👉 Background: General Motors, or GM as it's known, is an American car manufacturer that started way back in 1908. GM was the largest carmaker in the world for 77 years… until Toyota nabbed that spot in 2008.

👉 What happened: For an old company, it’s making some pretty progressive moves. In January last year, GM announced plans to end production and sales of vehicles using internal combustion engines by 2035.

👉 What else: Now, it’s going one step further with new hardware that will extend outside the car. Think: home batteries and solar panels.. And these will be sold to households and businesses. It’s all part of a new shift of carmakers entering the new, energy management industry.

What's the key learning?

💡New innovations can sometimes lead to even greater spinoff businesses. While GM has developed its EV-muscles as a necessity for its cars, it has realised a bunch of new use cases for its innovation.

💡And this industry is NOT small. In fact, just battery cells alone are expected to be worth $360 billion by 2030.

💡GM aren’t the only ones to create a new opportunity from all of their work into research and development.

• Bubble wrap was originally designed as a wallpaper to insulate houses.
• Viagra was originally developed to treat high blood pressure.
• Coca Cola was originally created to treat morphine addiction.

‍