A growing number of well-established car manufacturers–as well as a few determined newcomers–are developing and/or selling electric cars.

The arguments for such cars are compelling: increasing gasoline price, preservation of the environment, reduced noise pollution, etc. But how do these cars compare to the classical Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) cars we are used to?

In this paper, we attempt a comparison between a typical ICE car, Tesla’s Model S, and Renault’s Zoe, based on a set of assumptions.

Assumptions

ICE vs. Model S vs. Zoe

Fabrice Brégier, CEO of Airbus, is proud. And with good reason. Here are some of his statements to the press from this morning.

I feel a great sense of satisfaction and pride. I would like to congratulate the Airbus teams, they have not drifted off course one inch over the last two years. All the milestones were passed on time: assembly of the first aircraft, test flight in June 2013 and the various steps in the flight test campaign. Everything went perfectly despite some surprises that we managed to deal with. These results validate our method which is to advance as quickly as possible without taking any risks. This is the first programme in the history of aeronautics that has managed to stick so closely to its timetable.

Airbus demonstrates that it has changed with two aircraft – A350 and A320neo – rolling out on time. This augurs well for the future.

A350 is the symbol of a new...

How reliable are the scientific findings that reach us? Despite being a defender and follower of scientific research I will challenge the validity of these findings through the following 5 points.

• The in/dependence of research and information channels from corporations
• Misuse of statistics
• The samples used in research papers
• The impact of cultural believes and cherry picking among them
• The oversimplification and popularity of the “5 reasons why” lists

1. Corporate influence in media and research

Links between the information presented in the media and corporate or political interests have always existed. Yet the gap between our perception of their influence and their actual involvement might be becoming larger. Today, corporations are sponsoring news articles in respectable media like Time magazine or the New York Times. These would be ok except for the fact that they camouflage...

¨While individual organisms are relatively fragile, the gene pool takes advantage of shocks to enhance its fitness¨

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of Antifragile

Likewise, for a corporation not to be threatened by the inevitable volatility, fragility among its parts is necessary. The risk taking of its parts will benefit the whole.

Many times we have read that technology is advancing at a faster pace every day. Think about the technological milestones we have overcome since the industrial revolution, and the acceleration of technology and its impact in the 21st century. Websites like worldometer or graphs like the one bellow are living proof of how our world is accelerating.

The consequences of this acceleration are the following:

• Change is happening faster: therefore it’s in the personal interest of managers to be prepared as consequences will happen during their careers.
• ...

In previous papers, the origin and some consequences of cooperation, and the different conditions in which cooperation arises were presented. In this paper, we will dig into a phenomenon linked to our natural desire to reach a consensus. I will introduce the danger of conformity that can arise from group pressure, a situation when an individual agrees with a group of people even when he knows that they are wrong,

This phenomenon was tested in the Asch experiment of conformity. Individuals were sat in a room with a group of people and were told to say out loud if the line on the left was equivalent to line 1, 2 or 3.

The lines were displayed on large boards near the participants so there could be no doubt or confusion as to which was the right answer. During the test, the group (a set of actors) would pick the wrong line unanimously round after round, and so the peer pressure...

Recent research seems to suggest that Constructal Law may govern the design of aircrafts and other flow-systems.

If these laws do apply, then they may be used as design inputs. Such an approach can be a powerful way to:

1. Determine whether a company is dealing with innovation or optimization, and manage the project accordingly.
   Should we organize this project with a flat hierarchy and mission orientation, or a traditional hierarchy, planning and control?
2. Inform, early-on, a serious market strategy.
   Do we look to answer a market demand or to create a currently inexistent or unclear market need?
3. Make high-level architecture decisions and arbitrate among a plethora of design possibilities.
   Should we discard the suggestion to include 3 engines on this particular helicopter type?
4. Assess, early-on, whether the necessary technology is available and mature for the success of the project.
   Do...

In The Evolution of Airplanes, A. Bejan, J.D. Charles, and S. Lorente propose a compelling framework which describes the evolution of the airplane based on constructal law.

Constructal law states that, for a finite-size system to persist in time, to live, it must evolve in such a way that it provides easier access to the imposed currents that flow through it.

As an example, the engine mass of an airplane is proportional to the size of its body. The engine, or a component thereof, is alive with currents that flow inside it by overcoming resistances and generating entropy. This entropy penalty is smaller when the engine is larger. So larger is better.

In the same time, the airplane must burn fuel in order to transport its engine. So the fuel penalty is proportional to the weight of the engine. And, in this case, smaller is better.

From this conflict emerges a trade off. And airplane...

Starting the pendulum from a slightly different initial condition results in a completely different trajectory.

Studies from the airline, apparel, and music industries show that forecasts based on simple rules-of-thumb are often better than ones based on complex techniques such as multiple regression.

Complex forecasting methods were compared with tallying (giving all correlated factors an equal weight) and one-good-reason (taking into account only one factor to make the forecast). And the complex forecasting methods could not beat the rule-of-thumb in any of the studied cases.

It follows that we are sometimes better advised to take business decisions based on a rule-of-thumb, or even gut feeling, rather than based on complex analyses and assumption-laden business cases.

Put another way, we should make things as simple as possible, but not simpler. (Albert Einstein, Paraphrased.)

Increasing returns are the tendency for that which is ahead to get farther ahead, for that which loses advantage to lose further advantage. They are mechanisms of positive feedback that operate—within markets,
businesses, and industries—to reinforce that which gains success or aggravate that which suffers loss. Increasing returns generate not
equilibrium but instability: If a product or a company or a technology—one of many competing in a market—gets ahead by chance or clever strategy, increasing returns can magnify this advantage, and the product or
company or technology can go on to lock in the market.

William Brian Arthur, recipient of the International Schumpeter Prize in Economics and the Lagrange Prize in Complexity Science

In his Increasing Returns and the Two Worlds of Business, W. Brian Arthur talks about positive feedbacks in the economy: the mechanisms that underlie them...

In Predictably Irrational and What Money Can’t Buy, Dan Ariely and Michael Sandel make compelling arguments that show us the limits of monetary incentives.

One is about a day care center that was having a parents-arriving-late problem. The rate of parents picking up their kids after closing time was high and the teachers–who had to wait until the last kid was picked-up–were not happy. So the researchers tried to put an end to this by fining late parents $15 an hour. This monetary fine was designed to discourage a specific behavior: every time a parent showed up late, they had to pay a fee.

What do you think happened then? Did the rate of late parents drop like classic economic theory would predict?

Another is about family dinners. Say you are invited by your mother-in-law to a dinner party. Understandably, you are not enthusiastic at first. But to your surprise, you end up spending a...