A lot of people seem unaware that electric cars go back a long way, in fact to the 19th century. They represented a viable part of the motor industry certainly up to WW1, but lingered on in special circumstances. For example, Jean-Albert Gregoire of Tracta fame built and operated an electric car in Paris during WW2.
To the early motorist the electric car had a lot of advantages - no clutch or gearbox, so easy to learn to drive, quiet, reliable and odour free. As against this, they were slow, unlike the Tesla, but like Tesla suffered from range anxiety, worry about battery life, and were horrendously expensive.
What effectively marked the end for the electric car except in special circumstances was the introduction of the electric starter and the cheap, mass produced cars introduced by Henry Ford and William Morris and others in the 1910-1920 period.
John
JDNSW
1986 110 County 3.9 diesel
1970 2a 109 2.25 petrol
Originally Posted by jerryd
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