REVIEW: Kenneth K. Boyer — The Electric Vehicle Revolution (BOOK)

Kenneth K. Boyer’s new book is The Electric Vehicle Revolution: Five Visionaries Leading the Charge. Like its title suggests, the book is two-pronged. It serves as something of an anthropological history of the mechanics of car engineering through the years of oil and gas, simultaneous to highlighting the pros of transitioning into electric for the sake of reducing the carbon footprint. It also is something of a how-to guide and essentially incredibly long position paper regarding the latter, explaining in vivid detail how the so-called ‘electric vehicle revolution’ could aid in remedying an increasingly dire climate situation for the future.

Boyer doesn’t write with the kind of pastoral gloom many climate advocates and activists swear by. He’s clinical, sticks to the facts, presents the facts, yet writes with a kind of matter-of-factness and creative nonfiction touch, making the read immersive emotionally to boot — but not by way of apocalyptic doomsday-saying, or a general, grim atmosphere. Rather, he’s stirring and upbeat — leaving up to the second part of the title that encapsulates the crux of the read. Simply put, the five visionaries leading the charge of the electric vehicle revolution.

“Throughout this book I have examined six companies in some depth. All six have a compelling story and leaders with a vision for a greener, more sustainable and electric future. What do their prospects look like? The following are my predictions for their success over the next half-decade, as depicted in figure 10.1, starting with ‘best bets’ and working toward the longer shots,” Boyer writes, in a key analytical passage.

AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/Electric-Vehicle-Revolution-Visionaries-Leading/dp/1538190745

On a scale called ‘Willingness to Commit’, self-explanatory really to actions reducing carbon footprint, Boyer is sure to highlight Elon Musk’s Tesla. “Tesla is high on Willingness to Commit, but my prediction is somewhat lower on transforming the supply network. Certainly, Muskla has changed the world, yet now that there is fierce competition, it faces headwinds in making its supercharger network play nice with others. Furthermore, as Alfred Sloan said over a century ago, when saying that GM would make a car for every ‘purse and purpose,’ the other automobile manufacturers profiled, plus the many hungry competitors from China and Europe, are coming at the company.

The competition for suppliers and customers will be fierce. Tesla may be the reigning champ, but 2023 has shown that it must dynamically adjust prices (typically lower) to match demand to its growing supply of vehi- cles. Therefore, my score on the Ability to Profit is lower. In total, I land on a Gears of Change score of 0.546, which I believe means Tesla will continue to be a major force in the transportation industry. Still, it will never approach the dominance that GM held in 1960 when it sold over 50 percent of the cars in America.”

One has to start somewhere. And the aforementioned passage fully showcases qualities I highlighted above, simply put the stats first and foremost, and secondly the objective but upbeat sense of possibility.

Colin Jordan