Will the next Tesla be conceived, designed, and manufactured by a Chinese firm?  

And right here in California no less? We may soon see the fruits of a high-stakes ambition shared by a number of Chinese-backed pursuits. Entrepreneur and long-time Asia car industry expert Michael Dunne has hard-won insight on the current race to build the ultimate Chinese electric vehicle (EV). (In fact, he wrote about who's who in the EV game last year for Forbes.)

On Tuesday, May 2, he will lead a pop-up class on the various China-led EV developments occuring in Southern California. He will delve into real life case studies and analysis on companies like BYD, Faraday Future, Karma Automotive, Lucid, and NIO. Other topics include:

• Who (and what) is behind these entrants?
• What are their challenges?
• What is at stake?
• How did building a Chinese EV become a pursuit in the first place?
• What are current market pressures and the resulting limits?
• What should American companies and manufacturers keep in mind?

RSVP here to attend. 

For more information, contact Christine Chiao at cchiao@law.uci.edu.

 

About the Speaker

Michael Dunne has a multifaceted background in the transnational automotive industry in Asia, replete with prominent accomplishments.

He entered the Asia auto industry in 1990 with the launch of his first company Automotive Resources Asia Ltd (ARA). ARA assisted GM, Ford, Mercedes, Volkswagen, and Chrysler, along with a number of global parts suppliers, in entering national markets like China, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam with offices in a major city of each country. 

Sixteen years later, JD Power acquired ARA and appointed Dunne as its head of China operations in the new ARA-JD Power firm. After a successful run at ARA-JD Power, he founded Car Keys Asia, an independent Internet portal based on the Cars.com and TrueCar.com business models in 2011. Not long thereafter in 2013, Car Keys Asia was acquired by Chinese and Australian investors.

Dunne was then recruited by General Motors to run its revamped Indonesian operations, which included both manufacturing and sales. He was appointed president in September, 2013, a position that he held until 2015.

In 2015, Dunne moved with family to California to be on the next industry wave: the emergence of autonomous vehicles, EVs, and mobility services. Dunne started a new firm to advise investment companies on future trends in China, autonomous vehicles, and mobility. He has since written a number of articles for publications like Wall Street Journal, Automotive News, New York Times, and Forbes. He has also authored American Wheels, Chinese Roads, a book published by John Wiley & Sons in 2011 that received widespread praise.