10 sketches on EVs to wrap up 2023

It's sketchy days for electric vehicles.

Welcome to my newsletter on the electrification of traditionally fossil-fueled stuff. If you were forwarded this post and liked it, please subscribe! We cover 3 things here:

1. Investments: a company I’ve invested in and why,

2. Motonerd stuff: how EVs can do things gas can’t, or

3. Learning science: EV-curious to EV-confident. ← We’re here Dec 1-15

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Why I’m running this sketchy series

I love year-end lists.

Tested’s Favorite Things? So good. And Spotify Wrapped! Did I really listen to that much Taylor Swift? Yes. Yes, I did.

I love sketching.

It’s how I start writing anything.

It’s sketchy out there with EVs, right?

Almost 4,000 dealers wrote Biden a letter to let up on the EV pressure, even though EV prices are down 22% and certain brands are flying off lots.

And nobody’s stopping BYD from setting new records with affordable, solid cars. China-based BYD used to be a gas-only manufacturer, just like the folks whose dealers wrote that please-make-it-stop letter. But BYD went all EV in 2022.

And there’s a breathtaking amount of investment in EVs where I grew up — the emerging Southeastern Battery Belt.

So which is it? Sketchy or rosy?

10 sketches to separate signal from noise

By the end of this series you’ll have a rock solid foundation in EVs that’ll help you cut through the noise, get to the signal, and decide for yourself. We’ll sketch about:

• how electric vehicles (EVs) work differently than gas vehicles,

• why we have a mostly gas vehicle world, and

• how the move from gas vehicles to EVs is going in 2023.

We begin with vehicle design

My inner math teacher and inner EV designer have spoken: We begin with a basic equation about vehicle design: fuel + drivetrain = wheels turning.

The differences in how gas and electric vehicles solve this equation are so fundamentally different that nobody — no fleet manager, no family — should be exploring such a big switch without a basic understanding of how these two platforms differ.

Here’s a sneak peak at sketch #1:

That’s where we’ll start on Monday. See you then!