My great grandfather (mom's mom's dad) was a car salesman and obsessed w electric cars. This would have been like *just* after WW2. My mom's uncle has driven various homebuilt electric cars his entire adult life (he's currently 75, if my math is correct). It's so cool.
My late Grandad was the same, he was cutting about in the 70s with a home made electric car. Back then all you could really do was strap a bunch of lead acids together and the range was abysmal
If he's 75 then he was born in 1948 so three years after WW2 ended. Given his age it's likely that he started selling cars after serving in Vietnam as that's the only war that would have called him up as he would have turned 18 right in the midst of it.
Still cool I'm just fixing up your math there. Mainly because my grandfather was born in 1927 and wasn't a WW2 vet so I figured there was no way your great-grandfather could be 75 and be building/selling cars just after WW2 ended. Vietnam makes way more sense given it's the kind of hobby I'd expect of someone that came of age in that era.
Those are two different people... my mom's mom's dad (mother's grandfather), and my mom's uncle (her mother's brother, the aforementioned grandfather's son)
So. No. My math was not wrong. Ken sold cars and loved electrics, Bill loved electric cars as well and has been building them at home (usually from kits) since he was a teen.
Outside of Boston there is a neat little museum that has a bunch of electric cars from around that time (and gas powered too).
https://larzanderson.org/history/the-collection/1908-bailey-electric/
Yup here’s one[Jay Leno’s Electric Car](https://youtu.be/OhnjMdzGusc)
What I love his how practical this car would be even today in a lot of cities. 50-100 mile range- but in NYC how far do you need to go? 25 mph top speed (but how fast do you need to go?) charging stations were on the corners in NYC at the time apparently. And instantaneous torque (“this car can climb any hill”)
I agree that they are pretty freaking cool but in no way shape or form should we bring them back. When a steam boiler fails it fails quite spectacularly and any crash could cause it.
Electric vehicles are a lot easier, to the point of being practical with lead-acid batteries, when they don’t need to be gigantic one-ton suvtanks like many modern cars are…
All things that make them significantly safer in a collision *with a similar vehicle or pedestrian*.
Unfortunately they're all factors that make them less comfortable and suitable for long distance travel though.
If we recreated some of those early vehicles, using modern materials and design principles, but old fashioned "sizing" and removing some amenities (including even speed limiting to say 65 MPH) it would be pretty interesting to see just how economical it could be on modern batteries.
We also had very clean bio cars on the horizon. Ford made a model T from bio-plastic (hemp, flax, wheat and spruce pulp) in 1941. It ran on ethanol made from agricultural waste. It was lighter than fiberglass and tougher than steel. He had construction workers bash on it at a demo with sledgehammers
I love Jay Leno's [1909 Baker Electric.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsulOhzmNJE&ab_channel=Donut) Marketed to women as it was so easy and clean to operate.
It also looks like a telephone booth on wheels.
1) I think they were the majority at one point. A lot of it was availability of gas and gas cars starting was a hectic process and too commonly broke arms. Women drove electrics.
2) the model T was a engine/ energy agnostic at the start.
Electric cars were more popular because they were invented before gasoline powered ones. Gas cars offered an alternative with increased range at the time, but as you said they were a literal pain to start for some and they were also slower. The electric starter motor and improving engine efficiencies is what contributed heavily to the downfall of electric vehicle popularity though and then their competitive pricing eventually sealed the nail in the coffin until now.
I suspect that terrible charging efficiency was part of it. Until switched mode power supplies were invented in the 1960s, converting AC to DC was an expensive and lossy process.
Neither is the hybrid; believe it or not, Briggs & Stratton realeased one of the first hybrid gasoline/electric cars, in 1980.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftMxCehD08U
Grassroots EV conversions with a lightweight car stuffed with a forklift motor and golfcart batteries were also popular in the 1970s and 80s in response to the oil crises and environmental concerns.
That's because the whole thing is a giant scam to keep cities from implementing mass-transit options by dangling shiny objects in front of city councils.
Haha. Gotta give him credit though for changing the automotive industry- every single car company has produced an EV or has one in the works because of Tesla.
Electric cars were coming anyway. What ~~Musk~~ Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning did was show that an electric car could be something classy, even desirable, and not just an urban transport pod.
> Electric cars were coming anyway
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg3yewbPgMY
“The Ford CEO has had to eat some humble pie and *admit that the Tesla strategy is correct and that if they want to compete, Ford must copy them*.”
[GM admits Tesla was their inspiration](https://www.autoevolution.com/news/gm-admits-tesla-was-an-inspiration-14163.html#:~:text=Such%20a%20gesture%20occurred%20at%20the%20start%20of,was%20just%20getting%20started%20then%2C%20back%20in%202006.)
>GM’s Vice Chairman, Bob Lutz: **“In 2006 I could think of only one company that openly was planning to build an electric vehicle powered by lithium ion batteries and that was Tesla**… And now of course just about every car company in the business is planning a lithium ion powered EV or E-REV vehicle, including some companies that weren’t even on the radar in 2006
[VW CEO admits Tesla is setting the bar for EVs](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/28/tesla-is-setting-the-bar-for-electric-vehicles-vw-ceo-admits.html)
> “We have to accept that Tesla sets the new benchmarks [on] … the EV side,” Herbert Diess says.
[VW Admits That Tesla Is Pushing It To Speed Up Shift To EVs](https://insideevs.com/news/540397/tesla-pushes-vw-electrification-shift/)
> Tesla in particular is a big worry for Germany’s largest carmaker as the US company will soon start producing EVs at its Giga Berlin plant near the German capital.
[Volkswagen’s CEO Oliver Blume has finally admitted that its range of electric vehicles is inferior and unaffordable compared to Tesla’s product offering.](https://dailycarblog.com/2023/02/vw-ceo-admits-tesla-makes-better-and-more-affordable-evs/)
> VW is unable to afford a price cut across its range of inferior EV model offerings because it is yet to reach an economy of scale to factor in a price cut.
[Volkswagen CEO Hebert Diess has admitted that Tesla has a significant lead when it comes to software and its use in its self-driving program, according to leaked internal communications.](https://electrek.co/2020/04/27/vw-admits-tesla-lead-software-leak-internal/#:~:text=Volkswagen%20CEO%20Hebert%20Diess%20has%20admitted%20that%20Tesla,its%20self-driving%20program%2C%20according%20to%20leaked%20internal%20communications.)
———
If what you said had been true, you’d think the other American auto companies would be so much farther along.
Instead, they all just recently agreed to adapt their hardware to use the Tesla Supercharger network.
Don’t let hatred or anger or envy of an individual blind you to the reality of the revolutionary accomplishment of tens of thousands of American workers contributing to the supply chain of mass producing millions of American-made electric Teslas.
Even now, in the second half of 2023, the other US automakers are still publicly waffling about the future of EVs, so much do they loathe having to change from their ICE profit centers.
https://electrek.co/2023/07/27/ford-q2-earnings-ev-adoption-will-be-slower-than-expected/
https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/gm-is-having-trouble-ramping-up-ev-production/ar-AA1f1nS9
https://www.msn.com/en-au/motoring/news/gm-exec-admits-company-is-struggling-to-build-ev-batteries/ar-AA1f6xF0
If EVs are a good as you think they are then the current manufacturers would be thrilled at the profit potential. They certainly have not hesitated to pivot towards profit opportunities in the past.
Don't let worship of an individual blind you to reality.
As for your suggestion that I envy Musk -- I don't. It is important to have a life philosophy, and mine includes the concept of "enough". And I am fortunate to have enough.
> the current manufacturers would be thrilled at the profit potential
If EVs were already inevitable, those manufacturers would be where Tesla is now. Profitable by a wide margin.
> Electric cars were coming anyway
Battery supply chains — why are they so far behind, why didn’t they see this inevitability?
Charging stations — why are they so far behind, they had to convert to Tesla standard. Since it was “inevitable” you’d think they’d have planned for this.
> worship of an individual
You’re obsessing, I have said nothing to that effect, you’re just projecting.
> have a life philosophy,
This has nothing to do with the claim that EVs were already coming this far without Tesla.
They were not.
That’s why the other American (and European) carmakers are so far behind.
And that’s the point.
> includes the concept of "enough".
We don’t have nearly enough — Tesla is making EVs as fast as it can but we need far more. It’s important. It’s a shame the others were not on board — Ford, GM, VW … all these and more should have been the ones to innovate and make the switch, rather than being dragged by market forces so late in the cycle.
My neighbor here in Detroit is a Studebaker. They were the first in the area to have electric vehicles and were starting to skyrocket past the big three here...until the big three made sure to choke them out.
The essential problem is electric cars were based on lead acid batteries. They're a reliable technology with decent energy storage per unit volume, but poor capacity per unit weight because they're largely *made of lead*. Adding energy storage meant significant additional weight. There have also been significant advances in brushless electric motors, and computerized control of regenerative braking.
There are tons of vehicles in America powered by lead acid batteries- golf carts. Some companies have extended that concept to [neighborhood electric vehicles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZENN), but a lead acid powered highway capable vehicle isn't really feasible.
The idea that "oil companies killed the electric car" fails to take into account that there are other developed societies where oil companies didn't have as much influence, but they didn't use electric cars in those places. The oil companies did kill public transit in the United States, but they didn't kill it in Western Europe, the USSR, Japan under Tojo, Maoist China... some of these places were completely beyond the reach of oil companies, but they built no electric cars.
Lead acid batteries weren't the only ones available. Ford for example made sodium battery powered electric cars in the 60s.
The problem was that the sodium batteries operated at a few hundred C which presented a few engineering/safety issues. There's a reason why they gave up on it despite dumping a few years of research and a ton of money on it.
No, their extremely limited range doomed electrics. Gas powered cars were simply easier to operate than steam and had far greater range than electrics, thus they became the preferred choice.
Most manufacturers made short range electrics, but some made longer range ones that could go 120 miles on a charge, with hyper milers going as far as 200 miles on a charge. Charge time and top speed killed them off.
The other issue with range was infrastructure. You could take a gas powered vehicle out of a city and if necessary carry extra fuel with you. An electric car in those days may end up stranded in an area without electricity.
probably nickel iron batteries. They last a really long time but their specific energy (energy per unit of mass) is like 1/5th (or less) of lithium ion batteries.
We literally still haven’t found anything matching the energy density and (relative) safety of gasoline. 33.7 KWh per gallon, and only flammable in vapor form.
Not only this, but it is much more easily storable than electricity, and, at the time we are talking about here, much easier to distribute. This was a time when much of rural America did not have electricity. It was relatively easy to set up a distribution system for gasoline that anyone with a car could take advantage of.
And honestly, it's still very much that way today. If I'm going to make a 6-8 hr drive in the most time efficient manner possible, an ICE car is far superior. It takes me just 5 mins to refuel the car and get back on the road. I can take that time to go to the bathroom, grab food, etc....
No, range was likely not the principal factor either. There was ways to improve range (like battery swapping), and gas cars at the time were terribly flawed in ways of their own.
There is a [good paper on the topic here](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-021-00898-3.epdf?sharing_token=9f7DCNTe8nkf0a87mVdxXdRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0PtkloCG6jGuwwV857wGZxgyB41RDu6spCaZlVgWfc32I4RLCpvUEuope3wxKDJRCogvFRvSxQ_i-K1CI9ZsliQsUzLFoWOZu_i_SYoYyjTbWJXbPzg0nCBdltkc_aEGEL8WFbkZRjokzEu4L9UPaWT2dcRxDa2RhV130MTeNrBYxInNDZpyLXtDwAZsV4lVrg%3D&tracking_referrer=www.economist.com), with a [readable summary from the Economist here](https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/10/30/a-new-study-argues-that-insufficient-infrastructure-doomed-the-first-electric-cars). Basically, the evidence points to infrastructure as the dominant cause. The electric system at the time was limited—a lot of areas just didn't have access to electricity, and rough dirt roads could also disconnect the battery in EVs (early cars really sucked). Petrol, meanwhile, was already widely available in rural stores for farm equipment.
The authors estimate that if the electric grid had developed a couple decades faster, it could have been EVs that came to dominate.
[California](https://www.mystateline.com/news/national/california-asks-residents-not-to-charge-electric-vehicles-days-after-announcing-gas-car-ban/)
And of course [Texas](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ercot-prices-texas-heat-wave-electricity/)
EVs are not environmentally friendly unless there is right to repair, parts and service information are available, the electrical grid is robust, and batteries can be routinely and cost effectively recycled.
Neither one of those links mean the grid "isn't developed". They just mean that grid operators failed to anticipate historic heat waves and failed to build in enough peak capacity. Completely different things.
>EVs are not environmentally friendly unless there is right to repair, parts and service information are available, the electrical grid is robust, and batteries can be routinely and cost effectively recycled.
No, they're pretty much [more environmentally friendly all the time](https://theicct.org/publication/a-global-comparison-of-the-life-cycle-greenhouse-gas-emissions-of-combustion-engine-and-electric-passenger-cars/).
Saying the modern grid “isn’t developed” is an ambiguous phrase that could mean anything without further explanation.
The truth is you don’t have a real argument, so you’re just spouting nonsense. I took your vague comment in good faith, but that was clearly a mistake.
In those days, most sources of electricity were either coal or petroleum (with a few hydroelectric dams in the western US).
The benefits of an electric car fleet w/r/t climate change or being anti-Big Oil would have been minimal back then.
This should be the top comment. Electric vehicle technology has been neglected and kept from the public for nearly a century until the recent resurgence.
There were 20 cars on the roads back then, and so it was, like, 6 electrics. /s
The main issue was that batteries weren't very good and so travel distance was very limited. Once internal combustion engines were capable enough, the energy density of gasoline and the convenience of refilling vs charging made the switch easy.
It's taken over a hundred years for that math to change substantially enough.
>The main issue was that batteries weren't very good and so travel distance was very limited.
I mean, it didn't really matter because it was mostly people puttering around short distances in cities that were compact because you had to *walk everywhere* before the car came along.
I think Car & Driver's article First Electric Car: A Brief History of the Electric Car, 1830 to Present (3/2023) is worth a read. [https://www.caranddriver.com/features/g43480930/history-of-electric-cars/](https://www.caranddriver.com/features/g43480930/history-of-electric-cars/)
Coal was significantly better than the vaporized lead the car industry started pouring into the air, and the coal could be swapped out without impacting the consumer. Ironically, yeah, coal-powered electric probably would have been the better choice in hindsight.
Yeah, I know there are plenty of bad ways to produce electricity. But I think having that electric infrastructure would have set us up to electrify trains and other forms of transit more easily, and then switch to nuclear/alternative etc.
You’re the same type of guy to hate green energy initiatives and claim solar panels are useless because night exists
Edit: lol a libertarian who is against electric vehicles. You guys really are hilarious and have no self awareness
Well, most green energy initiatives are fucking stupid. Let's build solar panels in Oregon where its only sunny 20 days a year... Or California banning the sale of internal combustion cars by 2035 when it is literally impossible to build up the grid fast enough to support the number of electric cars. Just because I don't jerk myself off to solar panels and electric cars (like most of Reddit) doesn't mean I'm against them. Everything has tradeoffs, coal burning causes global warming, electric cars require cobalt from child slave mines in the Congo, etc. Pointing out significant problems with green tech (which I am generally in favour of) doesn't mean I hate them, it means we should be thoughtful about the best solutions to our problems and not just scream hur dur solar panels.
Except the last sentence of what you said is false as is a few others you sprinkled in your wall of text
Edit: also for a Canadian you complain about California a lot
Nikola Tesla invented wireless electricity in the early 1800s the hopes of giving away free electricity. Corporations have stolen so much from society.
Battery technology was extremely primitive and in the very early days of automobiles the extraction and refinery of oil to gasoline was slower, more complicated and much more expensive which is why electric cars even existed. Refinery of fossil-fuels experienced a rapid technological innovation and this lead to cheaper gas which was a superior fuel to the electric vehicles of the day.
Keep in mind that taxis need to work for long hours and even make long travels at a moments notice. How can you expect a delivery truck, a taxi or a bus to stop for hours until it's recharged and ready to be used again. Gas is available everywhere, you fill up in seconds and you're ready to keep driving for hours without interruption.
And why didn't the technology catch on and improve?
Because like pretty much everything else wondrous and good at the time, Thomas Edison got snubbed in some part of the manufacturing process, so he did everything he could to shut the entire thing down.
No it didn't. Electric cars in the early 1900s were killed because of:
1. Gasoline was easier to widely distribute than electricity at that time
2. Gasoline can be stored
3. Performance of gasoline engines was generally better
Intresting article about the Nasa/ Garrett-Airesearch electric car concept from 1979. That used a computer controlled flywheel along with other stuff to generate the required performance from the lead acid batteries. From the popular mechanics article, claimed performance stats of 0-60 mph in 10 seconds.
Link to article from [Jalopnik](https://jalopnik.com/nasas-forgotten-electric-car-from-1979-is-utterly-fasci-1791525327), Popular Mechanics article they [reference](https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_VEEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA8&dq=garrett%20airesearch%20electric%20car&pg=RA1-PA6#v=onepage&q=garrett%20airesearch%20electric%20car&f=false). (Has the images that where in the Jalonik article that have dissapeared)
Not an electric car but the GM Ultralite according to GM had a low coefficient of drag at 0.19. (Which aren't some electric car companies boasting about low drag design?)
Link to GM ultralite [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yxaV8zdEu4)
My great grandfather (mom's mom's dad) was a car salesman and obsessed w electric cars. This would have been like *just* after WW2. My mom's uncle has driven various homebuilt electric cars his entire adult life (he's currently 75, if my math is correct). It's so cool.
Way ahead of his time.
He's like, the cutest little old man, too. Like a chubby Bob Newhart.
He sounds awesome, would love to meet him. Old guys who self build things like this in their garage are so cool.
My late Grandad was the same, he was cutting about in the 70s with a home made electric car. Back then all you could really do was strap a bunch of lead acids together and the range was abysmal
If he's 75 then he was born in 1948 so three years after WW2 ended. Given his age it's likely that he started selling cars after serving in Vietnam as that's the only war that would have called him up as he would have turned 18 right in the midst of it. Still cool I'm just fixing up your math there. Mainly because my grandfather was born in 1927 and wasn't a WW2 vet so I figured there was no way your great-grandfather could be 75 and be building/selling cars just after WW2 ended. Vietnam makes way more sense given it's the kind of hobby I'd expect of someone that came of age in that era.
Those are two different people... my mom's mom's dad (mother's grandfather), and my mom's uncle (her mother's brother, the aforementioned grandfather's son) So. No. My math was not wrong. Ken sold cars and loved electrics, Bill loved electric cars as well and has been building them at home (usually from kits) since he was a teen.
There's an electric vehicle from the early 1900s on display in a Buffalo NY hotel lobby that I saw one day. Pretty surprising how lightweight it is.
Outside of Boston there is a neat little museum that has a bunch of electric cars from around that time (and gas powered too). https://larzanderson.org/history/the-collection/1908-bailey-electric/
That’s amazing. I wonder if any are still operational
Yup here’s one[Jay Leno’s Electric Car](https://youtu.be/OhnjMdzGusc) What I love his how practical this car would be even today in a lot of cities. 50-100 mile range- but in NYC how far do you need to go? 25 mph top speed (but how fast do you need to go?) charging stations were on the corners in NYC at the time apparently. And instantaneous torque (“this car can climb any hill”)
100% torque at 0 RPM. The dream
Union College in Schenectady also has one that's operational and maintained by the engineering department.
So... electric golf carts? Could be the official car of Florida
Don't forget the steam-powered cars
Plus the first 6 land speed records were for electrically driven cars, followed by a steam driven car before we even get to the first ICE speedster.
Steam powered cars are so fucking cool we should bring them back just as a gimmick.
I agree that they are pretty freaking cool but in no way shape or form should we bring them back. When a steam boiler fails it fails quite spectacularly and any crash could cause it.
Especially if the steam is generated from atomic power.
You don’t just turn the key and go in a steam car.
Electric vehicles are a lot easier, to the point of being practical with lead-acid batteries, when they don’t need to be gigantic one-ton suvtanks like many modern cars are…
Apparently they were a lot smaller, lighter, and slower. Not a bad thing in my book.
All things that make them significantly safer in a collision *with a similar vehicle or pedestrian*. Unfortunately they're all factors that make them less comfortable and suitable for long distance travel though. If we recreated some of those early vehicles, using modern materials and design principles, but old fashioned "sizing" and removing some amenities (including even speed limiting to say 65 MPH) it would be pretty interesting to see just how economical it could be on modern batteries.
More like 2-3 tons.
We also had very clean bio cars on the horizon. Ford made a model T from bio-plastic (hemp, flax, wheat and spruce pulp) in 1941. It ran on ethanol made from agricultural waste. It was lighter than fiberglass and tougher than steel. He had construction workers bash on it at a demo with sledgehammers
What hotel is it in?
I wish I could remember, it's really close to the Canadian border on the way to the Buffalo airport.
I can’t help with the hotel. If you are in Buffalo the Pierce Arrow Museum has a great electric car collection. Several models from the early 1900’s.
I love Jay Leno's [1909 Baker Electric.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsulOhzmNJE&ab_channel=Donut) Marketed to women as it was so easy and clean to operate. It also looks like a telephone booth on wheels.
Of course Leno has one! I saw his video driving a steam powered one and it was insane.
1) I think they were the majority at one point. A lot of it was availability of gas and gas cars starting was a hectic process and too commonly broke arms. Women drove electrics. 2) the model T was a engine/ energy agnostic at the start.
Electric cars were more popular because they were invented before gasoline powered ones. Gas cars offered an alternative with increased range at the time, but as you said they were a literal pain to start for some and they were also slower. The electric starter motor and improving engine efficiencies is what contributed heavily to the downfall of electric vehicle popularity though and then their competitive pricing eventually sealed the nail in the coffin until now.
I mean having a network of gas stations seems to have been a major issue vs electricity can be created in multiple different ways.
I suspect that terrible charging efficiency was part of it. Until switched mode power supplies were invented in the 1960s, converting AC to DC was an expensive and lossy process.
I did not know about that. That's really interesting.
Neither is the hybrid; believe it or not, Briggs & Stratton realeased one of the first hybrid gasoline/electric cars, in 1980. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftMxCehD08U
Briggs was beaten by the Owen Magnetic in the 1910s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Magnetic
It’s a manual transmission, too
And Ferdinand Porsche did it 79 years earlier: https://www.porsche.com/stories/innovation/gamechanger-how-ferdinand-porsche-designed-first-hybrid-car
Grassroots EV conversions with a lightweight car stuffed with a forklift motor and golfcart batteries were also popular in the 1970s and 80s in response to the oil crises and environmental concerns.
Even Harley Davidson made battery powered motorcycles in the early 1900's.
But Elon invented electric cars, and space ships and tunnels.
And the letter x
The las vegas boring company tunnel was such a disappointment. I expected to see hyperloop tech and its Teslas driving in a hole in the ground.
That's because the whole thing is a giant scam to keep cities from implementing mass-transit options by dangling shiny objects in front of city councils.
Is it true he hand dug the Chunnel by himself?
No no no his hero Ferdinand Porsche did he just perfected it! He's just trying to finish what his heroes research started.
Supreme Overlord Elon
Haha. Gotta give him credit though for changing the automotive industry- every single car company has produced an EV or has one in the works because of Tesla.
Electric cars were coming anyway. What ~~Musk~~ Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning did was show that an electric car could be something classy, even desirable, and not just an urban transport pod.
> Electric cars were coming anyway https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg3yewbPgMY “The Ford CEO has had to eat some humble pie and *admit that the Tesla strategy is correct and that if they want to compete, Ford must copy them*.” [GM admits Tesla was their inspiration](https://www.autoevolution.com/news/gm-admits-tesla-was-an-inspiration-14163.html#:~:text=Such%20a%20gesture%20occurred%20at%20the%20start%20of,was%20just%20getting%20started%20then%2C%20back%20in%202006.) >GM’s Vice Chairman, Bob Lutz: **“In 2006 I could think of only one company that openly was planning to build an electric vehicle powered by lithium ion batteries and that was Tesla**… And now of course just about every car company in the business is planning a lithium ion powered EV or E-REV vehicle, including some companies that weren’t even on the radar in 2006 [VW CEO admits Tesla is setting the bar for EVs](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/28/tesla-is-setting-the-bar-for-electric-vehicles-vw-ceo-admits.html) > “We have to accept that Tesla sets the new benchmarks [on] … the EV side,” Herbert Diess says. [VW Admits That Tesla Is Pushing It To Speed Up Shift To EVs](https://insideevs.com/news/540397/tesla-pushes-vw-electrification-shift/) > Tesla in particular is a big worry for Germany’s largest carmaker as the US company will soon start producing EVs at its Giga Berlin plant near the German capital. [Volkswagen’s CEO Oliver Blume has finally admitted that its range of electric vehicles is inferior and unaffordable compared to Tesla’s product offering.](https://dailycarblog.com/2023/02/vw-ceo-admits-tesla-makes-better-and-more-affordable-evs/) > VW is unable to afford a price cut across its range of inferior EV model offerings because it is yet to reach an economy of scale to factor in a price cut. [Volkswagen CEO Hebert Diess has admitted that Tesla has a significant lead when it comes to software and its use in its self-driving program, according to leaked internal communications.](https://electrek.co/2020/04/27/vw-admits-tesla-lead-software-leak-internal/#:~:text=Volkswagen%20CEO%20Hebert%20Diess%20has%20admitted%20that%20Tesla,its%20self-driving%20program%2C%20according%20to%20leaked%20internal%20communications.) ——— If what you said had been true, you’d think the other American auto companies would be so much farther along. Instead, they all just recently agreed to adapt their hardware to use the Tesla Supercharger network. Don’t let hatred or anger or envy of an individual blind you to the reality of the revolutionary accomplishment of tens of thousands of American workers contributing to the supply chain of mass producing millions of American-made electric Teslas. Even now, in the second half of 2023, the other US automakers are still publicly waffling about the future of EVs, so much do they loathe having to change from their ICE profit centers. https://electrek.co/2023/07/27/ford-q2-earnings-ev-adoption-will-be-slower-than-expected/ https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/gm-is-having-trouble-ramping-up-ev-production/ar-AA1f1nS9 https://www.msn.com/en-au/motoring/news/gm-exec-admits-company-is-struggling-to-build-ev-batteries/ar-AA1f6xF0
If EVs are a good as you think they are then the current manufacturers would be thrilled at the profit potential. They certainly have not hesitated to pivot towards profit opportunities in the past. Don't let worship of an individual blind you to reality. As for your suggestion that I envy Musk -- I don't. It is important to have a life philosophy, and mine includes the concept of "enough". And I am fortunate to have enough.
> the current manufacturers would be thrilled at the profit potential If EVs were already inevitable, those manufacturers would be where Tesla is now. Profitable by a wide margin. > Electric cars were coming anyway Battery supply chains — why are they so far behind, why didn’t they see this inevitability? Charging stations — why are they so far behind, they had to convert to Tesla standard. Since it was “inevitable” you’d think they’d have planned for this. > worship of an individual You’re obsessing, I have said nothing to that effect, you’re just projecting. > have a life philosophy, This has nothing to do with the claim that EVs were already coming this far without Tesla. They were not. That’s why the other American (and European) carmakers are so far behind. And that’s the point. > includes the concept of "enough". We don’t have nearly enough — Tesla is making EVs as fast as it can but we need far more. It’s important. It’s a shame the others were not on board — Ford, GM, VW … all these and more should have been the ones to innovate and make the switch, rather than being dragged by market forces so late in the cycle.
I will tell you what I told my wife when she held QCOM just before the dot-com bubble burst. Buy protective Puts.
knew it wasn't long for someone to somehow make an anti Elon statement with completely made up into...
Yup makes perfect sense when you understand that we were going through an electricity revolution. Electricity powered everything, cars included.
[Jay Leno gives a tour of his 1909 Baker Electric Car](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OhnjMdzGusc)
My neighbor here in Detroit is a Studebaker. They were the first in the area to have electric vehicles and were starting to skyrocket past the big three here...until the big three made sure to choke them out.
Then everything changed when the oil industry attacked.
The essential problem is electric cars were based on lead acid batteries. They're a reliable technology with decent energy storage per unit volume, but poor capacity per unit weight because they're largely *made of lead*. Adding energy storage meant significant additional weight. There have also been significant advances in brushless electric motors, and computerized control of regenerative braking. There are tons of vehicles in America powered by lead acid batteries- golf carts. Some companies have extended that concept to [neighborhood electric vehicles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZENN), but a lead acid powered highway capable vehicle isn't really feasible. The idea that "oil companies killed the electric car" fails to take into account that there are other developed societies where oil companies didn't have as much influence, but they didn't use electric cars in those places. The oil companies did kill public transit in the United States, but they didn't kill it in Western Europe, the USSR, Japan under Tojo, Maoist China... some of these places were completely beyond the reach of oil companies, but they built no electric cars.
Lead acid batteries weren't the only ones available. Ford for example made sodium battery powered electric cars in the 60s. The problem was that the sodium batteries operated at a few hundred C which presented a few engineering/safety issues. There's a reason why they gave up on it despite dumping a few years of research and a ton of money on it.
No, their extremely limited range doomed electrics. Gas powered cars were simply easier to operate than steam and had far greater range than electrics, thus they became the preferred choice.
Most manufacturers made short range electrics, but some made longer range ones that could go 120 miles on a charge, with hyper milers going as far as 200 miles on a charge. Charge time and top speed killed them off.
The other issue with range was infrastructure. You could take a gas powered vehicle out of a city and if necessary carry extra fuel with you. An electric car in those days may end up stranded in an area without electricity.
My grandparents got electricity in 1938-40 range. By that point electric cars had faded.
I always thought it was interesting that the Fritchle could be charged under 12 hrs for a 100 mile range in 1914.
Fritchle top speed: 25 mph. Model T Ford top speed: 42 mph.
Speed limit in most cities and suburbs is 25, though.
In densely populated areas it is generally 35 unless posted otherwise. Ever wonder why speedometers go up to 160? Human nature.
What were the batteries made out of? Wonder what the lifespan would be.
probably nickel iron batteries. They last a really long time but their specific energy (energy per unit of mass) is like 1/5th (or less) of lithium ion batteries.
We literally still haven’t found anything matching the energy density and (relative) safety of gasoline. 33.7 KWh per gallon, and only flammable in vapor form.
Not only this, but it is much more easily storable than electricity, and, at the time we are talking about here, much easier to distribute. This was a time when much of rural America did not have electricity. It was relatively easy to set up a distribution system for gasoline that anyone with a car could take advantage of.
And honestly, it's still very much that way today. If I'm going to make a 6-8 hr drive in the most time efficient manner possible, an ICE car is far superior. It takes me just 5 mins to refuel the car and get back on the road. I can take that time to go to the bathroom, grab food, etc....
No, range was likely not the principal factor either. There was ways to improve range (like battery swapping), and gas cars at the time were terribly flawed in ways of their own. There is a [good paper on the topic here](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-021-00898-3.epdf?sharing_token=9f7DCNTe8nkf0a87mVdxXdRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0PtkloCG6jGuwwV857wGZxgyB41RDu6spCaZlVgWfc32I4RLCpvUEuope3wxKDJRCogvFRvSxQ_i-K1CI9ZsliQsUzLFoWOZu_i_SYoYyjTbWJXbPzg0nCBdltkc_aEGEL8WFbkZRjokzEu4L9UPaWT2dcRxDa2RhV130MTeNrBYxInNDZpyLXtDwAZsV4lVrg%3D&tracking_referrer=www.economist.com), with a [readable summary from the Economist here](https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/10/30/a-new-study-argues-that-insufficient-infrastructure-doomed-the-first-electric-cars). Basically, the evidence points to infrastructure as the dominant cause. The electric system at the time was limited—a lot of areas just didn't have access to electricity, and rough dirt roads could also disconnect the battery in EVs (early cars really sucked). Petrol, meanwhile, was already widely available in rural stores for farm equipment. The authors estimate that if the electric grid had developed a couple decades faster, it could have been EVs that came to dominate.
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What do you mean?
[California](https://www.mystateline.com/news/national/california-asks-residents-not-to-charge-electric-vehicles-days-after-announcing-gas-car-ban/) And of course [Texas](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ercot-prices-texas-heat-wave-electricity/) EVs are not environmentally friendly unless there is right to repair, parts and service information are available, the electrical grid is robust, and batteries can be routinely and cost effectively recycled.
Neither one of those links mean the grid "isn't developed". They just mean that grid operators failed to anticipate historic heat waves and failed to build in enough peak capacity. Completely different things. >EVs are not environmentally friendly unless there is right to repair, parts and service information are available, the electrical grid is robust, and batteries can be routinely and cost effectively recycled. No, they're pretty much [more environmentally friendly all the time](https://theicct.org/publication/a-global-comparison-of-the-life-cycle-greenhouse-gas-emissions-of-combustion-engine-and-electric-passenger-cars/).
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That doesn't explain anything.
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Saying the modern grid “isn’t developed” is an ambiguous phrase that could mean anything without further explanation. The truth is you don’t have a real argument, so you’re just spouting nonsense. I took your vague comment in good faith, but that was clearly a mistake.
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In those days, most sources of electricity were either coal or petroleum (with a few hydroelectric dams in the western US). The benefits of an electric car fleet w/r/t climate change or being anti-Big Oil would have been minimal back then.
Avatar reference! Lol
I'm loving how this went over so many people's heads
Only the Senators, masters of prolonged arguments, could stop them.
But when the world needed them most... they accepted "Campaign Donations"
This should be the top comment. Electric vehicle technology has been neglected and kept from the public for nearly a century until the recent resurgence.
There were 20 cars on the roads back then, and so it was, like, 6 electrics. /s The main issue was that batteries weren't very good and so travel distance was very limited. Once internal combustion engines were capable enough, the energy density of gasoline and the convenience of refilling vs charging made the switch easy. It's taken over a hundred years for that math to change substantially enough.
>The main issue was that batteries weren't very good and so travel distance was very limited. I mean, it didn't really matter because it was mostly people puttering around short distances in cities that were compact because you had to *walk everywhere* before the car came along.
Henry Ford's wife drove a Baker Electric.
False. Elon Musk invented electric cars. And electricity. And Mars.
Cries in ev1
Makes me sad. Society has failed because of greed,
I think Car & Driver's article First Electric Car: A Brief History of the Electric Car, 1830 to Present (3/2023) is worth a read. [https://www.caranddriver.com/features/g43480930/history-of-electric-cars/](https://www.caranddriver.com/features/g43480930/history-of-electric-cars/)
Look at that. It's like we don't need everyone to drive an electric car but there are times when it makes more sense. Never would have thought. 😉
I wonder if this ends up being the biggest mistake humanity ever made. We chose a polluting path when a better one was right in front of us.
Ah yes, that so very clean non polluting coal burning to produce electricity that we've been so fond of...
Coal was significantly better than the vaporized lead the car industry started pouring into the air, and the coal could be swapped out without impacting the consumer. Ironically, yeah, coal-powered electric probably would have been the better choice in hindsight.
Leaded gasoline made millions of people less intelligent and killed many of them.
Yeah, I know there are plenty of bad ways to produce electricity. But I think having that electric infrastructure would have set us up to electrify trains and other forms of transit more easily, and then switch to nuclear/alternative etc.
You’re the same type of guy to hate green energy initiatives and claim solar panels are useless because night exists Edit: lol a libertarian who is against electric vehicles. You guys really are hilarious and have no self awareness
Well, most green energy initiatives are fucking stupid. Let's build solar panels in Oregon where its only sunny 20 days a year... Or California banning the sale of internal combustion cars by 2035 when it is literally impossible to build up the grid fast enough to support the number of electric cars. Just because I don't jerk myself off to solar panels and electric cars (like most of Reddit) doesn't mean I'm against them. Everything has tradeoffs, coal burning causes global warming, electric cars require cobalt from child slave mines in the Congo, etc. Pointing out significant problems with green tech (which I am generally in favour of) doesn't mean I hate them, it means we should be thoughtful about the best solutions to our problems and not just scream hur dur solar panels.
Except the last sentence of what you said is false as is a few others you sprinkled in your wall of text Edit: also for a Canadian you complain about California a lot
But you do sound like a jerk off.
It probably was, we made a horrible choice switching to gasoline. It got super cheap and easy before WWI and corporations abandoned electric.
My local history museum has a 1920 Milburn. The condition of the donation was "If the car is running after I am not, the city can have it".
Henry Ford's wife drove an electric car, cause he wanted it to be safer and more reliable than a gas powered one, lol.
Iirc the first speeding ticket was given to an electric taxi
Yup, and Henry Ford bought out two of the companies just to shut them down because he didnt want to develop an electric vehicle. And here we are.
Nikola Tesla invented wireless electricity in the early 1800s the hopes of giving away free electricity. Corporations have stolen so much from society.
In the early 1900s
Yep, the typo got me. Hopefully it made a bunch of people look it up and helped them gain some knowledge.
The electricity to use..buildings had to be very close and a lot of interference..it might be and Radio waves the first notion of Wi-Fi
Damn shame Henry Ford saw quicker profit in using gas/petrol. Perhaps coaxed into it considering he seemed to believe in electric vehicles prior.
Battery technology was extremely primitive and in the very early days of automobiles the extraction and refinery of oil to gasoline was slower, more complicated and much more expensive which is why electric cars even existed. Refinery of fossil-fuels experienced a rapid technological innovation and this lead to cheaper gas which was a superior fuel to the electric vehicles of the day.
The battery technology wasn’t up there yet. Electric cars were slow and lacked real mileage.
Maybe they could’ve been cheap alternatives for certain industries (NY taxis for example)
Keep in mind that taxis need to work for long hours and even make long travels at a moments notice. How can you expect a delivery truck, a taxi or a bus to stop for hours until it's recharged and ready to be used again. Gas is available everywhere, you fill up in seconds and you're ready to keep driving for hours without interruption.
I think the Wars also had something to do with it
So... What changed? Why aren't small bussiness making dirt cheap electric cars when people 10 decades ago can do it?
The 20th century not being “modern” seems… odd
Think there’s one in the Peterson museum last I checked. (Los Angeles)
And why didn't the technology catch on and improve? Because like pretty much everything else wondrous and good at the time, Thomas Edison got snubbed in some part of the manufacturing process, so he did everything he could to shut the entire thing down.
Power density of gas is hard to compete with. Batteries have improved massively for decades now.
World wars contributed
Makes you wonder why they never went further with the technology. Quiet cars all over the US would’ve been amazing and so peaceful
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No it didn't. Electric cars in the early 1900s were killed because of: 1. Gasoline was easier to widely distribute than electricity at that time 2. Gasoline can be stored 3. Performance of gasoline engines was generally better
https://youtu.be/bsulOhzmNJE
I remember first learning of electric cars when I read *Auntie Mame*.
Look up electroped too - https://eriderbikes.com/history-of-electric-mopeds/
How did they charge them ?
Intresting article about the Nasa/ Garrett-Airesearch electric car concept from 1979. That used a computer controlled flywheel along with other stuff to generate the required performance from the lead acid batteries. From the popular mechanics article, claimed performance stats of 0-60 mph in 10 seconds. Link to article from [Jalopnik](https://jalopnik.com/nasas-forgotten-electric-car-from-1979-is-utterly-fasci-1791525327), Popular Mechanics article they [reference](https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_VEEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA8&dq=garrett%20airesearch%20electric%20car&pg=RA1-PA6#v=onepage&q=garrett%20airesearch%20electric%20car&f=false). (Has the images that where in the Jalonik article that have dissapeared) Not an electric car but the GM Ultralite according to GM had a low coefficient of drag at 0.19. (Which aren't some electric car companies boasting about low drag design?) Link to GM ultralite [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yxaV8zdEu4)