The electric vehicle industry has exploded in popularity over the last two decades, in light of the need to reduce our carbon emissions to achieve net zero by 2050, helped along by large strides in the practicality of electric vehicle technology, as well as a giant increase in public charging points. By the end of 2022, there were 2.7 million charging points worldwide, of which more than 900,000 were installed that year alone, making for a 55% total increase in public charging points in just one year.

It's shocking to learn that the surge in EV popularity in the 21^st century is actually something of a renaissance, as EVs were actually invented before their fuel-powered counterparts, and were very popular in their hayday during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

The Sparks of Invention (1830-1884)

The first electric vehicles came about in the 1830s, with development being brought about by the invention of electric motors. Interestingly enough, the first crude electric carriage was built by Scotland’s Robert Anderson sometime between 1832 and ’39, a long time before the first gas autos. Batteries were not yet rechargeable, so it was considered more a clever party trick than a practical mode of transportation.

ABOVE: Robert Anderson’s crude electric carriage.

A prototype electric locomotive was built by Robert Davison of Aberdeen, and could travel 1.5 miles at 4mph, towing 6 tons – and then you had to change the battery. Clearly, there was some work to be done to make electric transportation suitable for commercial use. Luckily, a huge stride was to come in 1859, with the invention of the rechargeable battery by French physicist Gaston Plante , but it would be a while yet before any more developments in the electric transport sector would come.

In 1884, inventor Thomas Parker, who was responsible for innovations such as the electrification of the London Underground, helped build electric trams and prototype cars in England, while by 1887, Scotland-born chemist William Morrison was building his electric carriage, which went on to appear in a city parade by 1888, showing off it’s front-wheel drive, 4 horsepower and a reported top speed of 20mph – most groundbreaking, however, was it’s range of 50 miles, made possible by 24 rechargeable batteries. Morrison wasn’t interested in developing vehicles, but his developments in battery technology inspired several others who were.

A Surge in Popularity (1896-1907)

The Golden Age of electric vehicles began with the Electrobat, the incredible name that belongs to the first commercially viable EV effort. An engineer and a chemist built the vehicles in 1897, which had steel tyres to support it’s insanely heavy 1,600-pound lead battery, making them heavy and impractical. In the same year, in London, a fleet of electric cabs, called the Bersey Electric Cab, hit the roads, quickly gaining the nickname “Hummingbirds” due to their distinctive idiosyncratic noise.

ABOVE: A Bersey Electric Cab at the British Motor Museum in Gaydon.

The Hummingbird taxis topped out at around 10mph, and only had a range of 30-35 miles on a full charge, which often ran out before the day’s work was done! The heavy weight of the taxis caused extensive wear and tear, which became too expensive to replace. In London, the cabs were withdrawn from use in August 1899, and electric cabs didn’t return to the streets of London until the release of the Nissan Dynamo 120 years later!

The Electrobat had a more promising start, however. After a crucial redesign in 1895, the Electrobats became considerably more practical.

ABOVE: The 1895 Electrobat II.

The new version of the Electrobat was lighter, with pneumatic tyres, and had a slight speed and range increase over its predecessor, so much so that they were able to win a 5-mile sprint race against fuel-powered counterparts and other electric vehicles in 1896! However, as impressive as this technology is, it’s likely that the Electrobat name would have faded into obscurity were it not for the fact that it’s two creators, engineer Pedro Salom and electrician Henry G. Morris, sold the idea to New Jersey business man Isaac L. Rice.

Rice attracted attention from large investors, and by the early 1900s, the New Jersey-based Electric Vehicle Company that he had created, as well as subsidiaries operating in Boston, Baltimore and other eastern cities, had over 600 electric vehicles. They even pioneered a technique that has recently been “revolutionarily” introduced in China today, where cars could drive into a converted ice rink and have their batteries swapped with a recharged set. In China, this is done to avoid batteries being overcharged and causing unnecessary degradation, but it was an absolute necessity as even the Electrobat IIs only had a range of around 25 miles, which never lasted the full day. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen investor conflicts and expansion that was slightly too rapid, the taxi venture had collapsed by 1907, with the remainder of the cars being sold off to private owners through Pope, their manufacturing partner.

Electric Atmosphere: EVs in Motorsports (1899)

However, the Golden Age of EVs did not end with the dissolution of the Electric Vehicle Company. In early motorsports, EVs proved their mettle yet again. Camille Jenatzy, the head of a Paris engineering firm, drove his own racing special vehicle, called “The Never Satisfied”) at racing events in Spring 1899, breaking both the 100km/h and 60mph speed barriers for the first time in a road vehicle!  Unlike the EV taxis, this vehicle had considerable power behind it, boasting a pair of direct-drive 25kW motors, running at 200 volts and drawing 124 amps each, equalling around 67 horsepower, which was astronomical for the time!

ABOVE: The Never Satisfied, with special edition Michelin tyres!

Static Progress (1900-1960)

While EVs were revolutionary when they first came about, fuel powered vehicles soon became more convenient. Outside of major cities, there was no supply of replacement batteries and charging options, and so EVs were severely limited, even when their short ranges began to increase. However, during this time, EVs still kept a healthy market share as lots of more affluent drivers felt that hand-cranking their noisy vehicles was too much work. Ironically enough, the electric motor enabled the invention of the electric starter by Charles Kettering, which meant that many people’s quibbles with fuel-powered vehicles evaporated.

Fuel-powered counterparts were also far less expensive, with a 1908 Ford Model T costing $850 – in comparison, many EVs were at least twice as expensive. By 1923, the Model T price was down to $300, but EV prices hadn’t decreased to maintain competition; in fact, they had done the opposite, with most EVs costing around $3000 by this point. In the decade leading up to World War II, most EV manufacturers had either switched to making ICE vehicles, or quietly gone out of business, although electric vehicles maintained a hold over a few niche use cases, such as a fleet of milk floats in Britain, and a business reminiscent of the Electric Vehicle Company’s taxi venture, which popped up in post-war Japan, where other fuels were scarce and expensive.

The Lightbulb Moment and the EV Renaissance (1972-present)

Of course, we know now that the EV industry simply needed a breakthrough in battery technology, to increase their storage capacity, and provide a rechargeable battery that was mass producable and inexpensive – the catalyst for the all-important research was caused by fuel shortages in the late 1960s. This began with M. Stanley Whittingham, whose invention of the rechargeable lithium-ion battery, which almost doubled the voltage output of previous efforts, bringing rechargeable batteries into practical use! In early 1973, Whittingham was summoned to New York, to appear before a committee of the Exxon board, who quickly decided that they wanted to invest. After several ups and downs, and several important champions such as John Goodenough and Akira Yoshino, who produced major refinements to Whittingham’s original battery design, the lithium ion battery as we know it today was born, and this, along with environmental concerns around ICE vehicles, prompted the EV renaissance we have seen over the last few decades.

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