DRIVING INNOVATION

A fascinating history of the global race to dominate the world‘s largest manufacturing industry – the $3 trillion automotive sector -- centering on the personalities and policies from China, Japan, and American that have shaped and are shaping the electric vehicle market.

Begun in 1896 by Henry Ford, the Great Race has been a century-long battle for market share, profit, and technological dominance in the international automobile industry. Today that 20th century behemoth is in the throes of a final revolution. Its future will include cars Ford would scarcely recognize. They will drive themselves, won‘t consume oil, and will come in radical new shapes and sizes.

This battle among industrial superpowers has been defined by audacious upstarts, visionaries, corporate titans, engineers, politicians, and luck—both good and bad. Today the hottest action is in the world‘s three largest economies, China, Japan, and America. Team America has a surprising secret to success: a small group of technology activists from the State of California. The story of why and how these men and women were able to shape the future of the world‘s largest manufacturing industry is one of the century‘s greatest, most illuminating, and most unexpected tales of strategy, markets, and innovation.

Levi Tillemann is currently a Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation. He was previously an advisor to the U.S. Department of Energy‘s Office of Energy Policy and Systems Analysis (EPSA) where he chaired the department‘s Autonomous and Connected- vehicles Energy (ACE) Working Group. Tillemann also assisted Daniel Yergin in writing and researching his New York Times bestsellers THE QUEST and a new edition of THE PRIZE. He has a Ph.D. from John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and speaks Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, and Portuguese.