There are two things I couldn’t help but notice last week during a brief trip to Los Angeles. One was the earthquake that shook my hotel room and scared the bejesus out of me. The second was the number of hybrid-electric vehicles on the road.
Californians like their hybrid-electric cars, and it’s widely expected they will become the earliest adopters of a new generation of plug-in electric vehicles such as the Chevy Volt, the Nissan Leaf and the Prius Plug-In Hybrid.
For companies developing the charging infrastructure and electric cars themselves, this makes California an attractive place to sink roots. And sinking roots they are, something Michigan and Ontario should be watching closely.
Credit, of course, goes to electric car maverick Tesla Motors, which raised $226 million (U.S.) late last month in an initial public offering. Some say Tesla, which is based in Palo Alto, Calif., is the catalyst for turning Silicon Valley into the new Detroit.
Elon Musk, co-founder and chief executive of Tesla, says his company has vision, is nimble and is willing to bet big. “We’re a Silicon Valley company, closer to an Apple or a Google than to a GM or Ford in the way we operate,” Musk said last month during an investor road show. “I don’t think that’s something that GM or Ford is going to be able to replicate – ever.”
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