{"id":127946,"date":"2020-02-14T16:06:58","date_gmt":"2020-02-14T15:06:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.electrive.com\/?p=127946"},"modified":"2024-09-03T13:54:18","modified_gmt":"2024-09-03T11:54:18","slug":"entrevista-protean-ceo-andrew-whitehead-local-motors-john-b-rogers-sobre-sinergias-y-autonomia-en-la-puesta-en-marcha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.electrive.com\/es\/2020\/02\/14\/interview-protean-ceo-andrew-whitehead-local-motors-john-b-rogers-on-start-up-synergies-and-autonomy\/","title":{"rendered":"Entrevista: Andrew Whitehead, Consejero Delegado de Protean, y John B. Rogers, de Local Motors, sobre sinergias y autonom\u00eda"},"content":{"rendered":"

La empresa brit\u00e1nica -que ahora pertenece a Evergrande<\/a> a trav\u00e9s de NEVS<\/a> - acaba de lanzar la producci\u00f3n en serie de sus motores de buje. Andrew Whitehead, consejero delegado de Protean, y Ben Boycott, director de operaciones, se unieron a la conversaci\u00f3n para hablar de las sinergias entre las start-ups, los retos de la autonom\u00eda y c\u00f3mo introducirse en el mercado de la e-movilidad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John, h\u00e1blenos del estado de Olli, su e-lanzadera. \u00bfYa se conduce solo?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

John B Rogers, Director General de Local Motors (JBR)<\/em>: Claro, puedo empezar por ah\u00ed. As\u00ed que estrenamos nuestros veh\u00edculos piloto tanto en Berl\u00edn como en Washington DC y a partir de ah\u00ed desarrollamos Olli 1.0, que fabricamos tanto en Tennessee y Arizona como en Berl\u00edn. Luego pusimos estos VE en unas ocho ciudades en despliegues de flotas a corto plazo, tomamos m\u00e1s feedback e hicimos cambios en el veh\u00edculo y luego lanzamos Olli 2.0 este pasado verano. As\u00ed que ha sido una evoluci\u00f3n constante. Durante ese tiempo, trasladamos nuestras instalaciones alemanas de Berl\u00edn<\/a> a M\u00fanich, donde tenemos unas nuevas instalaciones en colaboraci\u00f3n con Airbus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00bfY el proceso de impresi\u00f3n en 3D?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JBR: Olli 1.0 s\u00f3lo estaba impreso en 3D parcialmente, en torno a un 30%, y ahora Olli 2.0 est\u00e1 impreso en 3D en un 80% en volumen. Adem\u00e1s, uno de los principales cambios que hicimos fue cambiar el sistema de transmisi\u00f3n entre Olli 1.0 y 2.0: necesit\u00e1bamos uno que fuera m\u00e1s fuerte, m\u00e1s suave, m\u00e1s silencioso y mejor empaquetado. Ya hab\u00edamos estado hablando con un par de proveedores de motores de buje, como Schaeffler, y hab\u00eda proveedores pensando en motores de buje, como Bosch, y entonces conocimos al equipo de Protean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrew Whitehead Consejero Delegado Protean (AW)<\/em>: S\u00ed, nos conocimos en el Battery Show de Detroit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Antes de que profundicemos en el motor, \u00bfpodr\u00eda decirnos algo m\u00e1s sobre los comentarios que ha obtenido para Olli y poner algunas cifras a esas pruebas de conducci\u00f3n aut\u00f3noma? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JBR: Claro. Uno de los principales comentarios de los clientes fue que fuera m\u00e1s silencioso, m\u00e1s ancho, todos los factores de forma. Estos fueron los primeros comentarios en el campus EUREF de Berl\u00edn y en el National Harbor de Washington DC; en ambos sitios hab\u00eda un veh\u00edculo. Est\u00e1bamos aprendiendo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Una vez en funcionamiento, descubrimos detalles, por ejemplo, que la forma de actuar de un camarero a bordo es algo importante. Al principio, a la gente le gusta hacer muchas preguntas al camarero. Eso es un problema porque si le hacen muchas preguntas, no est\u00e1 prestando atenci\u00f3n a la carretera. As\u00ed que tuvimos que dirigir a la gente hacia un comisario secundario o proporcionar otra informaci\u00f3n para que el comisario pudiera hacer su trabajo de seguridad a bordo. Adem\u00e1s, ten\u00edamos mucho trinquete, lo que significa que hab\u00eda un engranaje o un peque\u00f1o retraso al arrancar. Y eso desconcert\u00f3 a la gente, as\u00ed que si Olli parlotea antes de moverse, la gente piensa que tal vez el sistema de autonom\u00eda est\u00e1 teniendo un problema cuando en realidad son s\u00f3lo los propulsores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tambi\u00e9n tuvimos en cuenta los comentarios de personas con movilidad accesible, como el comisionado para personas discapacitadas de la ciudad de Nueva York, que dijo que las personas en silla de ruedas a menudo se desplazan juntas, por lo que necesit\u00e1bamos m\u00e1s espacio en un Olli. Una de las cosas del embalaje Protean era que pod\u00edamos meter una segunda silla de ruedas en el veh\u00edculo y dar la vuelta y bajar con la maniobrabilidad mejorada<\/a>. Y no se trata de peque\u00f1as haza\u00f1as por conseguir.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

S\u00ed, pasemos ahora a la conducci\u00f3n. Andrew, \u00bfcu\u00e1l fue el incentivo de Protean para trabajar con Local Motors?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

AW: Nos conocimos hace cuatro o cinco a\u00f1os. Hab\u00edamos estado buscando clientes OEM convencionales porque ah\u00ed es donde estaba y sigue estando el volumen. Pero como empresa peque\u00f1a, tambi\u00e9n entendemos que encontrar buenos socios en los que se pueda ver un futuro a largo plazo es muy importante, y el riesgo para un OEM de adoptar una nueva tecnolog\u00eda es considerable. Y cuando hay dos empresas que intentan hacer algo nuevo, existe la sinergia de reducir el riesgo de cada una trabajando juntas. Y eso lo vimos mucho en Local Motors, lo que intentaban hacer con los veh\u00edculos aut\u00f3nomos, que eran muy nuevos hace cinco, seis a\u00f1os. El veh\u00edculo impreso en 3D tambi\u00e9n era algo \u00fanico, y nuestros centros todav\u00eda estaban relativamente poco probados por aquel entonces. As\u00ed que hab\u00eda una sinergia de mitigaci\u00f3n de riesgos y tambi\u00e9n una sinergia de esp\u00edritus afines y de que ambos intent\u00e1bamos cualificar juntos nuestras respectivas propuestas de valor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John, \u00bfle gustar\u00eda a\u00f1adir su perspectiva desde Local Motors?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JBR: S\u00ed, tengo que responder a eso. A menudo pienso que a las start-ups les resulta dif\u00edcil trabajar juntas porque es probable que acaben perjudic\u00e1ndose mutuamente en su modelo de negocio, ya que las start-ups necesitan ser \u00e1giles para ir en distintas direcciones. Pero dejemos eso a un lado. La sinergia de la mitigaci\u00f3n de riesgos era muy clara entre nosotros porque est\u00e1bamos estrat\u00e9gicamente alineados con lo que ten\u00edamos que hacer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Y si lo piensa bien, hay muchas razones por las que a los proveedores y a los nuevos fabricantes de equipos originales les cuesta abrirse paso en el mercado. Hoy en d\u00eda, la mayor\u00eda de las empresas automovil\u00edsticas consideran que el motor forma parte de su propiedad intelectual principal. As\u00ed que no quieren que llegue un proveedor y les diga 'voy a quitarles esa pieza central de su tecnolog\u00eda'.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adem\u00e1s, el otro d\u00eda o\u00ed a un ejecutivo de un gran proveedor decir: \"Sabe, Tesla, nos pidi\u00f3 un ABS, y les entregamos uno y funcion\u00f3 bien. Cuando Mercedes nos pide un ABS, no existe tal cosa como suministrar un componente que funcione \"bien\". Esa es una afirmaci\u00f3n realmente importante, porque significa que una empresa tan valiosa como Tesla pone ahora un producto a bordo antes de que el proveedor considere que ha sido investigado al grado de otra empresa como Daimler. Y creo que eso dice algo sobre c\u00f3mo la industria puede avanzar pero asumiendo riesgos como ese.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

La empresa brit\u00e1nica -que ahora pertenece a Evergrande a trav\u00e9s de NEVS- acaba de lanzar la producci\u00f3n en serie de sus motores de buje. El CEO de Protean, Andrew Whitehead, y el CCO, Ben<\/p>","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":127815,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9930,29835],"tags":[19810,11904,16771,19811,3701,13503,5955,19809,2552,840,19806,7252,19808,24449,2158,609],"class_list":["post-127946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-automobile","category-autonomous-driving","tag-andrew-whitehead","tag-autonomous-driving","tag-background","tag-ben-boycott","tag-bev","tag-electric-shuttles","tag-interview","tag-john-b-rogers","tag-local-motors","tag-london","tag-move-2020","tag-olli","tag-olli-2-0","tag-protean-electric","tag-uk","tag-usa"],"acf":{"inhalt_teil2":"

We are talking start-ups, but Protean now belongs to Evergrande and NEVS, and this is considerable potential for scaling up. Could you say a few words on that as Protean CEO, Andrew?<\/strong><\/p>\n

AW: We were acquired by NEVS<\/a> last June, and it’s been a very interesting few months working in the new corporate environment. We’ve managed through the acquisition process to retain the ability to operate as Protean. So we have a board structure above me that allows us to operate independently not as a department within a large company, with our third-party clients. And we have a strong internal customer in NEVS and then Evergrande in China.<\/p>\n

\"nevs-protean-min\"<\/p>\n

Ben, in terms of commercialisation, maybe you could say something more?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ben Boycott, Protean Chief Commercial Officer (BB)<\/em>: What I can disclose is that we’re working very closely with NEVS in Sweden and that is for the deployment of our motors on high volume product. And we’re working with a range of other companies, like of course, Local Motors and we fully support their volume aspirations.<\/p>\n

One other company I’m free to talk about is ConMet in the US, which is not a traditional application of our product. The motor is deployed inside the brake drum of an axle and primarily used for energy harvesting, to charge a battery. The system replaces the refrigeration unit on a trailer. The development has been driven by market requirements for deliveries at night, to hospitals in particular, because traditionally that was a diesel, very noisy and very polluting and they’re no longer allowed to do that with the diesel generator on board. This project is progressing very well from initial units towards a roll out to customers and then into volume.<\/p>\n

Ben just mentioned volume aspirations of Local Motors. What are these, John?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JBR: Aspirations may be the wrong word. I see our way through to having over a hundred systems in 2020 deployed. They’re not all announceable, so my comment on that volume is to remember that we are making a business-to-business shared mobility product where the utilisation should go much higher up than a car. So in the small concentrations of where we’re deploying, we want to make a dent in electric connected, autonomous mobility, that’s what 2020 is about. It’s no longer about proving that our technology works. It’s about why it’s meaningful to the places where we deploy.<\/p>\n

Could you name a few of these places?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JBR: We were just deployed in Italy, Turin. And then we’ll be at a hospital complex in Belgium, the AZ Maria Middelares, in Gent. We also launched in Miramar, California, which is our second military base deployment as we were at the Pentagon too. And we have several other US deployments like our big one in Northern California, which is at a known autonomous vehicle testing facility called the Contra Costa Transit Authority. They have bilateral agreements with eight other countries to share their testing data. And we were deployed at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

And what about China with these partners on board?<\/strong><\/p>\n

JBR: I worked personally in China for three years, and so I would love to be in business in China, but we don’t have any customers there yet. My comment from the outside is that the Chinese market bet heavily on building traditional consumer cars, so there’s much overcapacity in China right now. And to me that’s just a waste of time – we are wasting time getting new connected mobility when we keep trying to ‘capacitise’ mass factories. But China has the ability also to leapfrog itself, and there are many like Evergrande that think about trying to do it differently. I think the investment in Protean is a huge statement in that direction.<\/p>\n

Indeed, getting back to Protean, what is your stand when it comes to China and the future?<\/strong><\/p>\n

AW: As a start-up, you often have a real challenge between knowing that you need to focus, but having many conflicting interests. With our new shareholders, we’ve now got a bit of breathing space to focus on the opportunities and built depth, the value, trust and the reliability that you need to deploy this kind of technology into the market. Because, if we get it wrong, it’s not just bad for Protean or Local Motors, it’s bad for the technology itself. So we’ve now got that ability to do this correctly and hopefully build a strong niche or segment in the market where in-wheel motors can find their place in the future mobility.<\/p>\n

BB: There are some parts of Evergrande’s business<\/a> that might be of interest here. One of their businesses is to look after the retirement communities in China, which of course like everywhere else is growing. Then they have a medical business. And they’re also primarily a property company and combining these to make big campuses where these kinds of people are catered for. Take the Ocean Flower Island where they’re building an artificial island with a retirement community and a water park. These areas are primary areas where they can roll out autonomous vehicles in a safe and controlled way. And of course, we’re working with all our partners to try and fulfil their needs.<\/p>\n

Thank you very much.<\/strong><\/p>\n

AW: And thank you for your great newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

>> Interview by Nora Manthey, London.<\/em><\/p>\n","post_article-format":{"value":"standard","label":"Standard"},"post_categories":[9930,29835],"post_tags":[5955,609,840,2158,2552,3701,7252,11904,13503,16771,19806,19808,19809,19810,19811,24449],"post_thumbnail":127815,"post_thumbnail-caption":"","post_teaser-text":"US Local Motors caught a lot of attention with a 3D-printed autonomous shuttle Olli as early as 2017. Fast-forward to 2020, and we sat down with Local Motors CEO John B. Rogers and his UK partners from Protean.","post_advert":false,"post_legacy":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.electrive.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.electrive.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.electrive.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.electrive.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.electrive.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127946"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.electrive.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":249422,"href":"https:\/\/www.electrive.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127946\/revisions\/249422"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.electrive.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.electrive.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.electrive.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.electrive.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}