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Explore the fascinating, evolving world of electric vehicles, from the first EVs in the Victorian era to their rapid expansion today—and beyond.
In The Electric Vehicle Revolution, automotive journalist Kevin Wilson provides a thorough, engaging overview of where EV technology is today, how it got there, and where it’s going. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, EVs have gone from wonky who-cares vehicles like GM’s EV1 and early Teslas to every manufacturer’s must-have future.
Electric propulsion preceded fossil-fuel cars by decades and even vied for prominence in the early twentieth century auto industry against both steam power and internal combustion engines. From Electrobat (an early New York taxi fleet) through Columbia—which had built 1,000 electric cars before either Henry Ford or Ransom Olds had built a single gasoline car—viable business start-ups in the early auto age were as competitive and innovative as those in early twenty-first century Silicon Valley.
But it was not to be for electric cars in the early days of the 1900s, as the auto industry evolved to favor gasoline cars, thanks in part to the influence of the oil industry and the build-out of infrastructure to supply fuel across the country.
Gas-powered cars may have won the day, but post-WWII experiments with electric cars continued both within the established auto industry and from outside firms and visionaries, including cars developed by General Electric, Sears, and the Henney Kilowatt, alongside Ford and GM experimentals.
Rapidly evolving electronic technology beginning in the 1960s, along with growing concerns about emissions and pollution, set the stage for renewed interest in electric cars. Improved batteries for cellphones/laptops, electronic controls, computing, and beyond provided the impetus for a wave of more sophisticated and feasible electric vehicles, including GM’s EV1 and the first Teslas.
Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors proves the auto industry disruptor and sets the stage for responses by the mainstream auto industry, including Nissan’s Leaf, Chevrolet’s Bolt, and a host of high-end EVs from company’s like Audi, Jaguar, and the like. Rival start-ups step in as well and government incentives, subsidies, and regulatory demands all drive unprecedented development.
Today, the rush to electrify has nations and companies competing to see who can declare the earliest end to internal combustion engines, but this radical transition won’t be as easy as throwing a switch. The Electric Vehicle Revolution thoroughly explores the challenges of infrastructure, battery and vehicle tech, and the cost to consumers, as well as the long phase-in as EVs are set to replace existing gas cars over decades.
Whether you embrace EVs or have gasoline in your veins, The Electric Vehicle Revolution provides a fascinating, engaging, and stunningly illustrated overview of where the car world is today and where it’s headed for the future.
From the Publisher
First Sparks
Thomas Edison was a harsh critic of battery technology in his era, and he wasn’t wrong. The dominant line of lead-based batteries didn’t last very long and became a repeated expenditure rather than a one-time investment. The energy lost by those batteries over a short time (hours, not days) was also an issue. Edison did not object to the idea of battery storage, though, and set about developing a better battery. Here, he displays the battery technology under his car’s bonnet in 1913. Alamy
Proof of Concept
Many conceptions of an electric race car turned up at Cleveland’s Glenville Racetrack in 1903. Walter Baker’s electric “Torpedo Kid,” number 999, looked decades ahead of its competition. Baker had succeeded with a ball bearing company earlier, and like his European counterparts sought to make headlines with land-speed record attempts. One of Baker’s racers was clocked at over 100 mph (161 kph) before tragically crashing into a crowd of spectators at the AAA’s Staten Island speed trials of 1902. Creative Commons
Confronting the Fuel Crisis
CitiCar’s EV production total over eight years was the high watermark for North American–built EVs after WWII. It was a record that would stand well into the twenty-first century. Although it looked a bit like Paul Bunyan’s doorstop, CitiCar’s unassuming Sebring-Vanguard and its kin attracted well over 4,000 buyers. Getty
Enter Elon
The Tesla Model S was not only unconventional in being an electric car, but it was also constructed on a chassis built of cast aluminum components of a size far beyond what had been used by the auto industry before. The visionary bit, however, wasn’t in the construction so much as in the overall idea of an electric luxury sedan. Alamy
Publisher : Motorbooks (November 7, 2023)
Language : English
Hardcover : 176 pages
ISBN-10 : 0760378304
ISBN-13 : 978-0760378304
Item Weight : 1.94 pounds
Dimensions : 8.7 x 0.8 x 10.2 inches
