the conspiracy that killed the electric ca in 1914.

[lfairban]

See:

A 'Black' History of Our Oil Addiction
30-Apr-2007 -- Edwin Black recounts the conspiracy that killed the electric car, not in 1998, but 1914 in this exclusive EV World (downloadable) MP3 interview.

on This Page to support his new book Internal Combustion.

[Davis_X_Machina]

1. The 'conspiracy'...

...that killed the electric car in 1914 was the laws of physics, and electrochemistry.

Lead-acid batteries -- and that's all there was then -- aren't dense enough in amperes-per-kilogram terms to compete with the internal combustion engine, even in a world before sprawl, with trolley and interurban lines still dictating the size of cities and their configuration. The latter took their power from overhead lines for a reason....

It's things like regenerative braking and improvement in batteries that make an electric car feasible today. In ten years you won't see a personal vehicle, even an SUV, with an IC powerplant bigger than about 850cc.