A new or old kind of transportation?

There are a lot of people who believe that electric vehicles are the future of our transportation. However, others suppose that it's the wrong and long-running way of developing car industry. But the Potential of electric cars seems to be higher now than ever before.

Traditional automakers including General Motors, Volkswagen, Daimler AG, and others are all investing heavily in electric vehicles. ‘And, of course, it's Tesla Motors Company which has built its entire business off of battery powered cars.

The history of the electric car stretches way, way back, about 200 years at this point. The electric car has a longer history than both the steam and gasoline-powered car, and came about two decades after the first steam locomotives hit the rails.

It's hard to relate the invention of the electric car to only one inventor. But it is supposed that Hungarian Benedictine priest and inventor Anyos Jedlik was the first person to try strapping an electric engine to four wheels in 1828. It's important to understand that it was a series of breakthroughs. The step from the battery to the electric motor in the 1800s led to the first electric vehicle on the road.

As electric vehicles came onto the market, so did a new type of vehicle. It was the gasoline-powered car. It also had their faults. It required a lot of manual effort to drive, for example, changing gears was not easy and they needed to be started with a hand crank. Besides, they were noisy, and their exhaust was unpleasant.

On the other hand, electric cars didn't have any of the issues associated with steam or gasoline. By the year 1900, they werе actually gaining popularity with urban residents, especially women, who appreciated the simplicity, quietness and lack of smelly smoke. They were perfect for short trips around the city, and poor road conditions outside cities meant few cars of any type could venture farther.

A lot of innovators were exploring ways to improve the technology at that time. For example, Ferdinand Porsche invented an electric car called the P1 in 1898. At the same time, he created the world’s first hybrid electric car. It is a vehicle that is powered by electricity and a gas engine. Thomas Edison thought electric vehicles were the superior technology and worked to build a better electric vehicle battery.

Why everything changed? When Henry Ford introduced the mass-produced and gas-powered Model T in 1908, it symbolized ‘a death to the electric car. This model was an affordable and reliable car to the masses that outperformed electric cars in speed and range. While a gasoline car cost only $650 the average electric one was sold for $1,750.

By 1935 almost all road-going electric vehicles disappeared. By the mid-70s car makers began exploring options for alternative fuel vehicles, including electric cars. But these vehicles suffered from drawbacks compared to gasoline-powered cars. So, the interest in them began to

fade once again.

Not too much happened in the electric car arena in the 1990s. The EV1 and the Prius appeared at market. After a while Silicon Valleу companies like Tesla are getting into the game. And it seems now that the time of the electric car has finally come. The electric cars from Elon Musk’s Tesla Company made the electric car reanimated and put back into the collective eye of the public.

To round out this storyline, consumers now have more choices than ever when it comes to buying an electric vehicle. It's hard to tell where the future will take electric vehicles, but it's clear they hold a lot of potential for creating a more sustainable future.

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