IEC Global Visions continue to show strategic importance of standards in business

Video interview with Shai Agassi, CEO & Founder, Better Place

A third video has now been put on line in the series, IEC Global Visions.

IEC Global Visions was set up in response to a mandate of the NC (National Committee) Presidents at the IEC General Meeting of 2008 in São Paulo, Brazil, to produce additional tools to help IEC Members do their business better. It aims to share case histories showing how the IEC has contributed to the success of its stakeholders

IEC Global Visions consists of interviews with CEOs of global companies who actively use IEC International Standards in their everyday work. The mini-documentaries provide insight into some of the challenges the companies face and demonstrate how IEC International Standards and CA (Conformity Assessment) help them respond to those challenges. The testimonials of the leading industry figures provide examples of how standards can be used to guarantee technology transfer, ensure easier access to markets and offer solutions to technical challenges. They deliver valuable feedback to those industrialists who are not yet well aware of the strategic potential of standards.

Better Place leading electric vehicle mobility services

The 2nd video in the series entitled "Green
Safety Facilitating Global Trade" featured
Keith Williams, President and CEO,
Underwriters® Laboratory

The third video in the series centres on Shai Agassi, CEO & Founder, Better Place, a company that, in the space of three years, has risen from the level of start-up to take a leading role as an electric vehicle mobility services provider backed by the Renault-Nissan Alliance and Daimler.

Better Place's mission is to accelerate the global transition to sustainable transportation and to reduce or eliminate dependency on fossil fuels. Better Place offers a monthly service, much like a mobile phone provider, with charging spots and battery switching stations that "refill" cars in minutes.

The video, entitled "Market acceleration: from niche to mass", has already been shared with a number of IEC NC Presidents and Secretaries and CEOs of leading companies. In the coming months it will be shown to government and international organization officials and IEC experts and engineers.

Agassi talks of the switch of vehicles from gasoline to electricity. Over the same ten-year period that the price of oil has increased roughly 10 times, a car battery has seen its life cycle increase from 200 to 2 000, he says. In terms of economic opportunities, multiplying those two factors of ten by ten gives a ratio of 1:100.

He sees the future of electric vehicles, not so much in the city, but in the suburbs where, because of the time spent in cars, most of the emissions are. If, according to engineers, the limitation of electric transport is the battery, then, in order to be able to drive from Copenhagen, Denmark, to Rome, Italy, International Standards are needed to open frontiers and enable batteries to be charged and switched along the way. That, Agassi says, is the IEC's galvanizing force. The IEC provides the structure for getting industry to agree on standards, connectors and mass-produced components that make products easier to build and to maintain.

Further videos with world leaders from industry and government to show the value of standardization, and particularly the contributions of the IEC, are already underway and will be released over the coming months.