Shock of the old: the amazing, infuriating history of the electric car – in pictures
Believe it or not, battery-powered vehicles have been around since Victorian times – everything from private automobiles to taxis, ambulances and tricycles. We’ve got the photos to prove it
www.theguardian.com
By 1900, a third of all cars on the road in the US were electric; we’re looking at the history of a cruelly missed opportunity, and it started astonishingly early
Despite this unpromising start, electric vehicles had entered widespread commercial circulation by the start of the 20th century, particularly in the US. Electric cabs crisscrossed Manhattan, 1897’s bestselling US car was electric and, when he was shot in 1901, President McKinley was taken to hospital in an electric ambulance. London had Walter Bersey’s electric taxis, and Berlin’s fire engines went electric in 1908; the future looked bright, clean and silent.
Remember the Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894? Back then, Manhattan’s 100,000 horses produced more than 1,100 tonnes of excrement a day, with one observer describing the city as “literally carpeted with a warm, brown matting”. The danger of cities drowning in horseshit was extremely real and terrifying, so vehicles like this dainty little Smart ancestor must have felt like the futuristic answer to their prayers. Now people use the crisis’s painless resolution to argue against tackling the climate crisis, because unfortunately, no amount of progress has cured stupidity.
