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Happy Monday. Welcome to Electric Avenue, the only e-mobility newsletter that’s as refreshing as a jump in the pool in peak summer weather. Splash away and take a lap with us… 🏊

Here’s what we have for you today:

• Our secret EV record 🕵️

• EV Slope of Enlightenment - Are we there yet?⚡️

• 3 Links 🔗

• Meme of the week 🤡

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Let's dive in!

Update on our secret EV record 🕵️

We did it! Last week we set out on an extreme EV roadtrip, pushing the Lucid Motors Air GT to its limit on a 2,800- mile journey across the USA from LA to NYC.

Here we are at the end of our trip, arriving at the famous Red Ball Garage in Manhattan where so many similar Cannonball challenges have started and finished. 🏁

The whole time we had a game-changing EV record in sight. Find out what the record was and learn about all the challenges we faced along the way in our full trip video - coming soon(™) to the Electric Avenue newsletter & our new Youtube channel!

And speaking about challenges, if you’re a charge point operator facing some struggles of your own then our friends at Cariqa can help:

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EV Slope of Enlightenment - Are we there yet?⚡️

Many headlines have been written by folks in the media about the recent dampening of EV forecasts and expectations of automakers, mainly in Europe and the US.

Most recently Ford announced a major shift in its electrification strategy, reducing its annual capital expenditures dedicated to pure battery electric vehicles from 40% to just 30%.

As an outsider or EV skeptic, this might sound like there’s uncertainty about the future of electric vehicles. You might even think the race between hydrogen, battery electric, and “synthetic fuels” for passenger cars is still undecided.

Well, we think you’d be wrong to think that. A much better framework to look at these headlines with is the Hypecycle framework which was made popular by consulting firm Gartner.

According to the framework, each hype cycle drills down into the five key phases of a technology's life cycle:

1. Technology trigger

A potential technology breakthrough kicks things off. Early proof-of-concept stories and media interest trigger significant publicity. Often no usable products exist and commercial viability is unproven.

2. Peak of inflated expectations

Early publicity produces a number of success stories—often accompanied by scores of failures. Some companies take action; most do not.

3. Trough of disillusionment

Interest wanes as experiments and implementations fail to deliver. Producers of the technology shake out or fail. Investment continues only if the surviving providers improve their products to the satisfaction of early adopters.

4. Slope of enlightenment

More instances of the technology's benefits start to crystallize and become more widely understood. Second- and third-generation products appear from technology providers. More enterprises fund pilots; conservative companies remain cautious.

5. Plateau of productivity

Mainstream adoption starts to take off. Criteria for assessing provider viability are more clearly defined. The technology's broad market applicability and relevance are clearly paying off. If the technology has more than a niche market then it will continue to grow

Now, from our perspective, it seems extremely clear that we are currently in the Trough of disillusionment for battery electric vehicles. Take a look at the graphic below:

We can easily map the last 25 years of EV technology progress to the framework, including early technology triggers like the GM EV1 and Tesla’s first roadster.

We also had a clear peak of inflated expectations during the money-printing era of EV SPAC craziness.

This was followed by plenty of EV startup SPAC bankruptcies and news like the one from Ford above.

But what’s also clear is this: Next is the Slope of Enlightenment. AND: We’re getting close to the Plateau of Productivity, baby!

So let us know what you think: Does the Hype Cycle framework apply? And where are we at currently?

3 Links 🔗

• Hubject goes Financial💶: Berlin-based e-roaming platform Hubject announced the formation of a new subsidiary for financial services. The purpose of the new entity is to facilitate billing, invoicing, and reimbursement flows between EMPs and CPOs on Hubject’s international roaming platform. Forming a new, dedicated subsidiary was a regulatory requirement (Link).

• BMW facilitates MSP price comparison🏷️: BMW Group has updated the My BMW and My MINI mobile apps to include a new “Charging Wallet” function. EV drivers can select and manage preferred charging tariffs from several EMPs in the Charging Wallet. When users select a charging station, the applicable prices for the selected EMP’s tariffs are shown. (Link)

• Ex-Tesla charging lead joins Uber🚕: Rebecca Tinucci was the Tesla charging lead for a number of years until a major conflict earlier this year with CEO Elon Musk led to the departure of her and most of the Tesla Supercharger program/project/deployment team. Part of that team has been re-hired by now, including Max de Zegher who previously was the Director of North America Charging under Rebecca. Meanwhile, Rebecca herself has joined Uber and will help the ride-hailing company transition to a larger percentage of electric vehicles in its global fleet of driver-owned and -leased vehicles. (Link)

Most-clicked link last week: Was the news report about German battery-powered DC charger startup Numbat going insolvent (Link).

Meme of the Week 🤡

🤣🤣🤣

Reader Review of the Week

Selected ⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️ Freakin’ awesome on⚡ How long is your charging cable? and wrote:

“Integrated EV charger Yugioh meme should have been a magic card”

That's a wrap for this week! Let us know how you feel and leave some feedback (We read every single one of these 🙂 ):

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DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. The Electric Avenue team may hold investments in or may otherwise be affiliated with the companies discussed.