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While I may be a fast learner, I am still considered to be in the “early majority.”
More so when it comes to cars.
In terms of the real things that matter, that are relevant to my family, community, environment, and career, I am clearly behind the chasm.
Early vs. late adopters refer to how quickly we adopt a new technology. The midpoint is the “early majority.” Because they constitute a large market sector, growth, and profitability, the early majority represents the breakthrough of new technology.
Applied to the adoption of EV, anyone who owns one of the early 3 million Tesla can call themselves an early adopter, aside from driving a car that was once a “head turner.”
The 15-year gap
The “15-year gap” is a term coined by Everett Rogers in 1962 for the mass adoption of innovations.
Coincidentally, the Tesla saga started 15 years ago.
Customers received the first manufacturing units of the Tesla Lotus, commonly known as the Tesla Roadster, in February 2008. The Tesla Roadster was a game changer since it was the first electric vehicle to employ lithium-ion batteries as its powertrain. It could speed from 0 to 60 mph in 3.7 seconds and had a range of more than 200 miles per charge.
The rest, as they say, is history.
When this story became public, I had a vivid dream of the driving experience.
At around the same time, in September 2007, a friend allowed me to drive his Lotus Exige. The car’s strengths were its light weight and low center of gravity. It was obvious that combining the torque of an electric powertrain with an even lower center of gravity would result in driving on the edge of the tenable G-force spectrum.
I imagined hugging the corners like a Gokart with 100% eco-friendly efficiency.
However, it took me 15 years to drive an electric vehicle.
Yesterday, I drove a Berlin-made Model Y for the first time in Berlin. For a city ride, the experience could not have been better. “Flying low” and “riding on rails” was possible while staying a good actor in the eyes of today’s German public consciousness.
Electric vehicles have officially entered the mainstream.
In Germany, the early majority now drives electric vehicles. According to the new automobile registry, alternative drive trains have surpassed diesel and gasoline cars for the first time in Q1 2023.
Everett Rogers would be astonished at how exact his concept is.
But why the heck is it taking so long?
However, 15 years is a long time.
Because this means that we will see only one technological change within a domain during a generation, which is typically defined by the time between being born and having one’s own children.
The reason is this: an idea must pass through three stages:
- Scientific experimentation: To overcome technical obstacles, scientists and engineers must conduct rigorous research and experiments. This procedure is critical for determining the reliability of a new technology. For example, the development of mRNA technology for vaccinations. Although the idea of using mRNA to make vaccines was first proposed in the 1990s, it took more than a decade years of scientific research and clinical trials to develop the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. Despite the early promise of mRNA technology, it still confronts several challenges for other applications that will require years of experimentation and investment to overcome.
- Productization and market discovery: Even after a new technology has been proven, it may take longer for it to be transformed into mass production. This process necessitates the involvement of engineers, entrepreneurs, investors, regulators, and consumers, who must iterate products, invest, write rules and regulations, produce, and consume the new products. This stage is characterized by large-scale funding and setbacks. For example, in January 2010, Tesla received $465 million in financing from the US government to manufacture EVs and advanced battery technologies. Tesla’s 2018 “Production Hell” marked such typical setback. https://www.automotivelearners.com/blog/SANL1-secret-sauce-auto-learning
- Democratization: The scaling of new technologies also depends on broader factors, such as infrastructure, standards, regulations, cultural norms, and public awareness. These factors can vary across different domains and may require overcoming resistance to change. For example, the number of charging stations grew in Germany with +30% last year, despite a complicated bureaucracy. The public consciousness for de-carbonization provides social sentiment for the wide adoption of EVs and charging stations.
New ideas take time to impact daily life.
Depending on the subject, complexity, and degree of innovation, the 15-year estimate is a rough guideline for widespread acceptance of a new technology.
This includes automobile inventions.
The next transportation breakthrough is autonomous cars, which will take 10 years to fully deploy.
However, this technology may first be commercialized and widely deployed in China.
The Shanghai Motorshow 2023 rearranged the technological leadership ranking: Tesla is now leading the race, followed by Chinese manufacturers. Classic Western OEM now sits in third position.
The race is still undecided.
The software-driven and self-driving car is currently between stage 1 and 2.
We can see the first deployment of self-driving cars and the first production of self-driving cars, e.g., the Teslas, the Mercedes S-Class.
Autonomous Driving experienced massive funding, but billions of dollars have been lost, for example by the cancellation of ARGO AI. Tesla’s Full Self Driving (FSD) is being legally challenged, primarily in the United States and the European Union.
Thus, this technology experiences deployment, massive funding, and setbacks on a large scale.
While EV technology is now clearly in its democratization stage, autonomous cars will probably take another 10 years to reach this stage.
But there is one caveat to the widespread deployment of self-driving cars:
The advent of self-driving cars will be as damaging to the industry as smartphones were to Blackberry.
A Blackberry used to be a symbol of the affluent businessman. As are many large SUVs. With the introduction of smartphones, this product became only a niche product.
The same will happen to today’s most admired cars.
Assume you need a new car in 2033 and have narrowed your options down to two viable providers.
One company offers an autonomous driving kit that can automatically park your car: You drive in front of your office building, exit the vehicle, and use your app to park the vehicle. The car beeps and blinks to acknowledge receipt of the request before slowly driving down the road in search of an open parking spot.
Consider how much time and frustration this saves you.
How much are you willing to pay for this?
Do you have the number?
Consider the fact that the manufacturer has cut the price of this option by 70%. Which car will you select?
Any manufacturer who is unable to supply competitive functionality will go out of business very quickly, like the makers of Blackberry after the introduction of smartphones.
The deployment of scalable autonomous driving will change our mobility industry in ways we can only possibly imagine.
In the existing industry, we only have 10 to 15 years left.
The car market, worth €3 trillion per year, will be redistributed.
Car brands we have known and admired for decades will vanish in the spirit of Schumperterian “creative destruction.” The stage will be set for new manufacturers and mobility providers.
Everyone in the “automotive” industry will have a new career over the next decade.
Even if you continue with your current employer or firm, the nature of your employment will evolve. The indicators of an industrial transition could not be more evident. The competition’s fury and ruthlessness – think Tesla and Chinese manufacturers – must not be underestimated.
Experimentation, learning, and adoption are the watchwords for businesses, teams, and individuals in the automotive industry today.
Being an early adopter of new technologies brings only a minimal advantage.
Be a fast learner.
As a company. As a team. As a person.
