To build an auto company from scratch, Scaringe told the Lean Enterprise Institute, “there are a number of items you need to have at the same time or in parallel, all of which are hard.”

You need billions of dollars, thousands of engineers, about 250 suppliers, a manufacturing plant and a team, he said.

“I had none of those,” he said. “No team, no money, no plants, no suppliers, no facilities.”

The challenge was convincing people to give him startup capital when he had nothing to show he could build EVs, he said. It took two years to develop an initial product plan. He then set out to show backers he had a product that was both technically feasible and for which there is a market.

“Today, it’s easy to see there’s a market (for EVs),” Scaringe said. “But eight, nine years ago, for an electric pickup truck, (it) took some convincing.”