Originally Posted by grassmarket:
“People have been trying to create electric cars since, literally, the 1890s. The problems electric cars have today - underpowered by comparison to liquid fuel cars, range is too short, much more expensive then liquid fuel cars - are exactly the same as they were 120 years ago. It's my belief that if you haven't solved a problem 120 years after it was first posed, then you're probably never ever going to be be able to solve it. And probably that anyone who says you can solve it is a con man looking for free money.”
Even 120 years ago the electric car carried a number of advantages but it was Henry Ford’s mass-produced Model T that dealt a blow to the electric car. Introduced in 1908, the Model T made gasoline-powered cars widely available and affordable. By 1912, the gasoline car cost only $650, while an electric roadster sold for $1,750. That same year, Charles Kettering introduced the electric starter, eliminating the need for the hand crank and giving rise to more gasoline-powered vehicle sales
By the 1920s, the U.S. had a better system of roads connecting cities, and Americans wanted to get out and explore. With the discovery of Texas crude oil, gas became cheap and readily available for rural Americans, and filling stations began popping up across the country. In comparison, very few Americans outside of cities had electricity at that time. In the end, electric vehicles all but disappeared by 1935
Not nearly with the urgency now - there are two things driving the adoption of electric cars;
1. Air quality - with more people urbanised they are suffering from poor air quality down primarily to vehicle emissions - and it is reducing life expectancy.
2. Climate Change - that we need to reduce the CO2 being produced by burning fossil fuels including petrol/gasoline.
The first turning point many have suggested was the introduction of the Toyota Prius. Released in Japan in 1997, the Prius became the world’s first mass-produced hybrid electric vehicle. In 2000, the Prius was released worldwide, and it became an instant success with celebrities, helping to raise the profile of the car. To make the Prius a reality, Toyota used a nickel metal hydride battery -- a technology that was supported by the Energy Department’s research. Since then, rising gasoline prices and growing concern about carbon pollution have helped make the Prius the best-selling hybrid worldwide during the past decade.
The other event that helped reshape electric vehicles was the announcement in 2006 that a small Silicon Valley startup, Tesla Motors, would start producing a luxury electric sports car that could go more than 200 miles on a single charge
Through the Recovery Act, the Energy Department invested more than $115 million to help build a nation-wide charging infrastructure, installing more than 18,000 residential, commercial and public chargers across the country. Automakers and other private businesses also installed their own chargers at key locations in the U.S., bringing today’s total of public electric vehicle chargers to more than 8,000 different locations with more than 20,000 charging outlets.
At the same time, new battery technology -- supported by the Energy Department’s Vehicle Technologies Office -- began hitting the market, helping to improve a plug-in electric vehicle’s range. In addition to the battery technology in nearly all of the first generation hybrids, the Department’s research also helped develop the lithium-ion battery technology used in the Volt. More recently, the Department’s investment in battery research and development has helped cut electric vehicle battery costs by 50 percent in the last four years, while simultaneously improving the vehicle batteries' performance (meaning their power, energy and durability). This in turn has helped lower the costs of electric vehicles, making them more affordable for consumers.
This is the point - while the current range of electric cars do not have the range of petrol cars - the increased interest in them will reduce both the cost of purchase and drive improved range - so since 1970 the range of an electric car has gone up 5 times (from 40miles to 200plus miles).
see
http://energy.gov/articles/history-electric-car
