NYT: ‘Electric Vehicles Died a Century Ago. Could That Happen Again?’

[rangerrebew]

NYT: ‘Electric Vehicles Died a Century Ago. Could That Happen Again?’
By Marc Morano
May 28, 2025
7:18 am

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/26/business/electric-vehicles-history.html

Battery-operated vehicles were a mainstay more than a hundred years ago, but only a few still exist — one happens to be in Jay Leno’s garage.

By Ivan Penn – New York Times
BURBANK, Calif. – More than a century before Tesla rolled out its first cars, the Baker Electric Coupe and the Riker Electric Roadster rumbled down American streets. Battery-powered cars were so popular that, for a time, about a third of New York’s taxis were electric.

But those early electric vehicles began to lose ground to a new class of cars, like the Ford Model T, that were cheaper and could more easily be refueled by new oil-based fuels that were becoming available around the country. Bolstered by federal tax incentives in the 1920s, the oil industry boomed – and so did gasoline-powered cars.

That history has largely been forgotten, and almost all of the early electric cars have disappeared so completely that most people alive today have never seen one – and many have no idea that they even existed. A few specimens are in museums and private collections, including a fully restored Baker Electric that Jay Leno keeps in his sprawling California garage.

https://www.climatedepot.com/2025/05/28/nyt-electric-vehicles-died-a-century-ago-could-that-happen-again/

[Smokin Joe]

Despite policy and other challenges, Riker said he is still optimistic about electric vehicles. He expects that in the coming decades, technical advances will give such vehicles a big edge over gasoline vehicles.

“If you can charge a car in five minutes and go 500 miles,” he said, “the gasoline engine is history.”

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
In the meantime, I can pump gas for about that long (5 minutes) and go.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
In the meantime, I can pump gas for about that long (5 minutes) and go.

He's right IMO. An electrical car with the capabilities of a gas one, but you don't need to deal with fluids and stuff? Sign me up. It won't need subsidies then. Until then though, the market has spoken.

[Smokin Joe]

He's right IMO. An electrical car with the capabilities of a gas one, but you don't need to deal with fluids and stuff? Sign me up. It won't need subsidies then. Until then though, the market has spoken.

Fluids are inescapable. Lubrication is a must for longevity. Any transmission will need them.