The Drive toward the Electric Mile--A Proposal for a Minimum Winning Game

The paper reports the research done in the Stanford University Graduate School of Business 2008 Bass Seminar "Strategic Thinking in Action--In Business and Beyond: The United States' Quest for Energy Resilience," taught by Professors Robert A. Burgelman and Andrew S. Grove. The goal of the seminar was to present a strategic plan for converting one million pick-up trucks, vans and SUVs to plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) in three years, and to get the students to do research on key issues related to its implementation. The first chapter provides a discussion of the instructors' general conceptual frameworks presented in the class to frame the analysis of the strategic importance of energy resilience, and to structure and guide the students' research for implementing the strategic plan. Chapter two is an article written by Andy Grove and Robert Burgelman for The McKinsey Quarterly, which presents the strategic plan of retrofitting one million vehicles to PHEVS and key issues related to its implementation in the form of a policy proposal to the incoming Obama Administration. Chapters three through seven constitute the edited papers written by the students and cover four important aspects of the plan in detail: retrofit manufacturing capabilities; retrofit marketing, sales and delivery; battery technology; and retrofit policy recommendations. Chapter eight concludes the paper with a summary of the paper and alternate viewpoints articulated by some of the students.