How Israel Made The World To Change To Electric Car And Break Power Of Arab Oil Cartels

 

Nigeria does not have thinking leaders. At any point they are more concerned with the next election. We are in 21st Century but Nigeria’s leadership are so atavistic in their mindset that medieval policies are what they are romancing and are even forcing it down the throat of Nigerians who are resisting it.

Take a nation like Israel that had thinking leaders; those in position of authority are more concerned about the future of the country and how to secure it from those who intend to destroy it. I want to tell a story of how Israel has succeeded in making the world to abandon oil for fueling cars and turn to electric cars.

In the 1970s the Arab world that dominated the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) leveraged on oil to influence international politics and Israel was at the receiving end. The Arab oil producing nations was also using its hold on oil to dictate the direction of the economy of nations. If they want the price of oil around the world to rise they reduce output with dire consequences on the economy of nations, and when they are persuaded they increase output to reduce the price of crude oil in the international market.

Nigeria as a member of OPEC was a beneficiary of this manipulation of the international oil market, to the level that one of Nigeria’s former head of state famously stated that the country has too much money that it does not know what to do with it. Another confirmation of my assertion that Nigerian leaders do not think.

It was the tiny country Israel that decided to wane the world of oil dependency and shatter the power of the oil producing nations. And it all started with an idea.

This idea was revealed in the book, “START-UP NATION: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle,” By DAN SENOR and SAUL SINGER.

In 2005, a young Israeli Shai Agassi, had an idea “I decided that the most important thing to do was to figure out how to take a single country off of oil.” Agassi believed that if just one country were able to become completely oil independent, the world would follow.

He made the proposal at what the Israelis calls “Baby Davos”—the Forum for Young Leaders— where young people was challenged to come up with ideas that could change the world by 2030. Most participants proposed tweaks to their businesses. Agassi came up with an idea so ambitious that most people thought him naive.

While many considered Agasi naïve, not the President of Israel, a thinking President, Shimon Peres bought into it because it was in line with the long term desire to break the power of oil producing nations dominated by hostile Arab countries. What is even more interesting is that Agasi’s projection of electric cars taking over the world is becoming a reality. As I write many European nations actually have 2030 target to faze out fuel powered cars and completely turn to electric cars which are more eco-friendly and part of the solutions to the greenhouse emissions and climate change. But it all began in an idea by a young man and a President of Israel that thinks, unlike the atavistic leadership that we have in Nigeria.

No progressive idea is easy to push. Not even this one. However, Israel was blessed with a President who wanted to protect Israel from its hostile neighbors that were flexing muscles because they have oil and billions of dollars that roll into their coffers without having to do much.

At the time Shimon Peres was 83 years old and he invited the CEOs of the world’s five largest carmakers to meet with him at Davos, he expected that they would show up. But it was early 2007, the global financial crisis was not yet on the horizon, the auto industry was not feeling the pressure it would a year later, and the American Big Three—GM, Ford, and Chrysler—didn’t bother to respond. Another top automaker had arrived, but he’d spent the entire twenty-five minutes explaining that Peres’s idea would never work. He wasn’t interested in hearing about the Israeli leader’s scheme to switch the world over to fully electric vehicles, and even if he had been, he wouldn’t dream of launching it in a tiny country like Israel.

“Look, I’ve read Shai’s paper,” the auto executive told Peres, referring to the white paper Peres had sent with the invitation. “He’s fantasizing. There is no car like that. We’ve tried it, and it can’t be built.” He went on to explain that hybrid cars were the only realistic solution.

The concept was one that had been rejected in the past as too limiting and expensive, but Agassi thought he had a solution to make the electric car not just viable for consumers but preferable. If electric cars could be as cheap, convenient, and powerful as gas cars, who wouldn’t want one?

But if not for Peres, even Agassi might not have dared to pursue his own idea.

But Peres put the challenge before him in clear terms: “Can you really do it? Is there anything more important than getting the world off oil? Who will do it if you don’t?” And finally, Peres added, “What can I do to help?”

Peres was serious about helping. Just after Christmas 2006 and into the first few days of 2007, he orchestrated for Agassi a whirlwind of more than fifty meetings with Israel’s top industry and government leaders, including the prime minister. “Each morning, we would meet at his office and I would debrief him on the previous day’s meetings, and he’d get on the phone and begin scheduling the next day’s meetings,” Agassi told us (the authors). “These are appointments I could never have gotten without Peres.”

Peres also sent letters to the five biggest automakers, along with Agassi’s concept paper, which was how they found

themselves in a Swiss hotel room, waiting on what was likely to be their last chance. “Up until that first meeting,” Agassi said, “Peres had only heard about the concept from me, a software guy. What did I know? But he took a risk on me.” The breakthrough came when Peres and Agassi met CEO of Renault and Nissan.

Carlos Ghosn, the CEO of Renault and Nissan, had a reputation in the business world as a premier turnaround artist. Born in Brazil to Lebanese parents, he is famous in Japan for taking charge of Nissan, which was suffering massive losses, and in two years turning a profit. The grateful Japanese reciprocated by basing a comic-book series on his life. Peres began to speak so softly that Ghosn could barely hear him, but Agassi was astounded. After the pounding they had just received in the previous meeting, Agassi expected that Peres might say something like, “Shai has this crazy idea about building an electric grid. I’ll let him explain it, and you can tell him what you think.” But rather than pulling back, Peres grew even more energetic than before in making the pitch, and more forceful. Oil is finished, he said; it may still be coming out of the ground, but the world doesn’t want it anymore. More importantly, Peres told Ghosn, it is financing international terrorism and instability. “We don’t need to defend against incoming Katyusha rockets,” he pointed out, “if we can figure out how to cut off the funding that launches them in the first place.”

This is a brief account on how Israel changed the world and helped the world to get rid of oil because some of its proceeds are used to finance terrorism for which Israel had been a major victim. And also oil is a major environmental polluter that creates greenhouse effects and climate change that have caused environmental disasters around the world.