The Finals for the Zell Lurie Institute’s campus wide business plan competition, the Michigan Business Challenge (MBC), are only a few days away! For the next four days, ZLI will highlight one of the innovative teams from the MBC Semi-Finals.
MBC Semi-Finalist Team
EVer Solutions -Ziqi Guo (BSE ’17), Rui Zhang (MS EE ’17), Qihan Sun (BSE ’17), Zongchang Liu (UM alumnus), Yichen Zhao (UM alumnus)
What was the inspiration behind your team name?
EVer has an “EV” contained, meaning we are committed to bring a better future for electric vehicles. In addition, “ever” implies that we are determined to provide a totally worry-free battery experience for the users. It also speaks to our commitment of continuously improving our product.
Tell us briefly about your business idea.
We built a big data analytic tool for electric vehicle fleets that provides deeper and more accurate knowledge on batteries. It helps relieve battery anxiety, saves maintenance expense, and improves operating efficiency. We hope this technology can provide a worry-free experience for electric vehicle users so that more people can adopt this green technology. Compared with current in-vehicle battery management systems, we look beyond the limitations of in-vehicle hardware and introduce cloud-based big data analysis to electric vehicle battery management. It is a revolutionary concept and has a huge potential of changing the electric vehicle industry.
How has the MBC experience helped transform your business strategy?
When we were researchers, we never thought about how to apply the technology and who to provide with. During the two-month period of MBC, we talked more customers, did more market research, and thought through the whole business. Now we are confident that we have a viable business model and we are ready to take the technology to the market.
What do you think will be the long-term impact of the implementation of this idea?
In the long-term, not only our target customers — electric vehicle fleets — but also electric vehicle manufacturers will benefit from our technology. With the knowledge we created from the data accumulated for years, electric vehicle manufacturers can easily improve their battery system and provide a better experience for all electric vehicle users.
What has been your biggest takeaway from this experience?
Entrepreneurship is extremely hard, but is also extremely appealing.
If you win, what will you do immediately following the competition?
Go to a party. Sleep for a weekend. Then kick off the pilot program.
What are a few fun facts about your team?
All our team members are international students who just came to UM last August. It’s a really great experience so far.
Final thoughts?
Thanks everyone who contributed for organizing such a great business challenge!
Learn more about these great student startups by attending the Michigan Business Challenge Showcase and Finals on Friday, February 19. Route for your favorite team during the MBC final presentations at 3p.m., mingle with local entrepreneurs during the showcase at 5p.m., then stay to cheer on the winners as they accept cash award prizes totaling up to $85,000!