Roundtable A: Electromobility

DATE	30 October 2014
TIME	09:00 - 12:00
TITLE	Electromobility
ORGANISER	Energy Research Institute @ NTU

Cities are centres of industrial and economic activity and the growth of urban populations is steadily increasing. By 2030 the number of people living in cities will rise to five billion, resulting in great challenges to infrastructure, economic development and life-quality due to scarce resources, climate change and increase in population.

Electric mobility can contribute to cater to the future mobility needs of urban spaces. However for a sustainable integration of electric vehicles in current transport systems, cities need know-how, strategies and technology roadmaps to make the right decisions and investments. This roundtable focuses on the potential opportunities and challenges of electric mobility for cities as well as the needed interaction between cities, industries and research to jointly electrify our future urban spaces.

Program Details:

Moderator:

Prof Harry Hoster
Principal Investigator
TUM CREATE

Prof. Dr. Ing. Harry Hoster is the Principal Investigator for Electrochemistry and New Materials at TUM CREATE, Centre for Electromobility in Singapore. His team is dedicated to improving battery technology, the key to the success of electric vehicles.

Professor Hoster’s research explores the physical and chemical properties of surfaces and solids. His goal is rational design: improving electrode materials for fuel cells and batteries. Furthermore, he aims to improve battery monitoring systems by integrating laboratory methods directly into the batteries.

After receiving a degree in physics from Bonn University in 1996, Professor Hoster was awarded a fellowship by the German Fonds der Chemischen Industrie for full-time doctoral study on anode materials for methanol fuel cells (working with T. Iwasita and W. Vielstich in Munich).

After working on a postdoctoral research project in São Paulo, in 2003 he set up a surface science and electrochemistry research group at the Institute of Surface Chemistry and Catalysis under Professor R.J. Behm in Ulm. Having acquired his postdoctoral teaching qualification (venia legendi/habilitation) in physical chemistry in 2010, he assumed the position of associate professor at the Institute of Technical Electrochemistry at TUM. Since 2011 he has been Scientific Director of TUM CREATE in Singapore. Professor Hoster is an Associate Professor in the Technical Electrochemistry department at the Technische Universität München in Munich, Germany and at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Speakers:

Tom Lokenvitz
CEO
Clean Mobility Singapore (smove)

Tom is the founder of Clean Mobility Singapore, better known as the company behind ‘smove’. smove is a developer of urban mobility solutions, bringing innovation to transportation by aiming for high flexibility & availability levels. The platform provides sharing schemes for different modes of transportation (cars, scooters, bikes, shuttle etc.). smove has created its own hardware & software solution and is currently scaling up its car sharing operation in Singapore.

Tom’s mantra is a famous quote by Steve Jobs: “Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”

Jan Ehlen
Head of BMW Group's Government Affairs Office for Southeast Asia
BMW Group Asia

Jan Ehlen is Head of BMW Group’s Government Affairs Office for Southeast Asia. In this function based in Singapore he oversees the relationship with political and regulatory stakeholders in the ASEAN member states.

Prior to moving to Singapore in October 2013, Jan Ehlen was responsible for steering BMW Group’s global network of governmental affairs offices, with a focus on trade and manufacturing topics.

In total, he has been working with BMW Group in various communications management positions for more than 15 years. Among others, he ran business media relations for BMW Group’s subsidiary in the US and also worked as a speechwriter for the company’s board member responsible for development and research.

Ehlen holds a master’s degree in economics as well as a degree in business administration from universities in Mainz and Mannheim, Germany.

Gilbert Gagnaire
CEO, Robosoft

Gilbert Gagnaire has 25 years background in the financial technology sector and he is now exploring robotics and more specifically technologies for autonomous vehicles. Over the course of his career, he held R&D, consulting, business development and senior management roles within a number of financial software companies. These include McDonnell Douglas Information Systems (now part of SunGard), Concept (Misys), Ubitrade (SunGard) and Fermat, a company he co-founded in 1996 and acquired in 2008 by Moody’s Analytics.

With thirty years of international experience, Robosoft is a leading player in the field of service robotics. The company applies its know-how to the following business sectors: automated transportation of people and goods, defence, security services, cleaning services and people assistance. Since its inception, Robosoft has designed and manufactured more than 2 000 bespoke service robots. Our robotised vehicles have transported more than 3 million passengers and our cleaning robot is servicing every month the Louvres Pyramid in Paris, for close to a decade. Robosoft is increasingly focusing its activity in the domain of automated vehicles with the management of large scale projects in Europe and the development of industrial partnerships with electrical car manufacturers.

Didier Marginedes
Vice Chairman, BlueSolutions
Bollore

Didier Marginedes graduated from « Ecole Supérieure d’Electricité » in 1978. He has a Master of Sciences from Berkeley University (USA) obtained in 1979 and an Executive MBA from INSEAD (1989).

After a first experience within Aerospatiale, he joined Schlumberger (81-86) to lead the development of signal processing for logging tools. He then worked for Air Liquide (86-95) where he was in charge of the development of energy-related businesses and of strategic marketing. In 1995, he joined Bolloré as R&D Director where he managed the development strategy including competitive analysis and new products development. In 2001, Didier Marginedes added the function of General Manager of a new subsidy of Bolloré group: Batscap whose objectives were the development and sales of energy storage products such as batteries and supercapacitors. These products were mainly dedicated to clean energy transportation markets such as Electric Vehicle (Bluecar), electric bus (Bluebus), hybrid vehicles and clean tram system with energy recovery. He has been in charge of Autolib technical developments and of the developments of solutions of Energy Storage optimization. He is currently vice chairman of BlueSolutions (listed company subsidiary of Bolloré Group) which gathers all the companies providing services in energy storage optimization in mobility and stationary markets.

Lim Say Leong
Assistant Vice President Marketing, Discrete Automation Motion Division
ABB

Er Lim Say Leong is the Assistant Vice President for Marketing at ABB Pte Ltd, for Discrete Automation Motion Division. He is a Professional Electrical Engineer and has been with ABB Pte Ltd for about 29 years. Er Lim is very involved in the development of Standards and Conformance. He is also Chairman of the SAC’s Technical Committee for Electrical testing, and Technical Committee 17 for switchgears, under Standards Council Singapore. In addition, Er Lim represents Singapore in IEC TC 17D for Switchgear and Controlgear. Er Lim holds a BSc (Hons) in Electrical & Electronics Engineering from University of Strathclyde in UK.

Steve Hedouin
General Manager, Volvo Bus East Asia Singapore
Volvo

Steve is currently General Manager of Volvo Bus Region Singapore which includes Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. Volvo Bus is fully committed to Electromobility with over 1,600 hybrid Volvo buses sold worldwide since 2011 and now starting to operate electric hybrid buses in some key cities in Europe.

Graduated from a French Business School, Steve has always had a passion for the automotive industry. He joined Volvo Bus Singapore in 2011 and has been leading the last four contracts for 1430 double deckers with SBS Transit in the last 3 years that include body assembly in Singapore. After 12 years within Volvo Cars France, in Aftersales Marketing, Sales Planning and Distribution, Product Management and Commercial Product Launch, Steve moved to Volvo Trucks France as Marketing Communications Manager in 2008 to further develop his automotive business competencies in B2B transport. Steve deeply believes in the Volvo core values Safety, Quality and Care for the Environment, which he is also applying to his personal life.