During the eight years he spent building out Tesla's sales and retail strategy, Dustin Krause learned one key thing about electric cars.
"If you can get somebody to just give it consideration, and if your product can show how it's special, it'll end up selling itself," Krause said.
The former Tesla executive brings that mindset to Volkswagen, where he's now spearheading a $100 billion electrification push. "The most well executed strategy and products are going to win," he told Insider.
That matches some of Krause's best advice for industry newcomers.
Krause joined Tesla in 2009 and in addition to leading retail, founded its used car business. He left Tesla and cofounded Current Automotive, a Chicago-based, online pre-owned EV retail startup, before becoming head of Volkswagen's electric mobility division in 2018.
Volkswagen's been reinventing itself in the aftermath of its $14.7 billion Dieselgate settlement, resulting from the scandal when it was found to have been cheating vehicles emissions tests. The company's spending $100 billion over the next five years and is planning for a quarter of its global vehicle sales to be electric by 2026.
Given his experience with Tesla and Volkswagen, Krause has four pieces of advice for those looking to join the industry.
There's room to grow
Even established companies are undergoing unprecedented transformations, Krause said. That's what makes the industry so exciting to join.
"We're all a startup in this," he said. "No matter what you're going to do, you're going to be going into green grass. And that's really exciting, because if you have a clear vision of what you want to accomplish in this, the sky's the limit.
"For somebody that's starting," he added, "there's a lot of place to grow."
'A beginner's mindset'
Krause said Volkswagen recruits those with engineering and user experience backgrounds, but those aren't the only opportunities available.
"A beginner's mindset here is important because, sure, there's the core of what we do, and there's a lot of the VW soul in this product, but there's also a lot of new things. We're working on over the air updates. We're working on completely new user experiences in the car. We're looking at different driving aspects. We're looking at charging. It's the untapped opportunity that's out there."
Roadblocks aren't always bad
Transitioning trucks, delivery vans, and other commercial vehicles to electric, and getting most consumers into an EV will take time, Krause said.
"We're going to run into roadblocks. You're going to run into infrastructure roadblocks. You're going to run into different product segments that are difficult," he said.
"You have to make some mistakes, and that's actually okay, because you're going to learn from it, but you have to be able to pivot quickly."
Don't think about everybody else
Aside from Tesla, Volkswagen is facing a lot of competition in the EV industry: incumbents Ford, General Motors, and even Toyota, alongside startups like Rivian and Lucid are all investing billions of dollars into EVs. But focusing on others can be harmful, Krause said.
"The best thing to do is to focus on what you've got, to not think about what everybody's doing," he said. "I don't sit around to really think about what others are doing or what the industry is doing, because that would be a distraction.
"It's pretty clear: the transformation is upon us and everyone is trying to find their way in, but there will be winners and losers."
