The stories before scale

I had a question in mind during the EV symposium, but I let it pass because the time for questions was limited and others in the room had points they needed to raise about infrastructure and the actual work of getting electric vehicles into wider use.

The question I wanted to ask was whether EV adoption might take longer than people now expect. Early growth can look strong, but mass adoption can still take time.

Perhaps longer than some of the timelines we now hear for EVs, and I have seen that happen up close.

In 2004, I was part of the startup team of SunPower, then widely seen as the top solar company in the world, at a time when the solar business was booming.

With the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) putting average annual growth at roughly 40 percent during that period, it was easy to think mass adoption was close.

That was the expectation, but when the market moved, it did not follow a straight line or a steady upward curve.

I saw the same pattern in other sectors.

Crypto and blockchain were once seen as the future of payments, and in 2021, Chainalysis said global grassroots adoption jumped more than 880 percent, well above the roughly 100 percent year-on-year growth often cited for EVs.

Crypto found uses and built an audience, but most daily transactions still go through banks, cash, cards and existing payment systems.

The metaverse had a similar moment when Meta rebranded around that idea and kept spending heavily on Reality Labs.

Meta said those investments cut operating profit by $13.72 billion in 2022, while AR and VR headset shipments rose 92.1 percent in 2021 to 11.2 million units, according to International Data Corporation (IDC). But it still did not sell at the scale many expected.

When numbers like that appear, everybody wants in. Everybody wants to say they are early. Everybody starts building around the idea.

The interest is real for EVs, but so are the limits. Buyers now ask about charging time, battery life, warranty, resale, and where the nearest charger is.

A condo owner has to deal with building rules. Public chargers are growing, but not always where people need them.

That is why fleets can move faster. They can control routes and charging. Private owners cannot always do that.

I have seen this play out one way in solar, crypto, and the metaverse, and another way in the iPhone.

The iPhone took a different path. It did not grow on early excitement alone. It grew fast and kept that momentum because mobile networks improved and apps became useful, and that took years, too.

I queued for hours at an Apple Store in the Bay Area on the first day of the original iPhone launch in 2007. I still have it, and it still works. No, it is not in Boss Toyo condition anymore.

That is the question I have with EVs now. Are we looking at the same kind of early momentum that carries into mass adoption, or are we still in the part where growth looks strong before the market settles down?

If EV adoption does not accelerate as fast as people expect, the answer may not be that anything went wrong. It may be that this is how big transitions actually happen.

They begin with big momentum, then slow down and level off, which is what happens in many business cycles.

That part after the inflection point, when growth starts to flatten, is usually less exciting than the launch phase.

That is where hype ends and actual adoption begins.