We are at a point where we are transitioning from internal combustion to electric vehicles.Model 3 launch is next month, and nearly every car company has planned electric vehicles some being serious with others just experimenting at a smaller scale, But we all can agree that electric vehicles are the future.Before we look into the future, let’s take a journey in time to see how electric cars came to be to know what they are today.

Believe it or not but electric cars predate the internal combustion cars and were popular in the 1890s till early 1910s.People enjoyed these cars because they were pollution free, silent, easy to use in fact many women prefer electric vehicles because of their ease of use, people didn’t have to start the car manually.They were mostly adopted by city people who could not care more about the limited speed of 32 Kilometre’s and limited range as it fulfilled their basic need.

After the 1920s though the road infrastructure improved dramatically, Huge oil reserves were found which decreased the gas prices.Gas cars had the much higher range and speed.Muffler and electric starter reduced the noise and made it easier to start the vehicle.The Last Nail in the coffin was Henry Ford who mastered mass production of cars with Model T and by 1912 electric vehicles cost twice of a gas car.

There were many attempts to bring back electric cars especially in the 70’s when there was a major oil crisis, but none of them brought electric vehicles to their past glory till the 90’s.

1990’s is when electric cars came back with a bang with GM’s EV One.To understand why electric cars were revived in the first place and why did they went back to complete obscurity for the second times it’s important to get some background on California’s environmental history.

California has some of the worst air quality in the United States.There was a time in the 70’s when there used to smog alerts on the radio to warn people that’s how bad things have had been so there was some local political movement to improve the air in California.

The concept car on which EV one was based on impressed the local authority named California Clear Air Resource Board(CARB) which went on to enforce laws that forced car makers to make a certain amount of electric vehicles.Naturally, the automakers complied making cars like Chrysler TEVan, Ford Ranger EV pickup truck, GM EV1 and S10 EV pickup, Honda EV Plus hatchback, Nissan lithium-battery Altra EV miniwagon and Toyota RAV4 EV.

But the carmakers and oil companies lobbied hard to remove this regulation and even sued the board.They Anti-sell their electric car or didn’t properly advertise electric vehicles.The situation got worse as federal government also became involved and forced the state to drop the law.Many of the electric cars were given on the lease, and the car owners were not given an opportunity to buy the vehicle, and they took the cars forcefully out of the hands of the owners and most of them were taken to a field and crushed.

In the 1920s the electric cars failed because of their technological limitations while in the 90s the reasons are much more political as there is an incentive to the oil companies and traditional car makers to keep making the gas cars.The electric vehicles had come a long way and substantially satisfied most of the needs of an average consumer, one of the biggest reasons for the failure of electric cars in the 90s was a lack of public awareness which made it easier for the big companies to stop the production of electric vehicles.

Fast Forward to 2003 Tesla was founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning who wanted to make electric cars and soon Elon Musk also came in took over the role of CEO.He launched Roadster in 2008 Model S in 2012 Model X in 2015 and now is going to launch model 3.

So is the history going to repeat itself for the third time well I don’t think so for the following reasons-

1)Batteries prices are falling at an unprecedented rate while the density is increasing in unprecedented rate.

2)Public Scandals like Diesel Gate have shaken the automotive industry to the core and is a big motivator for the auto industry to switch to cleaner vehicles.

3)The internet has increased the flow of information, and there is a massive public awareness for electric cars which was not present in the 90s.This is why a company like a Tesla can have 500 thousand reservations for Model 3 with essentially next to nothing marketing cost.

4)The countries have become more and more environmentally aware, and they all want to switch to clean sustainable transport system.

5)Electric cars are just fundamentally superior to internal combustion vehicles, and the more it gets into the hands of the people, the more they are becoming popular.

So that’s your history of electric cars, and we are living in exciting times as the next big revolution is coming

And the best thing we can do is educate others and embrace the revolution