Ruby Lak's Profile

Will the rate of adoption for BEV continue to grow at such high rates if the tax credit in the United States is eliminated? I don’t think gas stations as know them are a dying breed but I do think that major adjustments will need to be made in the upcoming years to accommodate both gasoline and electric vehicles. Also older cars are staying on the road for longer number of years so those vehicles will still need the traditional use of a gas station so a traditional gas station can’t be totally replaced with only charging stations. Autonomous vehicles regardless of whether they are gasoline or electric will need some sort of “base” where they refuel/recharge and a person to do that.

Vertical integration is a viable option if manufacturing and shipping automobiles is not cost effective. I would also look at other factors other than cost like: speed to market, and experience and expertise in manufacturing automobiles. There are many obstacles to vertical integration, which would need to be a longer-term solution. Building a new plant would be time intensive and expensive-Nissan would need to provide a large capital investment, hire a large employee base at all levels (operators, engineers and management), and manage an effective supply chain for not only Nissan but also its other customers in order to keeps costs and inventory levels down.

I think sustainability of this value proposition will depend on how the revenue is shared between the partners. I think another obstacle will be convincing local postal services to create a partnership, as they are usually government funded/run like the United States Postal Service (USPS). With the government being involved there is usually a lot more red tape to create a partnership. It seems as though this model is not a copy and paste structure since each country and partnership will have its own nuances and terms for delivery of product. It does seem like the barriers to entry are low so many competitors can implement and expand this idea quickly unless Aramex can create a clear differentiating point for their service.

Amazon has made enormous strides in terms of reducing costs to customers and improved speed of delivery but hasn’t made it a priority to reduce the environmental impact of their business. The amount of packaging material is increasing since suppliers are trying to use minimal box sizes to fit a variety of products, thus subsidizing the space with packing peanuts. More and more packaging materials is leading to more waste that isn’t being recycled properly.
I personally don’t think Wal-Mart, Macy’s, and Costco pose a real threat to Amazon’s e-commerce channel for the short term. They each have their advantages and disadvantages. Amazon has a large variety of products and it’s the convenience factor of having it delivered to you. Brick and mortar stores have the satisfaction of being able to go to the store and immediately buy or try something and use it.

I agree that small farmers will probably not be able to fund this without support from a third party. Does that third party have to be the government or could it be an investor that would take equity or a portion of future revenue? It may be more difficult to convince the government to invest in solar panels for water irrigation from a small start-up company. Karmsolar is able to prove the benefits of the solar powered water irrigation systems and easily explain the analytics behind making the large investment to investors, I think that this could be very impactful to not only the farmers in Egypt but in many other countries where climate change has negatively affected agriculture.

I agree that the plant based alternatives need to be cost effective but it also needs to be considered and accepted as an alternative by both perception and taste. Often times its easier in group situations to go with what is offered or what everyone else is doing which is likely (in the short term) to be the meat based option. It would be beneficial if Tyson educated its consumers on the meatless options that they are offering and the benefits it has on the environment.
Longer term Tyson doesn’t want consumer preferences to change so much that their own revenue starts to decrease for meatless alternatives. So it’s important to find the right balance of meat and meatless options for its wide variety of consumers.