After all this talk about the (brief, thus far) history of Tesla Motors, I had to wonder if anybody has written a more general history of the electric car? Chris Paine gave us a look at one small-but-important episode with his movie.
Prior to last summer, the only thing I knew about electric cars was that GM had made one -- and I mostly remembered that because Johnny Carson joked on The Tonight Show about naming the car "Impact". I also vaguely remembered reading somewhere once that batteries didn't store enough energy in a given mass for an electric car to be practical. That was it, that was all I knew.
Now since I've started paying attention to the subject, I've learned about so many past efforts that I never imagined. I mean, starting with the Henny Kilowatt. . . Commutacar. The Amectran EXAR-1. Tropica. Bradley. Solectria. Corbin Sparrow. The Zytek Elise. Eliica. Not to mention the homebrew scene, electric drag racing with NEDRA, the Formula LIghtning races, Challenge Bibendum, the Solar Challenge. . . .
Like much of history, the closer you look the more stories you find.
A search of Amazon turned up one book (by Curtis D. Anderson) claiming to be a general history of electric cars, and it's expensive and has very little in the way of reader reviews. I might spring for it anyhow.
Prior to last summer, the only thing I knew about electric cars was that GM had made one -- and I mostly remembered that because Johnny Carson joked on The Tonight Show about naming the car "Impact". I also vaguely remembered reading somewhere once that batteries didn't store enough energy in a given mass for an electric car to be practical. That was it, that was all I knew.
Now since I've started paying attention to the subject, I've learned about so many past efforts that I never imagined. I mean, starting with the Henny Kilowatt. . . Commutacar. The Amectran EXAR-1. Tropica. Bradley. Solectria. Corbin Sparrow. The Zytek Elise. Eliica. Not to mention the homebrew scene, electric drag racing with NEDRA, the Formula LIghtning races, Challenge Bibendum, the Solar Challenge. . . .
Like much of history, the closer you look the more stories you find.
A search of Amazon turned up one book (by Curtis D. Anderson) claiming to be a general history of electric cars, and it's expensive and has very little in the way of reader reviews. I might spring for it anyhow.