
We Could Have Had Electric Cars from the Beginning - mibzman
https://longreads.com/2019/06/13/we-could-have-had-electric-cars-from-the-very-beginning/
======
chadcmulligan
Some of the reasons why petrol won:

There was no electric grid to speak of - even now there is concern the grid
can't support all EV's, once you were outside the cities (and there weren't
many back then) the grid was spotty. The miracle of being able to pour some
cheap liquid in an engine and drive for miles is a considerable achievement.

Lead acid batteries weren't very good and were expensive (and still are) and
don't last long compared to petrol engines.

Electric motors were big then - it was only rare earth magnets that made them
small enough to consider using in cars at high speed/ranges.

Its always been possible to make a small electric commuter car to drive round
at 30mph for short distances but even today there are none like this, because
people want to take their cars on the road on the weekend without having to
worry. In the 1900's it was the call of the open road and cheap travel (petrol
was very cheap then) that made petrol win.

~~~
godelski
Another reason: Even today the energy density of batteries is SUBSTANTIALLY
smaller than that of fossil fuels. [0] We frequently see this graph [1]
showing how far batteries have come (they have! and we need to keep going) but
not understanding this is part of the issue too. [0] is why we need to keep
researching, but [0] is why electric was never going to win in the beginning.
It is taking very advanced materials to get to pretty decent energy densities
and also advanced materials to use electricity more efficiently. Advanced
materials that would likely^ not have been invented that far back even if
there was a demand.

[0]
[https://static.financialsense.com/historical/users/u242/imag...](https://static.financialsense.com/historical/users/u242/images/2013/Energy-
Density.jpg)

[1]
[https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gp_Pandey/publication/2...](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gp_Pandey/publication/231064871/figure/fig1/AS:300535103148037@1448664560867/Comparison-
of-energy-densities-of-different-battery-systems.png)

^ For you hopefuls, I say _likely_ not impossible. The machining to create
these state of the art batteries requires a lot of other technologies.

~~~
hwillis
This is an incredibly myopic take masquerading as "first principles". First,
you're flat wrong on the differences between gas and batteries, _especially_
for cars. Second, you need an actual _reason_ energy density is the
fundamental metric- cars aren't rockets and weight isn't the end-all.

It's impossible to neglect the efficiency here. Car-scale combustion engines
have a real world efficiency of around _ten percent_ compared to electric. A
gallon of E10 contains 34.9 kWh and randomly picking a Toyota Avalon you'll
get a real world 17 mpg with that[1], which works out to 16.4 mpge.

Compare that to real world measurements of a Tesla Model 3, a car that is MUCH
more powerful and heavier, but gets 147.4 mpge[2]. The Avalon gets 11% as many
miles per unit of energy stored. E10 is equivalent to 1.32 kWh/kg (4.8 MJ/kg).

Not to mention that graph of battery energy density is significantly out of
date. Normal li-ion, is at 300 Wh/kg (1.1 MJ/kg) and li-sulfur is commercially
available at 500 Wh/kg[3] (1.8 MJ/kg). Even Tesla's batteries are above 250
Wh/kg.

So the bottom line is the difference is ~5x right now. Is that enough to
matter? 15.5 gallons of gas (standard fuel tank) weighs 44 kg, or 2.7% the
total weight of the Avalon. The full capacity in batteries at 250 Wh/kg would
weigh 232.32 kg, or 11.4% more. As much as 2 people + luggage. That's a
totally irrelevant increase in weight; luxury or performance cars in a given
class can weigh DOUBLE the lightest cars in the same class.

The energy density of batteries is a red herring for all vehicles except
cargo/tanker ships and long-distance airplanes. It's _completely_ irrelevant
for vehicles. The charging speed is arguably minorly important but by FAR the
most important things are the upfront and lifetime cost. That is related to
energy density... the energy density of the power plant's fuel, not the
battery. And again, it's incredibly naive to assume the weight is the major
factor in cost.

[1]:
[https://www.fueleconomy.gov/mpg/MPG.do?action=mpgData&vehicl...](https://www.fueleconomy.gov/mpg/MPG.do?action=mpgData&vehicleID=37105&browser=true&details=on)

[2]:
[https://www.fueleconomy.gov/mpg/MPG.do?action=mpgData&vehicl...](https://www.fueleconomy.gov/mpg/MPG.do?action=mpgData&vehicleID=39836&browser=true&details=on)

[3]: [https://sionpower.com/](https://sionpower.com/)

~~~
Mirioron
Will charging speed really only be of minor importance? How do you charge your
vehicle if you live in an apartment building? And if you can't do that and
charging at a station takes more than 3-5 minutes then you cut out a _huge_
part of the populace.

~~~
hwillis
> Will charging speed really only be of minor importance? How do you charge
> your vehicle if you live in an apartment building? And if you can't do that
> and charging at a station takes more than 3-5 minutes then you cut out a
> huge part of the populace.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. If you have to leave your home to charge, the
time is relatively unimportant. Sub 3-5 minutes is a big deal because you can
do it on the way home from work, but you could also accomplish that with a
battery swap or even a small top-off block you keep indoors. I could have
phrased it better by saying that charge speed is arguably a major issue, but
only if there is no way to solve the distribution problem.

Until then it's pretty low value- 10 minutes doesn't have much benefit over 30
minutes since you have to plan around it. If you're stopping for ten minutes,
you may as well eat or run errands, and then it might as well be 30 minutes.

If it's 30+ minutes you need to do it while you run errands or something, so
it may as well be an hour. You'll only ever notice on the few days you drive
for hundreds of miles at once. If it's over an hour, it might as well be 6+
hours, because you'll only ever do it overnight.

------
Animats
* But no sudden technological breakthrough explains the automobile’s arrival in the 1890s either.*

Er, steel? Steel was about as exotic as titanium is now until the 1860s when
the Bessemer process went into volume production.

~~~
maxxxxx
I think steam engines prototyped a lot of the needed technology like
lubrication, manufacturing of precision shafts and heat resistance which then
could be applied to the gas engine.

~~~
jdietrich
There's an interesting example of technological synergy at the dawn of the
steam engine industry.

To build an effective steam engine, you need a precisely ground piston and a
precisely bored cylinder, otherwise you can't get useful working pressures.
Grinding the piston is laborious but straightforward - you just need two
centers and a cutting tool to achieve a rotationally symmetrical part. Boring
the cylinder is much more challenging, because you need to cut a very wide,
very deep, very straight hole into a huge lump of iron. Cutting that hole
requires a very rigid, very powerful machine.

John Wilkinson developed an effective boring machine in 1774 for making
cannons, but it was limited in speed and capacity by the water wheel that
powered it. The next year, the Boulton & Watt company was founded, building
stationary steam engines with cylinders made by Wilkinson. Wilkinson received
the second steam engine built by Boulton & Watt, which he used to power a
bigger and faster cylinder boring machine, which he used to build more and
bigger steam engine cylinders for Boulton & Watt.

~~~
dmitriid
This also shows the curious paradox (if it’s a paradox) that we can’t easily
re-create many of the industries from scratch. We’ve had many intermediate
steps that we discarded along the way.

In other words, modern industry is the product of modern industry.

~~~
Animats
There are points in mechanical history where you have a real problem taking
the next step. The classic is "who made the first tongs?" You need a handling
tool that will survive fire to do blacksmithing. How was the first one made?
It's ascribed to God in some Jewish text and to Thor in some Viking legend.
Probably someone used chipped rocks as handling tools.

Another bootstrapping problem is making a precise screw thread without another
screw, as in a lathe, to use as a reference. This was solved by Maudsley, who
invented the "screw originating machine".[1]

The sequence for bootstrapping machine tools from a very low level is well
known, because hobbyists sometimes build their own machine tools and need to
take upward steps. Hammer, anvil, forge, lathe, better lathe, better lathe,
good lathe, planer, bigger planer, drill press, better drill press, milling
machine, better milling machine, good milling machine. There's a set of books
on this intended for a post nuclear disaster. (It assumes you have aluminum
scrap around.) Electronics is tougher to cold start.

[1]
[http://collection.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/co46546/tool-...](http://collection.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/co46546/tool-
for-originating-screw-threads-made-by-henry-screw-cutting)

------
8bitsrule
Related article (by Alexis Madrigal), "The Electric Taxi Company You Could
Have Called in 1900" about an attempt to roll out an electric cab company in
NYC and the rest of New England.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/03/the-e...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/03/the-
electric-taxi-company-you-could-have-called-in-1900/72481/)

Another article which touches on the subject:
[https://grist.org/article/2011-03-28-alexis-madrigal-
crazy-g...](https://grist.org/article/2011-03-28-alexis-madrigal-crazy-
greentech-history-powering-the-dream/)

"At a time when many people were stuck inside new urban confines, unable to
get outside to private spaces, having a car that could tour, a car with a lot
of range, was quite appealing.... And it was just sexy to go fast. People like
to go fast."

------
rb808
You can visit Thomas Edison's house with his lab near Newark NJ. There are two
electric cars on display. Interestingly here it says in 1914 38% of all the
cars on the road were electric; 22% gasoline, 40% steam powered.

[http://www.edisonmuckers.org/edisons-
cars/](http://www.edisonmuckers.org/edisons-cars/)

~~~
m-i-l
"In 1914: 38% of all the cars on the road were electric; 22% gasoline, 40%
steam powered."[0] "by 1917, only 50,000 electrics were registered compared to
3.5 million IC cars. Steamers were all but gone"[1]

Assuming both sets of stats are correct, it sounds like something happened
between 1914 and 1917 that led to the switch from electric (or steam) cars to
ones powered by internal combustion engines. Perhaps the First World War?

[0] Parent comment reference, i.e. [http://www.edisonmuckers.org/edisons-
cars/](http://www.edisonmuckers.org/edisons-cars/)

[1] Main story link, i.e. [https://longreads.com/2019/06/13/we-could-have-had-
electric-...](https://longreads.com/2019/06/13/we-could-have-had-electric-
cars-from-the-very-beginning/)

~~~
rb808
Looks like 1.7m model Ts were built around that time
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_T#Price_and_product...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_T#Price_and_production)

------
Swizec
We also could have had steam powered cars. Jay Leno once said that he got
pulled over on the freeway for breaking the speed limit in his Stanley Steamer
from 1906-ish. Darn thing has a top speed of 127mph.

My 2018 motorcycle tops out at 110mph, to give you a comparison.

Why don't we have steam cars?

Because in the early 1900's steam cars they couldn't compete with the elegance
of ICE vehicles. The engines were big and heavy, the fuel was hard to manage,
they took a long time to warm up, etc etc. The internal combustion engine was
just a way better tool for the job.

Same reason electric cars didn't win: The ICE was just a way better tool for
the job at the time. This is now changing, but very slowly.

Tesla, for example, still doesn't have an official Nurburgring lap time
because it simply isn't able to drive at racing speeds for long enough without
the battery overheating and reducing power output to avoid damage. Yes racing
electric cars exist and they're awesome, but even Formula E swaps cars in the
middle of the race because a single car can't last long enough.[1]

It does look like VW's electric supercar currently attacking the Nurburgring
lap record. Already holds the absolute record for Pikes Peak. Exciting times
we live in :)[2]

[1] [https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-time-clocked-in-by-
Tesla-M...](https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-time-clocked-in-by-Tesla-Model-
S-in-N%C3%BCrburgring)

[2][https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/05/vws-record-breaking-
ele...](https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/05/vws-record-breaking-electric-car-
takes-on-worlds-scariest-racetrack-nurburgring/)

~~~
tomjakubowski
> Tesla, for example, still doesn't have an official Nurburgring lap time
> because it simply isn't able to drive at racing speeds for long enough
> without the battery overheating and reducing power output to avoid damage

Now I'm really curious: with a limit on the Tesla's performance to keep the
battery from overheating, what's the fastest time it could do?

That they don't have an official lap time for this reason strikes me as almost
dishonest, since they marketed the Roadster entirely and the Model S
significantly on performance. But you can't actually drive either to its limit
for more than a couple minutes? Lame.

~~~
Swizec
> But you can't actually drive either to its limit for more than a couple
> minutes? Lame.

Notice all of Tesla's marketing is about acceleration, not lap times. They
beat any other car hands down on the drag strip. But cornering is just not
their forte (too heavy) and driving fast for a long time is hard (too much
power draw).

~~~
smileysteve
Too heavy? But the skateboard puts all of the weight as low as possible

~~~
Swizec
Weight, even if it’s low, still increases stopping distance and requires more
grip to get around corners. You can’t escape kinetic energy.

------
thrower123
I don't think you can discount the military applications as a factor. It is
not as extreme as in aviation in terms of raw innovation, but without the
demand for millions of engines for trucks, tanks, jeeps, and all the other
machinery of war sparked by the warfare of the first part of the 20th century,
the internal combustion engine would not be as ubiquitous as it is today. In
thirty years armies went from marching on oats and horseshoes to petrol and
Goodyears.

Maneuver warfare would have been impossible on electric. And then when the war
was over, all that surplus machinery was around, and so were the factories
that built it.

~~~
m-i-l
This aligns to the timings of the switch to ICE, which appears to be between
1914 and 1917 - see
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20181692](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20181692)
.

------
ineedasername
_We Could Have Had Electric Cars from the Beginning_

All true. If we ignore the massive increase in infrastructure needed to make
them viable outside of cities. And also ignore, as the article does, the time
it would take to charge along with the short lifetime of batteries in that
era. It doesn't matter if their range equaled that of an IC, the IC could be
ready for the next leg of a trip almost instantly compared to an EV.
Effectively this halved the range of an EV. If you could only drive 60 miles
and there was no guaranteed prospect of charging at the end, you had to be
able to return home to charge, meaning 30 miles out and 30 miles back.

All issues that still represent bottlenecks to EV adoption today, albeit much
less so, and which are gradually being overcome.

~~~
magduf
The range isn't really a problem: all you have to do is have "battery
stations" where you swap out the batteries in a few minutes. This has its
issues (related to ownership of the batteries, and also standardization), but
technically it's completely doable. They've had lead-acid batteries for over a
century now, so if society had wanted to make EVs the norm, this could have
been done.

~~~
ineedasername
It's still an issue, requiring large infrastructure investments to build
battery stations and the charging equipment. Compare this to gasoline and it's
precursor mixtures which could be derived from coal, for which there already
existed massive distribution infrastructure.

I think the author reads entirely too much into the supposed psychology of an
IC powered vehicle instead of the much more simple explanation: path
dependency.

------
Beldur
When I visited the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, I was surprised to find out,
that Porsche's first car was an Electric one :-)

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_P1](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche_P1)

~~~
amai
See also [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohner-
Porsche](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohner-Porsche) from 1900:

"The Lohner-Porsche's design was studied by Boeing and NASA to create the
Apollo program's Lunar Roving Vehicle."

------
lgleason
Battery technology has been, and to a certain degree still is the limiting
factor for electric cars...and the fact is that gasoline is still a denser
form of energy storage than batteries by volume, weight etc..

I'm saying this as a someone who prefers electrics over ICE...

~~~
wmf
Nuclear is denser than gasoline but we don't run cars on it. There's a lot
more to the discussion than the best technology.

~~~
jacquesm
You meant 'there is a lot more to the discussion than the density of the
energy carrier'.

A nuclear vehicle would be impractical due to waste and risk.

~~~
standardUser
It turns out the same was true for internal combustion engines all along.

~~~
pier25
People usually think cars are the biggest sources of emissions but it's not
even close. All transportation (car, planes, trains, etc) represent 14% of
global emissions.

Globally the biggest source of emissions is energy production which represents
about 35% (25% of direct emissions and 10% of processes like refining fuel).

[https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-
emiss...](https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-
data#Sector)

So, I doubt emissions from ICE cars would be as bad as widespread nuclear
residues from nuclear cars.

~~~
Tempest1981
I think this was posted/referenced recently:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1EB1zsxW0k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1EB1zsxW0k)

Gates interview on energy

~~~
pier25
Nice video.

Yeah, energy production, storage, and consumption is really the fundamental
problem to solve.

For example Vlacav Smil has said many times that the US should invest heavily
in home insulation to reduce heating and AC energy.

------
Johnny555
_Early electric cars performed better in cities than internal combustion
vehicles, but didn’t give riders the same illusion of freedom and masculine
derring-do_

Isn't that the same reason we still don't all drive electric cars?

I was always disappointed that NEV's didn't take off, seems like a perfect
solution for cities and even suburbs -- lanes could be striped much narrower
and parking could be much more dense.

But few people want to drive a glorified golf cart to the office, even if they
only drive 10 miles and are stuck in stop and go traffic anyway, so the 25mph
NEV cap wouldn't really change their commute time.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighborhood_Electric_Vehicle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighborhood_Electric_Vehicle)

------
adrianmonk
> _Early electric cars performed better in cities than internal combustion
> vehicles_

This article talks a lot about cars around 1900.

In the US in 1900, 60% of the population lived in rural areas and only 40%
lived in cities. (See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_the_United_Sta...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_the_United_States#Historical_statistics))

So working well in rural areas was probably a more important concern. A
product that works OK for all your potential customers is better (from a
business's point of view) than one that works a bit better for some customers
and not at all for others.

~~~
sitkack
85% of all the income was probably made in cities.

~~~
adrianmonk
Valid point. I couldn't easily find data on that, though I do think that at a
certain point cars became one of those things you find a way to afford (even
if you don't have a lot of money) because of how useful they are if you live
in a rural area.

------
crimsonalucard
If we replaced all cars with EV's how much greenhouse gas would we actually
curb? I know we're shifting the strain of the car producing greenhouse gases
tp the power plant. Anybody know the numbers?

Intuitively I always thought the only way of actually making a dent in
emissions is to change the way we live by shifting to public transportation.
Suburbia is what makes the US the leading greenhouse gas producers and only
changing the way we live to be more like cities such as NYC or Tokyo do we
actually stand to make a change. We need to reduce the usage of cars to make a
meaningful dent in greenhouse gas emissions.

------
Causality1
They could've worked in cities. Lead-acid batteries, though, have never had
the energy/weight ratio necessary for the type of long-range driving necessary
outside of highly urbanized areas.

~~~
Gibbon1
I think people tend to forget that before 1900-1940 if you were outside of the
city; no electricity.

~~~
munk-a
Not everyone has always had access to everything... internet in rural
districts used to be rare as well.

I don't think you can really make any sort of meaningful conclusion from this
- rural areas tend to lag in this sort of innovation.

~~~
Gibbon1
Two of my great grandfathers bought cars around 1915. One owned a plantation
outside of Memphis. And the other a ranch in California. They didn't have
electricity.

Not developed by my comment is in 1920 you didn't 'need' a car in cities.
Since you had street cars. In rural/small town America cars were really useful
but electric cars were a non starter.

------
axaxs
Unpopular opinion, but I truly feel battery powered cars are a dead end. Gas
won out over earlier models because of its unique properties, most of which is
its easy availability and high energy density. Batteries are heavy, and range
limited. A true successor to the ICE must offer the same freedoms afforded.
Whether it's super fast charging, nuclear, or a greener fuel, though, I'm not
sure.

~~~
LeoPanthera
The 2019 Tesla model S has a range of 370 miles, and I assume that as time
passes, more EVs will have a range approaching that figure.

That range is considerably longer than the range of my bladder, so once
charging increases in speed, this "problem" simply vanishes. We're already on
our way there, the first 250kW charger opened this week, and will add 180
miles of range in 15 minutes.

In fact, it's better than an ICE car, because I can charge at home, and start
every single journey with 100% charge.

~~~
forkandwait
How long does it take to charge? Granted 350 miles is a long trip, but some 9f
us drive from Seattle to San Francisco and we can't do that in 350 burst
waiting overnight for the car to charge.

Personally I think a hybrid that plugs into 120, with a commuting range 50
miles and a back up gas engine will be the sweet spot

~~~
emilecantin
Lithium-ion batteries can be fully charged safely in about an hour, give or
take, regardless of their capacity. 80% charge is about half that, IIRC.

The reason it takes a while to recharge EVs is because of the enormous size of
their batteries. Tesla Superchargers inject more power into the car than what
comes into a regular home.

Quick math: A 100KWh is going to take a bit more than 100KW of power to charge
in an hour. For comparison, an oven uses about 3KW...

------
chrisco255
It's amusing to see people "Monday morning quarterbacking" on one of the
greatest achievements of the 20th century. "We could have done it ANOTHER
way!" ignores the fact that it might not have happened at all.

------
ryanmercer
So I started reading popular mechanics 1905-2005 last weekend, in the first
issue of 1905 they actually show a little blurb about electric mail trucks, I
knew EVs went way back but found it pretty neat.

------
oblib
Early models of Ford's Model T had adjustable carburetors to run on ethanol
with gasoline as an option.

Not electric, but renewable, sustainable, and I'd assume (maybe wrongly)
mostly carbon neutral.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
The problem with ethanol is that the most efficient plants for making it also
happen to be food crops.

~~~
imtringued
No, that's not the problem. The problem is that driving tractors and producing
fertilizer requires a lot of fossil fuels.

~~~
rightbyte
You can run the tractors on ethanol also, though?

------
egypturnash
Hindsight is 20/20.

------
todd8
Perhaps we could have had electric vehicles sooner, but we would have needed
clean sources of electricity, not coal powered generation, to make a
difference.

~~~
Robotbeat
Many of the largest early sources of electricity were, in fact, hydro power.
We could've just kept building more of those until the mid 20th century when
we would've pretty much maxed out the rivers (in the US).

And don't forget wind power. Could do that, too. The intermittentness handled
in areas by hydro as well. Then nuclear in the mid 20th century.

~~~
9HZZRfNlpR
If we talk about world, not just USA, then many places just don't have the
luxury of hydro, or even wind. And often gas needs to be imported making it
expensive. Coal was just cheap and effective to begin with.

------
jhoechtl
Why would we have had electric car from the beginning? Producing an E-car
consumes more energy than a car with an internal combustion engine, the milage
is a joke. And if electricity is coming from coal power plants it is all but
green.

~~~
LeoPanthera
> Producing an E-car consumes more energy than a car with an internal
> combustion engine,

That's true! These differences change as soon as the cars are driven. EVs are
powered by electricity, which is generally a cleaner energy source than
gasoline. Battery electric cars make up for their higher manufacturing
emissions within eighteen months of driving — shorter range models can offset
the extra emissions within 6 months. Source:
[https://youtu.be/K9m9WDxmSN8](https://youtu.be/K9m9WDxmSN8)

> the milage is a joke.

The 2019 Tesla model S has a range of 370 miles, and on new superchargers will
add 180 miles of range in 15 minutes. Source:
[https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/24/new-tesla-
model-s-370-m...](https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/24/new-tesla-
model-s-370-miles-of-range-epa-goes-from-bay-area-to-la-on-one-charge-tesla-
killer-comparisons/)

Of course, most EV owners rarely use any charger other than their home one,
since you can start every journey with 100% charge.

This might be "a joke" to you, I cannot say.

> And if electricity is coming from coal power plants it is all but green.

That's also true! Lucky then that all electricity does not come from coal
power plants. In the US, that's only 17.8%. Source:
[https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/](https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/)

Those with solar panels on their homes don't get their power from any kind of
power plant at all, just the sun.

