First meeting of 2021: ABC+SACA

-

ABC reconvened for our first meeting of the year this past Wednesday! Additionally, board apps were due earlier this week, so thank you to all who applied. Board turnovers will follow shortly.

This week, Student Advocates for Climate Awareness (SACA) partnered with ABC to lead a discussion on the impacts of climate change and renewable resources on the private sector. SACA is a club tackling climate change questions pertaining to various fields, from medicine to business. They've brought their insight to other clubs, asking participants to reflect on how climate change affects fields of their interest. 

We focused our discussion on electric vehicles (EVs), honing in on the company Tesla in particular. We hope to see more EVs in the market in the future, with most of Tesla's market based in the Boston to New York corridor.  Upon reflection, this is likely due to a combination of geographical, socioeconomic, practical, and marketing reasons. 

ABC and SACA also asked why most people think of Tesla when they hear "EV" and why other car companies don't manufacture as many EVs, if any at all. We believe this is likely due to Tesla's competitive edge or its strategy: this is the only type of car that it makes. Therefore, they can focus on expanding that part of their business, whereas other car brands have EV growth competing with the development of gas-run cars. 

For people with budget constraints, is buying an EV more efficient in the long run? This question was proposed by Rohan. This depends. Buying a Tesla certainly poses a greater financial burden than a gas car, even with financing and even if the car theoretically "lasts" longer because it runs off a battery. Nick also found statistics showing electric cars depreciate at over 1.5 times the rate of a gas run car, shedding light on the long-term value of EVs. 

We ended our meeting by discussing batteries. In particular, the efficacy of lithium-ion batteries. While these batteries are rechargeable, obtaining lithium is an environmentally unfavorable process. This is almost like fixing one problem and creating another. We expect that lithium-ion batteries are not the long term solution and that new materials will be invented and/or discovered in the future. 

Thank you to SACA (@agreenerblue) for kicking off this discussion with ABC! 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Welcome to Andover Business Club

-
Our mission For Phillips Academy students who are interested in entrepreneurship and business, Andover Business Club hosts weekly discussions about real companies in the market and provides hands-on business experiences through running various startups at Andover.  ____________________________________________________________________________ We believe in the power of every voice, which is why our meetings are discussion-based and designed with the Harkness method at the core. During light weeks, our meetings consist of discussions about real businesses in the present, acquisitions, mergers, and business models. Some questions we ask are:  Why is XYZ able to succeed whereas ABC failed in starting a similar venture? What is XYZ’s strategy and why will this new acquisition help me achieve this goal?  We seek to delve deeply into these topics and unravel the tactics successful companies employ and identify the areas where failing ideas lack.  As mentioned earlier, we run startups
Read more

2022 Update

-
Hello Everyone! I am thrilled to share that the club remains in excellent shape, and our future prospects are as strong as ever. Below you will find a summary of the club's activity and accomplishments thus far this year. MEETINGS: Since the start of the year, ABC has continued to hold weekly meetings where we discuss business and current events. We have had consistent, solid attendance: on top of our eight-person board, our meetings also tend to attract around a dozen non-board-members. Some of our topics this year have included: Our upcoming venture Joint meeting with Student Advocates for Climate Awareness (SACA)  discussing whether or not the business community will be able to innovate our way out of climate change Facebook's big bet on the Metaverse Electric vehicles, and whether Telsa's $1 trillion market cap is sustainable The business of Nuclear energy (and potential innovation in the space) Potential venture collaboration with PA Coffee Club (guess what we were goi
Read more

Advertising & Branding

-
 Another great ABC meeting this week! We had a great meeting about advertising and branding, focusing specifically on a few different case studies and topics. We had engaging discussions around the strength & usefulness of branding, relating to Apple, Starbucks, Supreme, Amazon, Facebook, and other social media companies.  We started our discussion talking about phrases that make a company so popular. Phrases such as "Netflix and chill" or Nike's "just do it" are what we centered the conversation around. These phrases are exactly how a company gets free advertising and creates brand exposure. They allow people to learn and remember a company. We then moved on to how brands built continuity and trust through branding and advertising. Jake from State Farm is a great example of the advertising, and Starbucks shutting down worldwide for a day to train baristas is an example that shows a company committed to quality.  Moving on, we discussed verbs for a short per
Read more