There were 67 electric cars available between 1895 and 1925

[Vietnam Vet67]

What's very very old is now new again!

 

https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/overview-of-early-electric-cars.html

[Sam I Am]

Yup, and when you look hard at the automotive industry as a whole,  you will find much of it is not "new" at all, just a different way of doing it.

[John1955]

Yep, back in the day, there were three competing types of engines, electric, steam and internal combustion. 

At that time, the state that supplied the most petroleum to make gasoline was Pennsylvania. But when massive oil reserves were discovered in Texas, that was the beginning of the end for electric and steam powered vehicles. And the discovery of huge and easy to drill oil in the middle east made gasoline so inexpensive that the internal combustion engine became the choice of consumers. 

Horses were frightened of both electric and internal combustion vehicles. Electric vehicles were so quiet that horses couldn't hear them approaching and were startled when the vehicle suddenly appeared. The noise of the early internal combustion vehicles scared them as well. 
 

[Joe Handley]

"I do not believe the average daily mileage of most cars is above, say, 30 miles", said the German-American engineer Charles Proteus Steinmetz to the New York Times in 1915. 

 

That’s still about the same, it’s why the Volt had an electric only range of 35-40 miles and the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid and Jeep Wrangler 4xE are around the same as the Volt was. Even with only 100miles of range like the. And more recently with the 1st Gen Nissan Leaf  going around 100 or so mile on a charge like the early EVs,  that’s 3 days of use before needing to plug it in. I’d rather have the Bolt with it’s 250+ mile range, though.

[John1955]

I don't intend to ever buy an electric vehicle, I'm not interested and will stick with internal combustion. Despite claims to the contrary, internal combustion engines will be around for a long time because so many people prefer them. 

I can't hardly believe that Ford's new electric Mustang is a 4 door! OMG, isn't it bad enough that the Dodge Charger is a 4 door? It's sacrilege, LOL! In any case, I'm on a not so high fixed income so I'll just keep my old pickup trucks. 

[1930fordpickup]

The sad part is that the first new electric cars ( in the last 20 years ) did not have any better range than the Detroit Electric cars from the teens.  

[Mark]

That's because no real development had been done in the meantime.  GM experimented with a steam powered car in 1970, they couldn't even build one as good as the handful of Stanleys and Dobles that were still in use, their owners tweaking them over the years.

If, when the first automobiles went on the market, eveyone's home was electrified and homes were all on one standard system for electricity, we'd probably have had electric cars all along.  But we were pumping oil out of the ground to refine it for kerosene, for lamps.  Gasoline was a by-product to the point of being a nuisance.  Some was sold as cleaning fluid, the rest was burned off or even dumped.  Automobiles burning it off was the logical thing to do at the time.

Who knows, if we'd have had electric all along, someone might have figured out how to process nuke waste, and getting more electricity for everything wouldn't be a problem...

[Tom Geiger]

Times are a changing!   I have been taken by surprise with some commercials lately.. probably because I have to been paying attention..

First eye opener is a commercial from Lucid Motors announcing a very Tesla looking car.  Then I saw the GM revival of the Hummer name to Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song!  You have to admit it’s cool!

The difference between today’s electric cars and those at the early 20th Century is performance! My cousin put me at the wheel of his first generation Tesla and said, “Floor it!” OMG, I hadn’t felt that take off from a light since I drove my friend’s 69 GTO !  It was incredible and I knew at that moment that the game had completely changed! Suddenly sedans faster than any Ferrari were going to be commonplace!

Once they get past the charging issues the game is over!

[webestang]

Who Killed the Electric Car?..........  

 

[Joe Handley]

4 hours ago, webestang said:

Who Killed the Electric Car?..........  

 

Yet who is going to be instrumental in bring it back too..........................

[Brian Austin]

Front-wheel-drive, hybrid power drives, and V-8 engines (among other things) were also invented a lot longer ago than when the average person might think they were. 

 

One should remember that a hundred years ago and earlier, all automobiles were short-range and horses were still in use for work.  Roads were poor, speeds were very low, and long-distance driving wasn't common prior to the development of paved roads.  So electric cars were viable, and were popular with women, particularly affluent ones, who didn't want to have to hand-crank to start a gas car.  In more modern times electric cars were seen not as superhighway cruisers, but as runabouts for shopping or running errands around suburbs, for commuting to work, or more recently, for use in cities to fight pollution and cut congestion.  Perhaps common electric cars aren't well suited to commuting in modern urban sprawl with hundred-plus commutes to work out west.

 

UPS and other companies had battery-powered delivery truck fleets in the early days. (I know of one '30s UPS "package car" that had wound up at a trolley museum in Maine after it had become surplus, and then in later years the company had re-aquired it.  It was treated to a full restoration and was used for promotional purposes.  UPS was promoting electric power again.)

 

I think the mid-20th century drive for interstate highways had erased the institutional memory of electric automobiles.

 

Also, every once in a while, someone reinvents the steam car for a newer era, but these efforts never seem to gain traction.

 

[Jack L]

anybody see the Tesla crash & burn down in Houston , cops said no one was in the drivers seat 2 dead 

[Brian Austin]

At local shows I have seen a late-model Chevy pickup converted to battery power.

[Joe Handley]

2 minutes ago, Jack L said:

anybody see the Tesla crash & burn down in Houston , cops said no one was in the drivers seat 2 dead 

I don't buy the driverless story, I'd be willing to be who ever was driving got out and ran after the impact leaving the other two behind, I'll bet there was alcohol involved too.

[John1955]

Well, like I said, it doesn't concern me what they do with electric vehicles, I'll never own one. But I do believe they will solve some of the safety issues and the charging issue as well. But it will more time than they think because they want to shove the costs down taxpayer's throats and many taxpayers won't tolerate that. I certainly will not, I'm not paying for something I'll never have. 

And besides, many regions are like mine, blue collar employment fuels the economy, and that means fossil fuels, good or bad. Frankly, I don't see the point anyway since they have reduced carbon emissions from internal combustion engines by 90% in the last 50 years. I saw a documentary last year about internal combustion cars running on fuel made mostly from trash, including sewage. That would be interesting. 
 

[peteski]

1 hour ago, John1955 said:

I saw a documentary last year about internal combustion cars running on fuel made mostly from trash, including sewage. That would be interesting. 

Regardless what substance is being burned in an internal combustion engine, it burns up inside the cylinder, and emits carbon dioxide.

[John1955]

Well, I'm no expert, I'm just going on what they said in the documentary, something about bio mass can be carbon neutral. And according to what they said, the amount of carbon dioxide emitted was practically zero. We will never eliminate carbon emissions, there are natural sources of atmospheric carbon dioxide, such as outgassing from the ocean, decomposing vegetation and other biomass, venting volcanoes, naturally occurring wildfires, and even belches from animals.

[Richard Bartrop]

7 hours ago, peteski said:

Regardless what substance is being burned in an internal combustion engine, it burns up inside the cylinder, and emits carbon dioxide.

 

7 hours ago, John1955 said:

Well, I'm no expert, I'm just going on what they said in the documentary, something about bio mass can be carbon neutral. And according to what they said, the amount of carbon dioxide emitted was practically zero. We will never eliminate carbon emissions, there are natural sources of atmospheric carbon dioxide, such as outgassing from the ocean, decomposing vegetation and other biomass, venting volcanoes, naturally occurring wildfires, and even belches from animals.

And of course, you and every other creature on the planet, is spewing out carbon dioxide, but in turn all the plants take in the carbon dioxide, and turn it into plant material, which gets eaten or burned, which in theory should all balance out.  Carbon neutral doesn't mean eliminating carbon, it just means the amount you put into the atmosphere is balanced by the amount that gets taken out of it, so fuel from plants is actually good.  The fuss over fossil fuels is because we're taking a few million years worth of accumulated plant and animal material, and burning it all at once, and that's what's throwing things out of whack.   On top of reducing the amount of carbon dioxide we emit, you also have people trying to restore the balance by increasing the amount we remove from the atmosphere.

I live in the middle of oil country, so I hear you about jobs, so if we really can't use the stuff, somebody had better figure out what we're going to do with all the people who are in the industry. In any case, weaning people off the dinosaur juice is going to be tough.

 

[misterNNL]

I live in the middle of farm country and will believe the end of the carbon based fuel engine is really here when all of the diesel powered heavy equipment like tractors and harvesters are in museums and junk yards and have been replaced with electric ones.

[Ace-Garageguy]

13 hours ago, peteski said:

Regardless what substance is being burned in an internal combustion engine, it burns up inside the cylinder, and emits carbon dioxide.

Except hydrogen.

No carbon dioxide...but some oxides of nitrogen as a function of combustion with air. And they can be minimized with cats just like carbon-burning engines use.

Almost unbelievably from my standpoint (having been studying alternative energy technologies since I was 11, and having been heavily involved with some over the years), there's a mix of technologies that have been available for decades that could have already had us at carbon-neutral, but there's nobody driving the energy-bus who has a clue as to what's possible, or who grasps the big picture.

It's almost all platitudes, posturing, politics, sound bites, and virtue-signaling.

 

[Richard Bartrop]

30 minutes ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

It's almost all platitudes, posturing, politics, sound bites, and virtue-signaling.

 

In this, I do agree.  "Carbon" has become the new gluten.  People have no idea what it is, but they know it's BAD.

 

[peteski]

 

And of course you are right Ace, as far as Hydrogen goes.

[John1955]

7 hours ago, Richard Bartrop said:

In this, I do agree.  "Carbon" has become the new gluten.  People have no idea what it is, but they know it's BAD.

 

Excellent comment, I agree 100%. I once read an article in the newspaper about gluten, it was written by a group of doctors. According to them, about .2% of people are actually allergic to gluten. One fifth of one percent. But the publicity about BAD gluten has caused millions to THINK they're allergic and they stated that imaginary symptoms can seem just as real as actual symptoms are. 

But, that's how people are. They also stated that the "sodium scare" (their words) is way over rated as well. The average person does consume many times the sodium your body needs, but the body simply disposes of the excess in your waste with no harm done. Exceptions are people with pre-existing conditions such as high blood pressure, etc. And there's the "sugar scare" (again, their words) that caused companies to stop using pure cane sugar and substitute high fructose corn syrup, which IS harmful in large quantities. 

But I digress, sorry. As far as fossil fuels go, Richard Bartrop, misterNNL and Ace-Garageguy all hit the nail on the head. And since it is completely impossible to do without fossil fuels entirely, I suggest that the high tech scientists and highly educated engineers refocus their efforts on cleaner ways to extract and use them. This 'emergency' has been overblown, this planet has seen many climate changes in the past (research Greenland's history) and managed to adjust. 

The tremendous amount of electricity needed to keep charging electric vehicle batteries and the toxic nature of worn out batteries are also things to think about. But I am all for electric vehicles in situations where they are plausible and I'm all for solar and wind energy as well, in addition to fossil fuels. Let the free market decide. 
 

[Brian Austin]

16 hours ago, Richard Bartrop said:

In this, I do agree.  "Carbon" has become the new gluten.  People have no idea what it is, but they know it's BAD.

 

That sounds like a good way to describe a lot of people who oppose EVs.  They don't realize that technology and production methods are constantly improving to address the "issues" critics throw around in every discussion of EVs in automotive forums.  We can't even have a nice historical discussion with out naysayers railing against their very existence.

https://evannex.com/blogs/news/debunking-electric-car-myths-again

 

Ironically, the tone of this discussion reminds me of those who scoffed at the development of the automobile itself over a century ago.  The cry was "Get a horse!".  Thankfully, inventors pressed ahead and the public eventually came around.

[Richard Bartrop]

2 hours ago, Brian Austin said:

That sounds like a good way to describe a lot of people who oppose EVs.  They don't realize that technology and production methods are constantly improving to address the "issues" critics throw around in every discussion of EVs in automotive forums.  We can't even have a nice historical discussion with out naysayers railing against their very existence.

https://evannex.com/blogs/news/debunking-electric-car-myths-again

 

Ironically, the tone of this discussion reminds me of those who scoffed at the development of the automobile itself over a century ago.  The cry was "Get a horse!".  Thankfully, inventors pressed ahead and the public eventually came around.

Just to clarify, just because there a lot of badly informed takes doesn't mean there isn't a problem.  There are people for whom gluten is a real problem (everyone else, enjoy your gluten), but they're finding that they aren't being taken seriously because of all the flakes who want to have a fashionable new ailment.

Carbon dioxide for the most part is pretty benign stuff that is an essential part of the ecosystem.  So is water, but when you get too much of it in the wrong place, you have a problem:

Sure, if we don't do anything, eventually, the balance will be restored, but the question is whether we will like where that new balance ends up.

And yes, the critics of electric cars definitely put out their share of lazy sound bites, and virtue signals.

A couple of my favourites:

"Batteries are made of materials that are toxic, and mining for them hurts the environment"

So is every other part of a car, gas or electric.   Since I assume they haven't forgotten how cars are made, I'm guessing they think that every electric car owner is some kind of airhead who thinks electric cars are woven out of recycled hemp at the gender neutral electric car collective,  so once this nugget is laid upon them, they will "Oh wow, man, my mind is blown!  Thanks for opening my eyes, man!"

Brian's link shows that there is already a battery recycling industry in place.

"How are we going to pay for all the extra electricity?"

How do you pay for all those petroleum products?  I think everyone here already knows that they don't give away electricity for free, so using more electricity means more revenue.  Figuring out how to handle more business is the sort of problem companies want to have.

As for putting taxpayers money into electrics cars,  how about all those nicely paved stretches of public land you need to operate your privately owned vehicles? How about all the bridges, traffic signals, and enforcement agencies to ensure the smooth interactions between all those private car owners.   For that matter, how about the periodic expenditures of taxpayer money and human lives to ensure a steady supply of petroleum?  Nobody likes taxes, but let's not pretend the taxpayer isn't on the hook for your ride too.

Electric cars have merits that have nothing to do with the environment, and it's the market that's driving the demand for them.   GM isn't getting into EV's because of their love of Mother Earth, it's because they see how many electrics Musk is selling, and they want a piece of that pie too.   Maybe they aren't for everyone, but they do make sense for a lot of people, so don't be surprised if we see more of them.