Lightning in a Bottle: America's Early Electric Cars

摘要

The rise of the electric vehicle- the EV-has become perhaps the most-watched and most-discussed automotive topic of the early twenty-first century Experience with the possibilities and the challenges facing gas-electric-hybrid and fully electric propulsion has moved out of the research lab and onto the streets thanks to cars like the Toyota Prius, Honda Insight, Chevrolet Volt, Mitsubishi i, Nissan Leaf, Tesla, and a gradually growing number of others. To those with little or no appreciation for the automobile's past, these developments in electrification may seem like a groundbreaking technological epiphany of our day. But those with a longer view know better. At the dawn of automotive time, electric cars were often preferred to both of the available alternatives- vehicles powered by steam or internal-combustion engines-for moving people and things from here to there.