Who Needs a Horse? - The First 100 Years
Contrary to popular perception, the electric car is not a new space age technology that was grounded in the 1990s, only to spring to life again a decade later. It's actually an idea that's been with us for nearly two centuries now.
Back in 1828 – that's over 25 years before the guy the electric Tesla Roadster was named for was even born – a Hungarian inventor named Anyos Jedlik built the first model for an all-electric car. Over the next few decades, a series of European and American inventors devised increasingly practical electrical vehicles and better batteries until 1899, when a Belgian-built electric racing car set a new land speed record – a whopping 68 miles per hour.
The turn of the twentieth century was also the height of a brief electric car craze in the U.S. A fleet of electric taxis was operating in New York City and one-third of all autos in the Big Apple, Chicago and Boston were running on batteries.
But the year 1912 was a major turning point for electric cars and the entire American auto industry: electric auto production peaked that year, and Charles Kettering invented the electric starter, eliminating the need for that pesky hand crank and making Henry Ford's less costly gas-powered vehicles that much more attractive. Within ten years, the electric car industry was essentially dead.
A Half-Charged Resurrection: 1960-1990
The electric car was all but forgotten for nearly half a century. By the 1960s, concerns about fuel costs and depletion of oil reserves were looming on the horizon. Congress recommended the development of electric vehicles to combat air pollution, a Gallup poll found strong interest in the technology among the public, and an electric car became the first vehicle to drive on the moon.
Then came the Arab oil embargo of the early 1970s, spurring automakers to release a few small electric concepts, including a hybrid Buick Skylark and a small fleet of electric jeeps purchased by the U.S. Postal Service. In 1976 Congress passed the Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Research, Development, and Demonstration Act to push the technology towards commercial viability, but no successful models emerged.
