Meet the Author: Sven Beiker
Posted: February 21, 2023
They say a road trip is about the journey more than the destination.
In The Mobility Diaries: Connecting the Milestones of Innovation Leading to ACES author Sven Beiker takes the reader on the trip of a lifetime, visiting his own mile markers along the road to automated, connected, electric and shared mobility and connecting the dots between past and present that demonstrate the journey really is the destination. 
“The book is about making these connections between old and new, a year away in the past and another much more recent,” Beiker said. “It can be so surprising if you start thinking about these connections and relationships between things and events, and it was very fun to work on that.”
The idea for the book came to Beiker during his travels as a mobility expert, sharing his knowledge and connecting with fellow industry professionals. On a trip in the late 2010s, the new technology he was seeing and conversations he was having inspired him to review notes from previous trips.
As he dove into his personal history in mobility, he found interesting connections to the technology he was engaging with in real time. His process continued as he traveled around the world, really bringing a global perspective to the book that takes the reader from his hometown in northern Germany through Munich where he started his career, and into Silicon Valley, where he is currently based.
“The Mobility Diaries was really fun in that sense because it’s my story,” Beiker said. “It’s not just, ‘here are the facts about the industry.’ The facts are in there, but I always say it’s not a technical book. It’s not a textbook. When people who read the book get back to me and say, ‘Hey, that made me remember all these other things that I am involved in or that I experienced in my early career,’ or otherwise reconnect with their own memories, that’s very rewarding and something you don’t typically get out of a research paper.”
It's a different approach in an industry that can be so future focused—and for Beiker, much of his career has been built around that innovative and futuristic mindset. But there’s value, he shares, in looking into what we can learn from the past, and it’s an enjoyable read for audiences at varying levels of technical experience.
And as a book he wrote often while traveling, it’s fittingly a great read between destinations for those who are completing their own travel, according to feedback from early readers.
“I hope it’s fun to read,” Beiker said. “I like to see the reader seem to appreciate this theme of traveling and moving forward.”
Beiker’s currently working on a German adaption of The Mobility Diaries.
Are you itching to start your journey through the past 50 years of mobility innovation? Get your copy of The Mobility Diaries: Connecting the Milestones of Innovation Leading to ACES today.