J. Strauss Brother & Co. was a New York business run by brothers Jonas and Louis Strauss. In 1847, their younger brother, Levi, travelled from his native Germany to join his older brothers in the business.
On a seemingly unrelated matter, the following year on the other side of the United States, James W. Marshall discovered gold in California, which started the California Gold Rush. As news filtered across the country (remember this was before the Internet), 300,000 people descended on California to find their fortune.
Little brother Levi decided he also wanted to be a part of the riches in California so he left the family business in New York and travelled West. What Levi could have done was look for gold but he surmised that this had a small percentage of a large payout. Instead, he deduced that all the people arriving in California would need goods. Picks, shovels, pans. He made his money from supplying products to the miners at a margin therefore ensuring he made money regardless of whether the miners hit gold or not. As it turned out, Levi living in a harsh environment with people performing hard labour led to the creation of jeans with distinctive copper rivets, a company that today sells $US5.7 billion worth of Levi’s.
We have some Aussies who are currently applying the same logic to the emerging Electric Vehicle (EV) industry. There are companies who have a focus on producing a better battery. One that will hold more charge per kilogram; be cheaper to manufacture and will be faster to charge. There are both new and traditional car companies that are producing new models with better range and better features. There are organisations that you would normally associate with oil (Shell and BP as two examples) who are building power sources with wind and solar and batteries.
And somewhere in the middle of all this, you need some way to connect the power (mostly renewable) to the car. Just like fossicking for gold, in launching a new car brand or car model, you are not guaranteed success. The equivalent of selling picks and shovels is selling the infrastructure that is needed to charge a vehicle. Regardless of where the power comes from and what type of car it is going to, it needs to be charged.
The overnight success firm is Tritium. I say overnight success with a tongue firmly planted in my cheek. The story started for three Brisbane engineering graduates in 1999. They were involved in the solar car racer that took third place in the World Solar Challenge. By 2001, the three friends decided there was some future in cars that used electricity and started creating products that they could see would be needed as that industry developed. In 2012, a California company asked Tritium to make a DC fast charger. From that one prototype, Tritium has now sold more than 6,700 chargers to organisations in 41 countries. They have three quarters of the market share in Australia and New Zealand but also 20 per cent in Europe and 16 per cent in the US. They are the second largest provider of fast charging equipment in the world.
Last month Tritium was listed on the Nasdaq and they estimate that their worldwide revenue over the next four years will be $US12 billion.
I am not sure if governments in this country have noticed, but it seems like EV industries across the world are voting with their sales and their investments. And if Australian companies are smart, like Tritium, we have the potential to capitalise on this.
Mathew Dickerson