tug-of-war over who controls and profits from the stream of user data in self-driving cars

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google.carx299

SAN FRANCISCO/DETROIT—Google’s self-driving car team is expanding and hiring more people with automotive industry expertise, underscoring the company’s determination to move the division past the experimental stage.

The operation now employs at least 170 workers, according to a Reuters review of their profiles on LinkedIn, the business-oriented social network. Many are software and systems engineers, and some come from other departments at Google.

More than 40 of the employees listed on LinkedIn have previous automotive industry experience, with skills ranging from exterior design to manufacturing.

They hail from a wide range of companies, including Tesla Motors Inc, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co.

For a look at the composition of Google’s self-driving car team, Google has not disclosed details about the size or composition of its self-driving car team, and Johnny Luu, spokesman for Google’s car team, declined to comment.

The team could have additional members who do not publish profiles on LinkedIn.

Google has said previously that it intends to ready the technology for a marketable self-driving car by 2020, but it may never manufacture vehicles itself.

The tech giant is more likely to contract out manufacturing — much like Apple does with iPhone — or to license technology to existing car manufacturers, automotive industry experts said.

Licensing would follow the model Google has used with its Android operating system for mobile devices.

In the past four weeks, Google has advertised nearly 40 new positions on the team, and many are related to manufacturing.

The team currently has six people with such experience, including purchasing, supplier development and supply chain management.

Hires with manufacturing skills could help Google find and coordinate with a partner to build a vehicle, said Paul Mascarenas, a former Ford executive who is president of FISITA, the International Federation of Engineering Societies.

Google is also engaged in discussions with federal and state regulators about how to revise motor vehicle safety standards to accommodate autonomous cars.

The competition for technical talent is intensifying as tech and automotive companies race to build driverless vehicles.

Beyond Google, the players include Tesla, established car makers such as Daimler AG and GM and, and technology companies such as Apple Inc and Uber Technologies Inc.

Google’s team is being assembled by John Krafcik, an industry veteran who previously headed Hyundai Motor Co’s  U.S. operations and is an expert in product development and manufacturing. Krafcik joined Google in September 2015.

Another senior executive with previous automotive experience, Paul Luskin, was hired last month as operations manager, according to his Linkedin profile.

An engineer with stints at Jaguar Cars, Ford and Japanese supplier Denso Corp, Luskin most recently was president of Ricardo Defense Systems, a unit of Britain’s Ricardo PLC, according to the Linkedin profile.

Google hired industry veteran Andy Warburton in July to head the vehicle engineering team, according to his Linkedin profile.

Warburton spent two years as a senior engineering manager at Tesla and 16 years as an engineering manager at Jaguar.

A third auto veteran, Sameer Kshisagar, joined Google in November as head of global supply management on the self-driving car team. Kshisagar is a manufacturing expert who previously worked for GM, according to his Linkedin profile.

Luskin, Warburton and Kshisagar did not respond to requests for comment.

Google’s self-driving car group also has tapped people with experience beyond the auto industry, including aerospace (Boeing, SpaceX, Jet Propulsion Lab) and electronics (Intel, Samsung, Motorola), according to LinkedIn profiles.

Krafcik and Chris Urmson, director of the car team, have said they want to forge partnerships with established automakers and others to build vehicles. Krafcik made a public pitch for alliances at an auto industry conference in Detroit in January.

However, Google may have to look farther than the auto industry to find a manufacturing partner, said Raj Rajkumar, a Carnegie-Mellon University professor who advises companies on self-driving car development.

The tug-of-war over who controls — and profits from — the stream of user data in self-driving cars is „an inherent and fundamental conflict“ between Google and traditional automakers, Rajkumar said.

Instead, Google may choose to build its own engineering and design prototypes, then partner with a Chinese automaker or an Asian contractor such as Hon Hai Precision Industry’s Foxconn Technology Co that wants to enter the automotive field, several experts said.

Michael Tracy, a Michigan-based auto manufacturing consultant, said Google sees the potential of several different revenue streams from its self-driving technology, including licensing its mapping database and vehicle control software, as well as an integrated package of software, sensors and actuators that would form the backbone of a self-driving vehicle.

The least likely prospect is that Google will manufacture its own vehicles, Tracy said, due to the massive expenditures required and the stiff competition from established automakers.

http://www.voanews.com/content/googles-self-driving-car-team-beefs-up-auto-experience/3217805.html

Bugatti’s $2.6 million Chiron is the fastest car in the world

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01_chiron_front_web 02_chiron_34-front_web 03_chiron_34-front_web 04_chiron_side_web 05_chiron_34-rear_web 06_chiron_34-rear_web 07_chiron_rear_web 09_chiron_engine-bay_web 15_chiron_grille_web 17_chiron_bugatti-line_web 18_chiron_driver-side_web 20_chiron_steering-wheel_web 22_chiron_speedometer_web 23_chiron_engine-knob_web 24_chiron_knob_web

 

You might think the super-wealthy have it pretty easy, what with their private islands, private jets and the ability to buy just about anything. But there’s been one thing they’ve not been able to buy in a while: an all-new Bugatti.

In fact, it’s been more than 11 years since the Veyron first went on sale. Can you imagine driving the same Bugatti for a decade? I can’t even.

Thankfully, that more than decade-long nightmare is over; there’s finally an all-new one. It’s called the Chiron. Along with the illustrious French moniker (yes, Bugatti is French), it boasts a 1,500-horsepower 16-cylinder engine, room for two very lucky passengers and a base price of just more than $2.6 million.

W16
Let’s not mince words here. Granted, simply based upon its price tag, the new Bugatti Chiron will be the chariot of global glitterati. Though, it’s more than a coupe from an elite brand. It hits the roads as the most powerful and fastest production car ever.

That impressive title is thanks to the 8.0-liter W16-cylinder engine mounted in the mid-rear of the car. If you’re not familiar with a W16, that’s OK. Only Bugatti uses such an engine. Imagine two V8s intertwined into one shape. That’s a W16. Imagine two V8s intertwined into one shape. That’s a W16.

Along with two-stage turbocharging (a new Bugatti development), the Chiron’s W16 produces 1,500 horsepower and 1,180 pound-feet of torque. That, along with a very stout all-wheel drive system, allows it to go 0 to 62 mph in 2.5 seconds, and on to a limited top speed (it could do more) of 261 mph (although the speedo goes up to 310 mph). To put that into perspective, a 747 lifts off the ground at 180 mph.

Understandably, to be able to safely keep the car on the road, and, you know, bring it to a stop once in a while, Bugatti engineers had to go to great technical lengths. That meant they had to develop both a chassis and a braking system as stout as the most advanced and technically complex race cars in the world. Moreover, the tires were tested to aerospace tolerances, which makes sense, given the speeds this thing can hit.

Understandably, a huge, fuel-thirsty engine like that produces a lot of tailpipe pollutants at full throttle. Accordingly, the catalytic converters (the devices that clean the exhaust gases as they pass through it) in the titanium exhaust system are six times larger than catalytic converters fitted to a mid-size sedan.

According to Bugatti, if you dissected the Chiron’s catalytic converters, you’d find surfaces — when the many layers are spread out flat — larger than the area of 30 soccer fields. And that’s just in one single car.

Electromagnetic
Of course, in creating the Chiron, Bugatti couldn’t spend all its technical energy on performance. After all, the car needs to be as opulent as it is fast.

Accordingly, Bugatti engineers created a new instrument cluster with three TFT digital screens as well as an analog speedometer. Cleverly, the faster you drive the Chiron, the more the information displayed falls away. The dedicated infotainment screen fades, as the miles per hour climb in order to limit driver distraction.

Between the driver and the passenger is the signature illuminated C-bar, which is the longest light conductor in the automotive industry. What’s more, its surrounding bezel is machined from a single piece of aluminum. Certainly, this isn’t especially techie, but it is stunning.

Effectively, the Chiron can withstand electromagnetic interference and disruption as well as a military vehicle. This means that the passengers as well as their electronics are about as safe as you can get from electronically harmful electromagnetic waves.

The Chiron effect
Of all the astounding things we’ve just discussed about the Chiron, they’re just the tip of the iceberg.

For example, the front 3D Bugatti logo is covered in gemstone. The cabin sound system was created specifically for the Chiron by the elite German audio system company “accuton” (no, I’ve not heard of it either). And the exterior has been fashioned entirely from carbon fiber.

Perhaps the most astounding thing of all, though, is the fact that — despite the years of development and painstaking attention to detail that went into its creation — Bugatti only plans to ever build 500 Chirons.

Since Bugatti is owned by the Volkswagen Group, I’d like to tell you that some of the tech and features of the Chiron will trickle down into a VW or Audi you can buy in a few years. Truthfully, if it does, it won’t be the stuff you want, like 1,500 horsepower or a gemstone-covered front grille emblem.

Instead, your future car will likely be blessed with lessons learned from Bugatti’s painstaking attention to quality, reliability and precision. That’s because, in order to build a car that can be both the world’s fastest and finest vehicle, it has to be quadruply over-engineered.

That said, I encourage you to still admire the Chiron from afar. Or, better yet, see the latest Bugatti as an aspirational vehicle. Either way, the Bugatti Chiron is going to make the lives of the super-rich very lovely indeed and your future car that much finer.

2017 Bugatti Chiron

http://mashable.com/2016/02/29/2017-bugatti-chiron

 

The Electric Car Revolution Is Now Scheduled for 2022

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2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV

The long-awaited, oft-delayed electric car revolution is now scheduled for 2022.

That’s according to a report from research firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance, which posits that in just six years, the biggest obstacle to the sale of EVs—they cost too much—will be obliterated and cars that run on electricity will cost less than those that run on dead dinosaurs.

“By 2022,” the report says, “the unsubsidized total cost of ownership of BEVs [battery electric vehicles] will fall below that of an internal combustion engine vehicle.” From there, the report projects a steadily increasing rate of adoption, reaching global sales of 41 million—25 percent of total market share—by 2040.

That’s a remarkable prediction given that today, EVs make up less than 1 percent of new car sales in the US. Government subsidies and mandates are largely responsible for what consumer interest and R&D investment we’ve seen so far. For the technology to go mainstream in the way Bloomberg predicts, the industry must address the biggest impediment to adoption: EVs simply cost too much. It’s a BFD that General Motors managed to develop a car, the Chevy Bolt, that will go 200 miles on a charge and cost $30,000. That’s just below the average price of a new car in the US, meaning there’s a lot of room for improvement.

Change is coming, according to the Bloomberg report. “We project that the cost of manufacturing electric vehicles will fall dramatically, and faster than most people realize,” says Salim Morsy, the author of the study.

The key to that trend, Morsy argues, is the battery pack that powers the car. The pack can account for about a third of the cost of the entire vehicle. Between 2010 and 2015, the average cost per kilowatt hour (kWh) dropped from $1,000 to $350—a 65 percent plunge. (Today’s EVs have packs ranging from 30 kWh in the new Nissan Leaf to 90 kWh in the Tesla Model X.)

Even if EVs match gas-powered cars in total cost of ownership, it might not be enough for a revolution.

Continuing that trend doesn’t rely on any big breakthroughs in battery tech. Instead, it’s based on moderate improvements in production processes and battery chemistry, economies of scale as manufacturing expands, and “aggressive pricing” by producers eager to sign contracts with major automakers. “We believe that between now and 2020, cost will continue to drop significantly,” Morsy says.

The rate of change will slow, sure, but prices could reach $200/kWh by 2022, and $120/kWh by 2030. Meanwhile, GM says it’s already paying just $145/kWh for the batteries powering the Bolt. Bloomberg can’t verify that figure, but the imminent arrival of cars like the Bolt and similarly affordable Tesla Model 3, Morsy says, is “a material testament to the fact that we’re rapidly approaching cost parity.” The fact that the auto industry is slowly moving toward a world in which people don’t own cars could limit total vehicle sales, Morsy believes, but shouldn’t impact the growing ratio of electric cars in the market.

A Few Words of Caution

There are some caveats here. First, longterm EV adoption projections rely on the reasonable assumption that by 2030, customers will have access to a well-developed and widespread charging infrastructure beyond the one they’ll use most often—the plug in the garage.

Second, Bloomberg’s study relies on the idea that government subsidies that are keeping the EV market alive and pushing automakers to invest in the technology, aren’t about to disappear. In the US, that’s a $7,500 federal tax credit for buying an EV, tax breaks on home chargers, and various state incentives, including access to carpool lanes on congested highways. European countries offer a mix of tax breaks and “bonus payments,” and China uses mandates to encourage the sale of electrics. The American support of electrics may soon come under attack, considering reports that the Koch brothers are planning a major lobbying effort to kill those subsidies in the US.

If charging infrastructure is not better developed, that could limit the 2022 knee in the curve. Tony Posawatz

And third, the total cost of ownership comparison is based on the expectation that oil prices will sit between $50 and $70 per barrel, meaning today’s crazy low prices—about $32 a barrel—have to head north again. Of course, it’s inevitable that they will.

The biggest reason for concern, though, is that even if EVs match gas-powered cars in total cost of ownership, it might not be enough for a revolution. “Way too much is put on that,” says EV advocate Chelsea Sexton. The 2022 date sounds about right, she says, but if consumers are going to switch to EVs, popular thinking needs to change, because car buying isn’t a rational process. If it were, she says, “we’d all be driving white Honda Civics.”

To make that happen, dealers will have to actually work to sell electric cars, despite the lower cost of maintenance that takes away potential revenue. Automakers must market their electric offerings as vigorously as their gasoline-drinking vehicles. And they have to build enough of the things to meet the demand they could generate.

Tony Posawatz, the engineer who led the development of the Chevrolet Volt, briefly led Fisker Automotive, and is now an industry consultant, says there’s nothing too surprising in the report. The 2022 timeframe is “certainly within the realm of possibility,” he says, as long as charging infrastructure continues to roll out. “If that is not better developed, that could limit the 2022 knee in the curve.”

So why doesn’t the report call for a faster advance of electric cars, once they cost the same as the gas guzzlers we’ve been stuck with for a century? Because big infrastructural changes move slowly. Posawatz points out it took 50 years for half of American households to hook up to the electricity grid. Good things are happening with EVs, he says, but “it’s a long haul.”

www.wired.com/2016/02/electric-car-revolution-now-scheduled-2022

Barriers To Augmented Reality Are Holding Us Back From The Holodeck

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There is more money and talent invested in virtual and augmented reality than ever before. Indeed, more than $3.5 billion has been invested into virtual and augmented reality startups in the past two years. The industry is growing fast; Goldman Sachs suggests the combined hardware and software market for VR and AR will reach, on a base case, $80 billion by 2025, with a potential to reach more than $180 billion.

Many experts believe that in the long run, augmented reality will represent the larger opportunity, as the ability to introduce all manner of information and experience into the natural environment transforms markets, and indeed the nature of our existence.

Companies such as Magic Leap are attracting enormous investment on such promise. But from a technical perspective, augmented reality is considered more difficult, as creating responsive media in the real environment is full of technical challenges.

Recently, seven scientists from universities with leading research programs in virtual and augmented reality published the proceedings of discussions related to the technical challenges in realizing the AR opportunity.

Beyond the technical challenges to achieving true augmented reality, the researchers pause to consider ethics.

Co-authored by Christian Sandor, Martin Fuchs, Alvaro Cassinelli, Hao Li, Richard Newcombe, Goshiro Yamamoto and Steven Feiner, Breaking the Barriers to True Augmented Reality considers the main approaches to realizing augmented reality, as well as the technical and ethical challenges, in order to draw conclusions on what direction future development of AR might take.

First, the researchers consider the four main approaches to achieving true augmented reality, which can be represented on a scale of “decreasing order of physicality” from “manipulating atoms” to “manipulating perception.” These four approaches include:

Controlled matter: Arguably the most technically challenging approach would be to manipulate or reconfigure atoms in order to change the physical environment. Think Star Trek Holodeck. While this may seem outlandish today, there is research in this direction. The researchers point to “displays that use magnetic fields to rapidly create shapes out of ferromagnetic fluid,” and another class of displays that “levitate solid objects in a field of overlaid ultrasonic or magnetic waves.” The challenges to realizing this approach include safety and energy requirements.

Surround AR: The “next best thing to manipulating atoms is manipulating photons,” in order to make objects in the environment visually indistinguishable from physical reality. The researchers imagine environments replete with light-field displays that create very realistic visual effects. Haptics might be achieved by “stimulating the user’s skin through ultrasound waves.” The challenges to this approach include the immensity of the data processing required and the ability to achieve high resolution. Thus, technology for plenoptic displays remains “in its infancy,” even while light-field sensors have advanced.

Personalized AR: This approach revolves around displaying information only in the subset of the environment that a particular user is experiencing. Examples of this approach include some the most commonly known devices today, such as Google Glass and Microsoft’s HoloLens. Challenges to this approach include tracking at “sufficiently high update rates and low latency.”

Implanted AR: The researchers admit this may be the most “extreme” approach to achieving true augmented reality, but another option is not to manipulate the information sent to a user’s perceptual system, as in the prior three approaches, but rather to manipulate the perceptual system itself.

This approach has a long history of being depicted in science fiction, including movies such as The Matrix and Total Recall. This approach may first become widespread as new technologies augment the experience of those with conditions such as blindness. Later, it may be applied to augment the reality of the healthy.

Beyond the technical challenges to achieving true augmented reality, the researchers pause to consider ethics. Imagining such powerful technology, which may permit us to entirely manipulate the human experience of reality, raises big questions: Who will control its deployment? Who will ultimately be in control of its augmented content and for what purposes will it be used? Will individuals be freed or locked into purely commerce-driven experiences? Will augmented reality enhance our quality of life and promote better communication and deeper understanding, or “isolate and project us into a world of delusion?” Open questions.

But as the desire to sate the human imagination has driven the development of other media throughout history, augmented reality will continue to emerge, as advances in disciplines beyond just “optics, computer graphics, and computer vision” converge to make the above approaches possible.

While our experience of this world has in past included physical, biological, ethical and other practical limitations, the researchers note, augmented reality will free us from such boundaries. Market estimates, even in their billions, seem insignificant next to the scale of such ambition.

Read NYC Media Lab’s special report, Exploring Future Reality, here.

techcrunch.com/2016/02/25/barriers-to-augmented-reality-are-holding-us-back-from-the-holodeck

Digital-Savvy Millennials Will Sacrifice Privacy for Personalization – And that’s good news for marketers

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Marketers have grappled with privacy regulations for years, but the rise of younger generations who are accustomed to receiving targeted digital ads may finally be changing the game for retail brands.

Speaking during a panel titled „Retail: Convergence of digital and physical,“ Nick Jones, evp of innovation and growth at Leo Burnett’s Arc Worldwide retail practice, said millennials and Gen-Z  are warming to technologies like NFC (near field communication) and mobile payments that deliver personalized content such as coupons or videos.

„By definition, things like NFC are opt-in because the shopper is making a decision to tap the product,“ he said. „The new generation of millennials and even younger audiences are getting more familiar with that kind of blended world where there isn’t quite as much of a protection of privacy.

„Frankly, they’ve kind of grown up with the personalization of content where I’m aware of where you’ve shopped, where you left a [shopping] basket, and I’m going to remind you. They see that more as a value than necessarily an intrusion of their privacy.“

http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/digital-savvy-millennials-will-sacrifice-privacy-personalization-says-leo-burnett-exec-169869

Inspire Loyalty With Your Leadership: Here’s How

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As the leader of your business, you’re surely aware that the loyalty you inspire in your employees is more than just important; it’s essential.

Beyond producing improved results from your employees and reducing turnover in your staff, the loyalty you encourage in your team — through the behaviors that you exemplify –will extend itself to your customer base, and beyond.

Loyalty isn’t something you can just gain, at the drop of a hat. To be a leader truly worthy of loyalty takes hard work and requires self-inquiry and a clarity of mind. After all, who can follow someone who doesn’t even know what he or she wants or is headed? Inspiring loyalty may take personal work, but it will be worth the effort when you have a team that will follow you to the ends of the earth.

There are many ways to inspire loyalty, but here are six essential ways in which the best leaders inspire loyalty, in even the most dubious of employees.

1. Trust. 

Constantly looking over your employee’s shoulder to second-guess his or her work creates a sense of personal doubt, especially if there has been no pertinent reason to mistrust the staffer’s expertise. Great leaders give their trust to others, without reservation, and those others are then motivated to not only give trust back, but to work harder to meet the expectations of someone they respect.

2. Support for employee development

In the short and long-term, all people need to feel as though their work, and by extension their lives, has meaning and positive progression. If there is no opportunity for learning in an encouraging environment, employees may start to feel stagnant and resentful.

Employees who are encouraged to follow their passions and stretch beyond what they thought was their capacity are sure to have deeply loyal feelings toward a leader who fosters that development.

3. Leading by example

A leader is perhaps expected to have more responsibility than do employees, but that doesn’t mean that the leader is „above“ any work that needs to be done. Some of the best leaders I have known are right there in the trenches when that’s called for. If you’re too good to get your hands dirty with your team, your team members will start to see their jobs as menial and unimportant — just as you do. But, if you do whatever it takes for your company to be successful, so will everyone around you.

4. Clarity

A leader’s clarity creates a compass by which his or her team can navigate. If you aren’t completely clear about your mission and values, it’s obvious to anyone in your employ that following you will lead nowhere. So, be communicative and definitive about your wide-reaching vision and your day-to-day tasks to enable your team to see that your leadership is true.

5. Personal relationships

Of course there are boundaries around personal relationships at work, but within those boundaries, there is room to recognize that the people who work for you are humans, dealing with trials and tribulations beyond the next budget meeting. Do you know when your employees have major life milestones, like a birth, death, marriage or divorce? Great leaders know that cultivating care for their employees creates love and loyalty in return.

6. Openness and honesty

Nothing inspires loyalty more than being honest. Open communication does two things: It creates confidence and trust, and also helps create feelings of inclusion. Being part of a team that works together will make any employee think twice before leaving or making a detrimental decision. Honest leaders will make team members stay much longer than they would have with a leader who hides information.

The greatest leaders in the world are not revered because they demanded loyalty — they created loyalty through their words and actions. With everyday care and personal conviction, you too can create a company that is full of employees who are devoted, hard-working, and unwavering.

Source: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/270577

Amazon is already after its next $400 billion opportunity

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During Amazon’s most recent earnings call, Baird Equity Research analyst Colin Sebastian asked two questions to Amazon CFO Brian Olsavky: one about Amazon Web Services‘ margins, and another about the chances of Amazon expanding its own shipping logistics services to other companies.

The first one got answered promptly, though Olsavsky had to stop mid-sentence because the operator accidentally jumped in early. Still, Olsavsky made it a point to get back and finish his answer.

The second question never got answered.

„If he wanted to talk about it, he would have remembered to answer,“ Sebastian told Business Insider. „Either way, I think the answer is that Amazon doesn’t talk about potential or future services.“

Amazon’s notoriously secretive about its future plans, so it’s not too surprising that Olsavsky skipped Sebastian’s question.

But when you’re going after something as big as the logistics and shipping market, it’s hard to keep your plans under wraps — and a growing amount of evidence suggests Amazon may indeed be going after the delivery and logistics market, which Sebastian pegs as a $400 billion market opportunity.

Next $400 billion opportunity

Over the past few months, we’ve seen a series of reports speculating Amazon’s plan to establish a bigger in-house logistics service that will allow it to potentially bypass its current delivery partners, like UPS and FedEx.

That includes:

Serbastian believes this all points to Amazon building up its in-house logistics delivery network. He envisions Amazon first starting out with its own deliveries, but eventually opening up the service to other companies, putting it in direct competition with the likes of UPS and FedEx.

„Among other opportunities, Amazon has ‚powerhouse potential‘ in the large transportation and logistics market, dominated by global enterprises such as DHL and UPS,“ Sebastian wrote in a recent note.

„Amazon’s cloud technology expertise and increasingly complex fulfillment, logistics and delivery network seem to be obvious foundation to offer third-party services, with an incremental $400-450 billion market opportunity.“

A worker gathers items for delivery from the warehouse floor at Amazon's distribution center in Phoenix, Arizona November 22, 2013. REUTERS/Ralph D. Freso Thomson ReutersWorker gathers items for delivery at Amazon’s distribution center in Phoenix

Project Dragon Boat

Perhaps the strongest indication of a bigger Amazon logistics ambition was disclosed last week in a report by Bloomberg’s Spencer Soper.

The report, citing a 2013 Amazon document, revealed an internal project called Dragon Boat, which is intended to become a service that controls everything from picking up the product at the factory in China to delivering it to the end customer in the US.

It said the document described Project Dragon Boat as a „revolutionary system that will automate the entire international supply chain and eliminate much of the legacy waste associated with document handling and freight booking.“

„Sellers will no longer book with DHL, UPS, or FedEx but will book directly with Amazon,“ the report said.

When Amazon’s Olsavsky was asked about its logistics plan again by another analyst during earnings call, he simply shrugged it off as a complementary service, saying it’s intended to supplement, not replace, existing delivery companies.

„What we found in order to properly serve our customers at peak, we’ve needed to add more of our own logistics to supplement our existing partners. That’s not meant to replace them,“ Olsavsky said.

Next AWS

Werner Vogels, Amazon.com chief technology officer, speaks at the AWS Re:Invent conference at the Sands Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada November 29, 2012. REUTERS/Richard Brian Thomson ReutersVogels, Amazon.com chief technology officer, speaks at the AWS Re:Invent conference at the Sands Expo in Las Vegas

But don’t expect Amazon’s logistics business to expand overnight.

If anything, it’s going to take a few years to fully ramp up and establish itself to become a viable delivery option for other companies, according to Sebastian.

„They will start small, mostly to add capacity for their own business, but then, over time, as they gain more expertise, they will offer extra capacity to other companies,“ Sebastian told us.

In that sense, it could follow the path of Amazon Web Services, its cloud computing service that’s now generating almost $8 billion in annual revenue.

Amazon built AWS out of the infrastructure it had created to support its own operations, but it’s now become one of the most widely used cloud computing platforms, used by everything from small startups to big companies like Netflix and GE.

„I think it’s like AWS,“ Sebastian said. „But it took 10 years for AWS to get as large as it is.“

http://www.businessinsider.de/signs-of-amazon-getting-into-logistics-2016-2

Bentley Plans To Copy Porsche’s Electric Tesla Fighter Misson-E

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Bentley Plans To Copy Porsche's Electric Tesla Fighter

Volkswagen Group owns a lot of automotive brands, two of which happen to be Bentley and Porsche. A few months ago Porsche confirmed it was working on an electric sports car to go head-to-head with Tesla, and now Bentley has confirmed it will borrow Porsche’s plans and make its own electric sports car rival.

The gorgeous Mission E concept was green lit for production by Porsche with intentions of taking on Tesla’s success as a high performance electric automaker, and now Bentley wants to douse those plans in opulent luxury.

Bentley Plans To Copy Porsche's Electric Tesla Fighter

Speaking to Drive.com, Bentley board member Rolf French, who is responsible for the British luxury brand’s engineering department, confirmed plans to piggy back Porsche during the launch of the Bentayga SUV in Palm Springs last week.

While Porsche’s first all-electric model will almost certainly be a sedan, French mentioned that Bentley would have a firm idea of its plans for an electric car in the next six months, but that the hot Speed 6 coupe concept may be a viable contender to get the goods.

Bentley Plans To Copy Porsche's Electric Tesla Fighter

Whether a sedan or coupe, or both, the all-electric Bentley will take advantage of Porsche’s development of the electric batteries, motors, and other hardware for the electric platform.

It’s unclear if Bentley will pick up any of the R&D costs, but either way a second model under a different brand will help increase volume and make the massive engineering project a little easier to swallow in a market stiff on tradition.

Companies within Volkswagen “borrowing” from each other is nothing new, with the new Audi R8 based on the Lamborghini Huracan being a good example of extremely similar high performance automobiles under the same umbrella.

And like those two very special cars, it’s going to be tough to pick a favorite between Porsche’s beautiful Mission E concept and Bentley’s athletic Speed 6—if that’s the direction they take.

Photos: Bentley EXP 10 Speed 6 concept, Porsche Mission E concept

http://jalopnik.com/bentley-plans-to-copy-porsches-electric-tesla-fighter-1758385524?xing_share=news

The 15 most successful CMOs in the US

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Netflix’s chief marketing officer was the most-successful CMO in the US in 2015, according to ExecRank.

ExecRank’s uses an algorithm to help match companies with advisors.

The algorithm assesses measures such as experience in the executive role, business results during their tenure, board member appointments, company earnings per share growth this year, and industry/professional reputation.

We’ve also provided details on where the marketers appeared in last year’s list, although ExecRank chairman and CEO pointed out to AdAge that year-to-year comparisons aren’t entirely perfect because the algorithm gets tweaked annually.

ExecRank ranks 249 CMOs alogether — here are the top 15.

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15. David Roman, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Lenovo

15. David Roman, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Lenovo

YouTube/Spencer Stuart

Roman is responsible for driving all marketing activities at the world’s largest PC-maker, which includes the Motorola mobile division. He has also been recognized in AdAge’s Marketing Top 50 and Creative Magazine’s Top 50 list. He ranked at number 14 last year.

14. John Hayes, chief marketing officer at American Express

14. John Hayes, chief marketing officer at American Express

LinkedIn

Hayes has been an EVP at AmEx since 1995 and CMO since 2003. Last year, he was number 114 on the list.

13. John Costello, president of global marketing and innovation at Dunkin‘ Brands

13. John Costello, president of global marketing and innovation at Dunkin' Brands

YouTube

Costello has already been named one of the 30 most influential people in marketing by AdAge and one of the top 50 marketers by Adweek. He was number 9 in the list last year.

12. Jon Iwata, senior vice president of marketing and communications at IBM

12. Jon Iwata, senior vice president of marketing and communications at IBM

IBM

Iwata is responsible for all worldwide communications at IBM, from media relations through to IBM’s intranet. He ranked at number five on last year’s list.

11. Anne Finucane, vice chairman and global chief strategy and marketing officer at Bank of America

11. Anne Finucane, vice chairman and global chief strategy and marketing officer at Bank of America

Bank of America

Finucane is responsible for the strategic positioning of Bank of America, as well as public policy, global marketing, CSR, and communications In 2013, she won the New York Women In Communications Matrix award and the Advertising Women of the Year by Advertising Women of New York. She ranked at number 18 on last year’s list.

10. Marcos de Quinto, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at The Coca-Cola Company

10. Marcos de Quinto, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at The Coca-Cola Company

El Despacho de Kotler/YouTube

De Quinto was recently promoted to the CMO role, having previously served as president of Coca-Cola’s Iberia business unit, which covers Spain and Portugal. He recently unveiled Coca-Cola’s new „one brand“ marketing campaign that unites all the Coke brands under one slogan. He didn’t feature on last year’s ranking, but former CMO Joseph Tripodi was at number 11.

9. Beth Comstock, former chief marketing officer at General Electric, now vice chair of business innovations

9. Beth Comstock, former chief marketing officer at General Electric, now vice chair of business innovations

GE

GE named Comstock as its first female vice chair in September. She was replaced as CMO by Linda Boff. At the time of her promotion, GE CEO Jeff Immelt said in a statement: „Beth has a proven reputation inside and outside GE for transforming the enterprise and being a catalyst for digital innovation and growth.“ She moved down one place in the ranking this year, from number 6.

8. Chris Cox, chief product officer at Facebook

8. Chris Cox, chief product officer at Facebook

Jolie Odell

Cox is Facebook’s highest-paid executive and is the top product exec at the company. Cox helped invent the news feed, designed Facebook’s „social by design“ strategy, and is part of Facebook’s top executive leadership team. He didn’t feature in last year’s rankings.

7. Stephen Quinn, former Walmart US chief marketing officer, now retired

7. Stephen Quinn, former Walmart US chief marketing officer, now retired

Walmart

Quinn retired from Walmart in January this year, having spent more than a decade at the company. He was replaced by Tony Rogers, who had served as the grocery chain’s chief marketing officer in China. Quinn moved down several places from number two in last year’s rankings.

6. Ronald Coppock, president of worldwide sales and marketing at Arris

6. Ronald Coppock, president of worldwide sales and marketing at Arris

Arris

Coppock has served in the president of world sales and marketing role at the telecommunications equipment manufacturing company since 2003. He didn’t feature in last year’s rankings.

5. Karen Walker, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Cisco

5. Karen Walker, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Cisco

Twitter

Walker was promoted to the CMO position in June 2015 and has clearly quickly made an impact. Prior to that, she was the company’s senior vice president of marketing. ExecRank says she has „championed marketing’s role as an accountable business function aligning closely with sales teams and a vital resource to partners.“ She did not feature on last year’s rankings.

4. John Slusher, executive vice president of global sporks marketing at Nike

4. John Slusher, executive vice president of global sporks marketing at Nike

Nike

Slusher is responsible for managing relationships with Nike’s athletes, team, league, and federation partners. Nike won big at the Cannes Lions advertising festival this year, for its Re2pect campaign for Derek Jeter from the Jordan brand, the „Winner Stays“ football campaign, and for Nike Golf’s „Ripple“ campaign. Slusher didn’t feature in the list last year, but his colleague Trevor Edwards, president of the Nike brand, was number three.

3. Andrew Sherrard, chief marketing officer and executive vice president at T-Mobile US

3. Andrew Sherrard, chief marketing officer and executive vice president at T-Mobile US

YouTube

Sherrard joined T-Mobile in 2003 and was promoted to the CMO role in February last year, now responsible for all marketing execution for the T-Mobile brand in the US. T-Mobile was a big Super Bowl advertiser this year, with two ads — one starring rapper Drake. Sherrard didn’t feature in the list last year.

2. Philip Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing at Apple

2. Philip Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing at Apple

Apple

Schiller has now taken on new responsibilities to oversee the App Store across all of Apple’s hardware platforms. He was the top-performing marketer in last year’s rankings. At the time of Schiller’s promotion, Apple also announced Grey New York ad exec Tor Myhren would be joining the company as vice president of marketing and communications early in 2016.

1. Kelly Bennett, chief marketing officer at Netflix

1. Kelly Bennett, chief marketing officer at Netflix

Twitter

Bennett has served as Netflix’s CMO since 2012. He didn’t feature on last year’s rankings, but in 2015 Netflix has been taking over the world — literally — and marketing campaigns for its Originals series have helped boost sign-ups and retention rates.

http://www.businessinsider.de/execrank-top-cmos-and-marketing-executives-netflix-ge-coke-apple-2016-2?op=1