In the early twenties of the twentieth century, the popularity of electric vehicles have dropped sharply. It is because of several key factors:
- America had a revolutionary system of road connections between major cities which conditioned the need for a large range in vehicles, and so could not boast of electric vehicles.
- The discovery in Texas of oil petroleum significantly lowered the price so that everyone could still relatively cheap drive in combustion vehicles.
http://www.rare-maps.com/PHOTOS_PIC/P-0354-TEXAS-OIL.JPG
- in 1912, Charles Kettering invented something without which one cannot imagine today's cars - electric starter:)
http://msnbcmedia4.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/110210-gm_starter.grid-4x2.jpg
- The most serious impact on discrimination of electric vehicles was the start of an innovative factory by Henry Ford. Ford Diesel vehicles popularized and made it widely accessible and not expensive.
http://www.idols.pl/best-cars/Ford_15_Model_T.jpg
Among the above reasons Electric vehicles disappeared from the market in middle 1935, then came the times of war, and nobody thought of civilian applications of technological innovations :)
And so until the 1960s initially superbly growing market of electric vehicles stopped :(
In the ‘60s and ’70s Americans noted the need to develop alternative technologies to reduce emissions and become independent from oil imports. Then there were a lot successful constructions of electric vehicles such as Jeeps from American Motor Company or Sebring-Vanguard "CitiCars."
http://image.absoluteastronomy.com/images/encyclopediaimages/c/ci/citivan.jpg
In the early nineties Americans developed and produced a new generation of electric vehicles. Those vehicles were based on conventional cars.
Examples of these cars were the Chevrolet S-10 pickup converted by Electricar or an electric Ford Ranger.
The most famous electric car of the nineties was shrouded in glory Electric Vehicle. Manufactured by General Motors. This car was designed and developed from the ground.
General Motors EV1 electric car is legendary, its production began in 1996 and lasted until 2000. At that time, it was built and given on lease (you could not normally buy this car) more than 1100 pieces of EV1 (660 pieces of first-generation and 457 second-generation).
Unfortunately, after changing the law in the U.S project collapsed. What followed was the withdrawal of the EV1 users after the expiry of contracts and destroying cars. Only a few copies have survived in the hands of museums or universities of technology as exhibits. EV1 electric vehicles enjoyed considerable popularity, there was no shortage of people willing to take in lease, and even enthusiasts offering U.S. $ 30-40 thousand for the redemption of the car from General Motors.
Pictures of EV1 (, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/GM_EV.jpg, http://evworld.com/EVWORLD_TV.CFM?storyid=1726, http://neeaa.org/ev1a.jpg, http://i.treehugger.com/files/th_images/crushed-ev1-01.jpg)
It is hard to believe that 20 years ago somebody could build such a car and the project was closed…
Do you believe in Conspiracy with EV1?
At the end of the twentieth century, were produced at a variety of electric cars like the Toyota RAV4 or the Honda EV Plus. Vehicles from this period were always equipped with the newest technological innovations, which resulted in the price spikes and the high failure rate of these cars compared to "normal" cars.
Questions:
1. First from text: Do you believe in Conspiracy with EV1?
2. How might history have changed if oil was not used in vehicles?
Źródła:
carfolio.com/specifications/models/car/?car=107844
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicle
inventors.about.com/od/estartinventions/a/History-Of-Electric-Vehicle s.htm
econogics.com/ev/evhistry.htm
evsroll.com/EV_History_&_Future.html
evchargernews.com/CD-A/gm_ev1_web_site/specs/specs_specs.htm
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion it could be a kind of plot with EV1. Petroleum lobby is so strong that they can not allow to global production of electric cars having such a great results. It could be a serious competitor for "normal", I mean petrol-powered cars!
ReplyDeleteI wish I could try to drive such a car as EV1 - it looks fantastic!!!
I think that it could be true. When money comes into play everything is possible. Nothing has matter. People do not take anything into account. I have already heard about some inventions connected with car branch which were purchased and made secret. Otherwise a car sale would decreased and it is clear that the companies will never allow to it.
ReplyDelete1) I don't believe there is any conspiracy behind it, it was simply not good enough to compete with traditional cars.
ReplyDelete2) Transportation would be more expensive :P
I agree with kniaz and Gosia. I think if there is big money to win, there will be also some pressure of different lobbies. In case of EV1 it seems possible and I wouldn't be surprised if it was true.
ReplyDeleteYour second question is very similar to one you've asked in the previous part of your presentation and I don't know what else I could answer. It could change our thinking about transportation, technology and energy and surely it would affect all these issues. But how? It's unimaginable :)
I'm not sure about the conspiracy. This story seems to be a bit exaggerated. People see conspiracies everywhere ....
ReplyDeleteI believe that the environment a lot to this gained if, instead of using petrol for cars, use electricity. Let's at least for oil spills from drilling platforms BP.
I agree with Małgorzata - where is money - there ist power and everything becomes possible.
ReplyDeleteI don't know It's very hard to say. It's like to ask our grandparents were they were in our age, what will they say or think about Internet?
You know, when we conciser a big amount of money and income limitation we can assume every kind of innovation as a point of uprising aimed at restriction to Petrol Leaders.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to imagine how the world would look like. Just after Gold Fiver Age we started to obtain the Oil - it's all about the money.
In my opinion we wouldn't be so far in technology right now. All that events caused economic growth. The same as Wars. It is cruel, but most brilliant things came because of them.
> 1. First from text: Do you believe in Conspiracy with EV1?
ReplyDeleteI'm a conspiracy kinda guy, so yes! Something smells fishy about it.
> 2. How might history have changed if oil was not used > in vehicles?
Probably USA would not invaded Iraq. ;) Another thing is that most of the time people/scientists focus on technologies that improve our life. When there were plenty of oil and people didn't know that is it non-renewable source of energy they didn't focus on finding another way of powering vehicles. Because there were not need for it if oil worked.