Are Electric Vehicles This Next Decade’s E-Book?
In 2019, it’s difficult to find an auto manufacturer or transportation expert who isn’t predicting an explosion in the popularity and sales of electric vehicles in the 2020s — but what if they’re all wrong?
In 2010, another ascendant “e” technology had bookstores and publishers on edge.
According to industry experts and casual observers, the e-book was on the rise and it was coming to replace hardcovers and paperbacks and lay waste to bookstores across America.
In exchange for its higher upfront price, an e-reader promised its users greater portability (storing thousands of titles) and the ability to save money over the long run since e-books were cheaper to acquire than their paperback or hardcover counterparts.
The Kindle, which ushered in the e-book revolution, had just launched its third-generation model in 2010, and sales were up dramatically from the year prior.
Borders, already worried about falling sales in its physical stores as a result of competition from Amazon, made its e-books available on the Kobo e-reader earlier that same year.
Barnes and Noble’s NOOK would debut just one year later in 2011.
It seemed as if every large bookstore chain was moving from print to digital. The success of the Kindle…
