GEAR HEAD
From participating in Eco-Marathon Shell to 24 Heures du Mans, from developing sustainable mobility solutions to Motor City Muscle cars, Michael has always been driven by the Automotive Industry.
Engineer, designer, former director at PSA then at Volkswagen, he has been in charge of prospective, luxury and concept-cars. Several electric car independent projects have been initiated as soon as 2007, like mindset (Switzerland), Tereco (Turkey), MiaElectric (France), REV RetroFuture (France), Togg (Turkey)…
Since 2012, Michael has developed his Detroit’s network by being in charge of strategy, management, communication and homologation at EQUUS Automotive, home of the BASS770.
MAD SCIENTIST
Many years of independent research convinced Michael that car manufacturers should financially rely on immaterial added value if they want to outreach their economical and ecological goals. MarketPlace business (cf. FreeCarProject), Green Investment (cf. FairCarProject), Services (cf. MicroCarSharing), and more (to come) are huge underestimated sources of profit which, on top of that, require to design cars as if they were light and open sustainable platforms.
To consider cars only as « products » leads industry in an overbidding dead-end of costs, weight and meaningless styling. That makes us confused between accumulation and modernity, between technology and innovation. It will be much more profitable for all (customers, manufacturers, shareholders, suppliers, merchants and… the planet) to design cars that are beginnings of people’s stories, rather than results of manufacturers’ concerns.
The future of cars is not so much in achieving over-technological products than in the cars’ ability to let the future(s) come, multiple and uncertain.
BIG MOUTH
If it’s clear for Michael that Automotive Industry remains the most efficient organization to spread large scale sustainable solutions, it’s also crystal that the change of mindset could come only from outside, since this industry has stuck itself in a completely productivist rut.
To search and develop new external points of view, Michael participates in many projects, workshops, lectures and classes with students from Business or Engineer Schools like ESSEC, Dauphine, ESTACA, Berkeley… as well as with related companies (suppliers, transports, services, e-merchants, insurances, labs, …). All the results are often discussed and challenged during interviews in economical, automotive or lifestyle press, in order to allow and analyze public feedback.