Electric car history

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Electric Car History

The early days

The first electric cars were made in the 1830s but the batteries were not able to be recharged and it was not until mass production of rechargeable batteries in the late 19th century that electric cars were first available to buy.

At the beginning of the 20th century cars were powered by steam, gas and petrol or diesel. Each engine type had its merits and disadvantages, but in 1900 it is estimated that there were a greater number of electric and steam-powered cars on the road than those powered by the internal combustion engine.

In the early days of motoring, internal combustion engine cars were unreliable and could be difficult to start. The advent of the starter motor did away with the inconvenience of using a crank handle to start their engines and by the 1920s electric cars could no longer compete with the longer range and superior power of vehicles powered by petrol, which was readily available. Ten years later, electric cars had almost disappeared from the roads.

Concerns about the price of oil in the early 1970s and the negative environmental impacts of petrol and diesel cars resulted in renewed interest in electric cars from both consumers and manufacturers. Electric cars, if recharged using electricity from renewable energy sources, have zero carbon dioxide emissions and a typical electric car has lower carbon dioxide emissions than petrol cars if recharged using non-renewable energy sources.

In the last few years of the twentieth century, a few thousand pure-electric cars like the Honda EV Plus, the GM EV1, an electric version of the Ford Ranger, the Nissan Altra EV, the Chevrolet S-10 EV and Toyota's RAV4 EV were produced in America by the major manufacturers, but as with the Mini-E currently being tested on British roads most of them are available for lease only. Within ten years, all the vehicles mentioned had been discontinued.

What next for electric cars?

The development of mass-produced electric cars such as the Nissan Lead and GM Chevrolet Volt is being fuelled by investment by governments around the world. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 allocated $2bn towards development of electric vehicle batteries and the Department of Energy added $400 million to fund related infrastructure. China, America and Britain have all introduced grants of around £5,000 for electric cars.

Oxford University predicts that the number of cars on the world's roads in twenty years will double to 2 billion, but that electric vehicles will account for only a small percentage of the overall fleet in the medium to long-term. This possibility does not appear to have dampened the enthusiasm of the car manufacturers; September Daimler, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Renault-Nissan and Toyota last year predicted as many as 'few hundred thousand' electric vehicles with fuel cell on the roads from 2015.

The world's first mass-produced car is to be the Nissan LEAF (Leading, Environmentally-friendly, Affordable, Family Car). The LEAF has a 90 mph top speed, a 100-mile range, and a battery that can be recharged to 80% of its full capacity in 30 minutes using a rapid charger. The car is scheduled to go on sale in Japan, Europe, and America at the end of 2010.