
industry and for the e-mobility business. And besides this, we are also doing something good for the
environment, and there has been made a road-map of how this should be done, and what the work
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consists of in the moment is to remove the tax on hybrid cars. Why should a hybrid car which can
run 83,3 km/litre not have a significant tax reduction? The hybrids are important, because it is this
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type of car which will serve as a transition from the traditional gasoline car to the electric car.
AC: Yes, and the firms also have to work with their competitors, so they can gain knowledge
from each other, right? Technology and experiences?
JC: Yes, that is right. And that is also something which is so wonderful about the car industry. I
have not seen any industry, where there is such a huge focus on safety. There are some people, who
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instead of lobbying, are spying on each other. Everybody is afraid, that some information will be
stolen from them. Many car firms don’t have wireless network, because they are afraid that people
can gain access to their wireless network from the street..
On the other hand participation is also seen e.g. between Peugeot 107, Citroen C1 and Toyota
Aygo. This is completely the same car. The only thing which differs is just the design. BMW and
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PSA Peugeot Citroen has made a component factory which opens in 2013. It will deliver
components to the electric car producers. That is a joint-venture. So there is participation among
the different suppliers, with the competitors and OEM’s (Original Equipment Manufacturers i.e. the
car producers). Many OEM’s are merging with suppliers to make joint ventures and to create
component suppliers.
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I have once worked in Faurecia which is a supplier that delivers components to OPEL, Mercedes,
AUDI, VW and others. They are the world’s 7th or 6th biggest supplier to the automotive industry.
They have over 60.000 employees. They are in direct dialogue with organisations in the automotive
industry, when systems are to be sold.
The balance of power is also moving, because they (the component suppliers) are getting bigger
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and bigger, so suddenly they will have the power compared to the OEM’s. And then the supplier is
able to set the price of the product. Before it was the OEM’s that said; what can you deliver to us?
Then they were able to take the cheapest components from each supplier, and then make the
product to the lowest cost.
AC: The final part of the questionnaire is more connected to the marketing part of electric
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cars. There are several ways to advertise. First I want to ask you about, which arguments can
be used to persuade consumers in the advertising of electric cars? Is it for example the
product features – quality, design, the brand, service opportunities?
JC: Yes, it is the same things as you can say for normal gasoline cars.
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AC: But what about the price, isn’t it difficult to tempt consumers, when the cars are so
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expensive?
JC: That depends on how you do it. If you use that calculation I have; to have a Nissan Leaf and
drive it for 20.000 km./year in four years, and on the other hand, if we have VW Golf 1,4 which can
drive exactly the same distance in four years, then it will costs DKR. 4,92 (≈ 65 cents) to drive the
Golf and DKR. 4,28 (≈ 57 cents) to drive the Nissan Leaf.
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AC: Yes, but still electric cars are not seen often in commercials. Could you tell me something
more about which channels are used to promote the electric vehicles? I know in some
countries electric cars are shown in TV-commercials.. What about the internet?
JC: Yes definitely.. That is something that is used more and more; social media. For five years ago
the dominant form was viral marketing, today social media is more dominant. Viral marketing still
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exists, no doubt about that.
AC: And what about in the car-magazines? I haven’t seen anything about that in the
magazines, I have had a look in.
JC: No, there is really not anything about electric cars. You are welcome to look in my magazines.
You won’t find anything about electric cars there. The reason is that those consumers who are
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initially buying electric cars – this segment are not those who are reading car-magazines. You
should have a look on the report by Etrans.
AC: But what about in the future, if a market is really being opened for electric cars, then
more traditional channels like magazines etc. could be used to reach as broad an audience as
possible, right?
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JC: Yes. But they also have some sort of a portfolio they use. In Paris for example there is a very
huge building and on this building there is a very huge commercial, I think it is Citroen C-Zero
where green energy is used to highlight it.
I think that we in the future will see that the commercials are locally advertised. The commercials
will depend on where there is a market. Therefore, there will be a lot of commercials in the inner
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city. The companies also want to use as much free marketing as possible – for example all the PR
you can get, tests of electric cars in newspapers around the world so the newspapers can rent an
electric car for a short period. I have seen newspapers that can rent an OPEL Ampera to an
interested person for a week, and I have seen other papers having similar offers. Also the carmagazine ‘Bilmagasinet’ has made testing of electric cars, and given individuals the opportunity to
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rent it, and then it is possible to write articles about that.
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AC: And also trade fairs are a good way of promoting electric vehicles right? I was on a trade
fare in Herning two weeks ago..
JC: Yes, ‘Biler for alle’ (In English: ‘Cars For Everyone’).
AC: Exactly, and there was also one which interested consumers could try.
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JC: That was the Renault.. And that is also interesting. On the Danish market compared to other
markets in the world, another channel is suddenly used to sell electric cars. This is similar as the
way cell-phones are sold: it is now the telephone corporations that is selling the telephones to the
end-user rather than the telephone producers. On the electric car market, we will see infrastructure
firms that are selling the cars, because if you for example will buy a Peugeot..
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AC: An infrastructure firm could for example be ‘Better Place’ right?
JC: Exactly, like ‘Better Place’. If you want to buy a Peugeot, you don’t go to Peugeot but you go to
ChooseEV. If you want to buy a Smart, you go to ‘Clean-Charge’. The smart thing is that the
infrastructure companies in this way can make some package-solutions, just like telephone
companies do it. So this is something we will see on the electric car market.
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And that is also something the car dealer has to think about; because the more popular e-mobility
gets, the less service will be provided, because electric cars do not need that much service: as I said
there is only 20 % moveable parts in an electric car compared to a normal car. And car dealers are
earning their money on service.
AC: So this with making these package solutions is something which will be very important,
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also to get a good contact with consumers?
JC: Yes. And also to get them to pay for more than what they consume. This is working for
telephones, so why shouldn’t it work for cars? How many of those who have a subscription where
they pay for 5 hours actually speak for 5 hours each month? Not many.
AC: What about sponsorship, is that something which is used for example by ‘Better Place’?
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JC: Better Place has commercials in the S-trains in Copenhagen - a lot actually. If they use
sponsorship? Both yes and no. Better Place is not sponsoring anything. ChooseEV on the other
hand is sponsoring a project called ‘Test an electric car’ where 2500 families are testing an
electric vehicle. It is questionable if this can be seen as traditional sponsorship, because ChooseEV
are also being financed in this project.
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AC: This is actually all I had. Lastly I want to ask you, if the financial crisis has been an
significant factor of disadvantage connected to the communication/advertising of electric cars..
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JC: Yes it has. I read an article in the newspaper – here it was written that we buy cars because of
the price. It if this is right, that we buy cars because of the price: then if we have a car that costs
DKR. 200.000 (≈ €26.455) but which runs 100 km for DKR 1 (≈ 13 cents), and on the other hand
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we have a car which costs DKR. 90.000 (≈ €11.904) but it costs DKR 2000 (≈ €264,5) to drive 100
km. Which one would you buy? This is a matter of quality, when we are in a financial crisis.
AC: Yes, that is right. But it is strange that the consumers can’t see the advantages in an
electric car, because in the long-term it will be cheaper to drive the electric than the gasoline
car. But the consumers don’t dare to use money right now..
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JC: Yes, that is right. The financial crisis is both negative and positive. Positive, because the price
for gasoline has increased. People will in this way have more focus on their consumption. Take the
VW Lupo as an example; that was a very bad car, and it had a price in Denmark of DKR. 180.000
(≈ €23.809) but you could get the same standard for DKR. 100.000 (≈ €13.227). Normally,
Denmark is importing 1 % of VW’s production. For the Lupo 15 % of the production was imported.
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In Denmark a lot were sold because it could drive over 30 km on 1 litre diesel. The car was very
bad, but many were sold in Denmark, so we have to go back and see what was done in that case,
and apply it and use this. It was possible to buy a used Lupo in Germany and sell it for more than
the list price.
AC: So you see success in the electric car market in the future?
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JC: I don’t doubt that we in some way or the other are driving on electricity in the future. If it will
be plug-in hybrids, 100 % electric or hydrogen cars, I don’t know. Maybe something fourth will
surface.
AC: Are there problems with the technology with hydrogen cars - there is not so much
information about it.
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JC: there are two ways of using hydrogen, in one case you burn it, which is a technology BMW is
investing a lot in – then it works like a gasoline motor. Or you can use fuel cells, where the
electricity is used for electric cars. There is a lot of potential in fuel cells and a lot of money is used
to the development of fuel cells. If that is what will win the race? To be honest, I don’t know.
Personally, I believe that the battery technology will win, because they are developed very rapidly.
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The electric car market will also have advantages in matters of infrastructure and costs related to
development. Some still believe more in hydrogen, e.g. Mercedes and Hyundai. Also a firm located
in Herning is developing fuel cell technology for fork lift trucks, and that is interesting, I think.
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Again I think they will loose to the batteries, because in 5 years you can maybe drive approximately
300 km on a single charge and it will take only 5 minutes to recharge it 80 %.
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AC: I want to thank you very much for your time.
JC: You are welcome. Did you get the answers you needed?
AC: I did.
JC: I would like to see the final report, if you don’t mind?
AC: No problem..
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