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Did you know the history of the electric car? The first cars were electric. Oh so many years ago and yet here today we are still debating as to whether electric cars are the way to go or not. Well of course one of the reasons that ever happened was the availability of cheap oil to make cheap gas that ran our autos for so many years and squeezed out the electric market. Then oil got pricy and here we are today trying to make electric cars a real option again. Read about the history of the electric car.
Whether it’s a hybrid, plug-in hybrid or all-electric, the demand for electric drive vehicles will continue to climb as prices drop and consumers look for ways to save money at the pump. Currently more than 3 percent of new vehicle sales, electric vehicles sales could to grow to nearly 7 percent — or 6.6 million per year — worldwide by 2020, according to a report by Navigant Research.
With this growing interest in electric vehicles, we are taking a look at where this technology has been and where it’s going. Travel back in time with us as we explore the history of the electric car.
THE BIRTH OF THE ELECTRIC VEHICLE
It’s hard to pinpoint the invention of the electric car to one inventor or country. Instead it was a series of breakthroughs — from the battery to the electric motor — in the 1800s that led to the first electric vehicle on the road.
In the early part of the century, innovators in Hungary, the Netherlands and the United States — including a blacksmith from Vermont — began toying with the concept of a battery-powered vehicle and created some of the first small-scale electric cars. And while Robert Anderson, a British inventor, developed the first crude electric carriage around this same time, it wasn’t until the second half of the 19th century that French and English inventors built some of the first practical electric cars.
Here in the U.S., the first successful electric car made its debut around 1890 thanks to William Morrison, a chemist who lived in Des Moines, Iowa. His six-passenger vehicle capable of a top speed of 14 miles per hour was little more than an electrified wagon, but it helped spark interest in electric vehicles.
