Building Better with Brandon Bartneck

Alan Dowdell is vice president of business development at Wrightspeed, a company striving to design and build the world’s most efficient battery electric vehicle powertrains. Key topics in this conversation include: - Alan’s focus on structural shifts in industries – LCD glass, telecommunications, and now electrification - The importance of first principles engineering as an enabler for success -...

Katelyn Davis is co-author Women Driven Mobility and is Director of the Mobility practice at Antenna, a strategic communications and integrated marketing agency that works with innovative B2B companies solving meaningful global challenges such as transportation, sustainable tech, and other disruptive technologies Key topics in this conversation include: - Her motivation for writing Women Driven Mo...

Tiffany Chu was CEO and Co-founder of Remix. Now she is SVP at Via after Via recently acquired Remix. Key topics in this conversation include: - The role of transportation planning in making meaningful positive change for communities - Common challenges for transportation planners - How to think about equity - Remix’s solution to help improve planning and decision making - Remix’s unique origin st...

James Taylor is Co-founder and CEO of Electric Last Mile Solutions. Key topics in this conversation: - The case for electric vehicles in the last leg of delivery - ELMS’s unique approach to minimize vehicle costs - How ELMS plans to deliver their first vehicle in 2021 - James’s experience in leadership roles at GM and then other electric vehicle companies before leading ELMS James’s Bio: James is...

Praveen Penmetsa is co-founder and CEO of Monarch Tractor, where they’re developing an electric and automated compact tractor. Key topics: - The role of mobility solutions in supporting farmers and our food ecosystem - The potential cost advantages of electric and automated compact tractors - The unique challenges presented by farming use cases - Challenges and lessons along the entrepreneurial jo...

Kay Cheng is director of Streets at Equity at Spin. Key topics in this conversation include: - The newly redesigned Spin Access program - Their research to enable a micromobility offering to help underserved populations - The role of micromobility within the greater transportation ecosystem - How Spin is striving for transportation equity, beyond the Spin Access program Kay’s background: Kay Cheng...

Alisyn Malek is the Executive Director for the Commission on the Future of Mobility. She is also the founder and CEO of Middle Third, a boutique mobility consultancy helping clients to unlock the potential of technology and transportation. Prior to these roles, she co-founded May Mobility building autonomous vehicle transportation solutions. She grew the company from laboratory concept to operatio...

Chase Drum is an electric vehicle consultant and host of Grid Connections podcast. His podcast looks at how the electrical grid is becoming the intersection between clean transportation, new digital technologies and next gen electric infrastructure. Topics include: - How the electrical grid works - The state of the US grids - What led to the recent challenges in Texas - Considerations for increase...

John Pelliccio is Head of Product Communications for the Automotive Division at Bose and Travis Head of the Automotive advanced development team for Active Sound Management technologies. John leads a global team responsible for creating the communications tools required to help describe and demonstrate the unique offerings Bose brings to the automotive marketplace. Travis manages a team of enginee...

In this special episode, I answer a question that I ask each of my guests by covering four books that have had a significant impact on me. Books mentioned: Meditations by Marcus Aurelius Discourses by Epictetus Letters to Lucilius by Seneca Obstacle is the Way, Ego is the Enemy, Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport Deep Work by Cal Newport Thinking, Fas...

Joe Britton is Executive Director of the Zero Emission Transportation Association (ZETA), an industry coalition advocating for national policies that will enable 100% electric vehicle sales throughout the light-, medium-, and heavy-duty sectors by 2030. This conversation is focused on electric vehicles, including their benefits, challenges, and what needs to be done to achieve ZETA’s aggressive go...

This episode is a Future of Mobility first – a three-way discussion featuring Tom Gould and John Gomez from Adient, a leading global automotive seating supplier. Vehicle interiors, and seating in particular, have a lot of room for growth as autonomous and shared vehicles continue to gain traction. In this conversation, we hear how Tom and John are thinking about the impact of these new technologie...

Bryan Stevens is Creative and Exhibitions Director for the Petersen Automotive Museum, located in Los Angeles.  This conversation focuses on providing context for new technology amidst the tremendous shift we're currently experiencing in the automotive segment. Electric vehicles are highlighted, looking back to their roots in the early 1900s, as well as looking at the technology and adoption both...

Greg Hunt is Senior Research Chemist for Strategic Research at the Lubrizol Corporation. Greg has a PhD in Chemistry from England’s 3rd oldest University - Durham University. He has published 18 research papers and has a handful of patents on corrosion. Additionally, Greg is Co-Inventor of the wire corrosion test. This discussion is centered on the role of fluids for electric vehicle propulsi...

Marc Ausman is CEO & Co-founder of Airflow.aero, a startup developing the first electric Short Take-Off and Landing (eSTOL) aircraft designed for middle-mile logistics. Marc has quite a list of relevant experience, including working on the Airbus Vahana project. https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcausman/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/airflowaero/ https://www.airflow.aero/ The Future of Mobilit...

Asaf Weisbrot is Chief Commercial Office at Otonomo, a company working to make car data as valuable as possible for drivers, passengers, and the transportation ecosystem. Vehicles collect a mind-boggling volume of data, but this data often isn’t used to its full potential. In this conversation, Asaf and I talk about the different types of data that is available, and practical examples of how this...

As the year comes to a close, I cover three main topics in this special episode: 1. Why was the podcast started in the first place? 2. What are the key trends that have emerged through the first 31 interviews? 3. What's next? Thanks to everyone who has listened and followed along. https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonbartneck/ Music credit: Slow Burn Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Cr...

Abhishek Kar is a Regional Associate Product Manager at Shell, focused on their Lubricant business in the Americas region. Abhishek was recently named as one of the 35 Under 35 Chemical Engineers by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) for his significant contribution to the field and potential for the future, especially in Energy and Environment. This conversation is pretty evenly...

John Reimers is a PhD candidate at McMaster University, and his PhD thesis topic is integrated traction inverter and battery charger topologies, including challenges for practical implementation, new topology development, and modelling and experimental validation. Music credit: Slow Burn Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Mark Frohnmayer is founder and president of Arcimoto, a mobility company pushing to catalyze the shift to a sustainable transportation system. They’re developing and introducing right-size electric mobility solutions with names such as the Fun Utility Vehicle (FUV), the Deliverator, and Rapid Responder. This conversation provides holistic view at the role of transportation, and the opportunities M...

Shreshta is a PhD candidate at Ohio State,  working with the Center for Automotive Research in the domain of optimization and simulation of electrified propulsion systems in Connected and Autonomous Vehicles. Music credit: Slow Burn Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Richard Steiner is Head of Policy and Communications at Gatik. Gatik is developing autonomous vehicles for B2B short-haul logistics with the mission of delivering goods safely and efficiently using autonomous vehicles. Gatik has an existing partnership with Walmart and has recently announced a partnership with Canada’s largest retailer, Loblaw. As you’ll hear, Gatik is focused on the “middle mile,...

Media Sina is currently an R&D Engineer Intern at Coreshell Technologies with a background in Chemical ad Biomecular Engineering from UC Berkeley. Music credit: Slow Burn Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

David Oord is Head of Regulatory Affairs Americas at Lilium, which is a German company developing a revolutionary air taxi service. As David and I discussed in this episode, Lilium has recently announced that a brand new vertiport will be constructed in Orlando, Florida, as a major development in the US for this new era of air mobility. https://lilium.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/lilium-a...

Çetin Meriçli is CEO and Co-founder of Locomation, which is a Pittsburgh-based startup with the goal of making trucking safer and transportation more efficient through automated driving technology. They’re already showcasing the benefit of the first manifestation of this technology, their Autonomous Relay Convoy (ARC), and Locomation has a longer term vision of progressing this into full-self driv...