A short history of the electric car

As soon as the topic of electric cars comes up, things get pathetic. "We are at the beginning of a completely new technology!" enthuse the car manufacturers' executives. There's hardly a press conference, lecture, or subsequent discussion in which this phrase doesn't come up.

This happened at events hosted by Nissan, Mercedes-Benz, Peugeot, Mitsubishi, Opel, and Renault—to name just a few. But the entire who's who of the automotive industry could also be here. But does that automatically mean the facts are correct? Twenty manufacturers in the USA have built 33.842 electric cars in just one year, according to Automotive historian Kurt Möser in his "History of the Car." The year was 1912.

Almost 100 years later, in 2010, the automotive industry only managed three times that. 100.000 electric vehicles were new on the streets worldwide – and in Germany, the country that aims to become the leading market for e-mobility by 2020 and then have one million electric cars on its streets, there were just 300. 300 electric cars with around three million registrations, 100.000 electric cars compared to almost 75 million new cars worldwide.

In the beginning: the battery

If you look back through the chapters of automotive history, you will find plenty of evidence that the new technology is not so new after all. Not even in Germany: As early as 1900, a certain Ferdinand Porsche built an electric car with wheel hub motors, today known as Lohner-Porsche famous.

The actual But the starting signal for electromobility was given 100 years earlier with the invention of the electric battery by Alessandro Volt. In 1830, Joseph Henry invented the direct current motor, and in 1834, the American Thomas Davenport combined the two to create the first electric car, albeit with a non-rechargeable battery. "His fellow countryman Moses Farmer followed in 1847 with an electric car for two passengers, and Charles B. Page reached a speed of 31 km/h with his electrically powered vehicle," writes Marc C. Lemmel in the historical section of his doctoral thesis on energy storage systems for zero-emission vehicles.

The lead battery of 1859 (inventor was Gaston Plate) and its further development (by Camille Fave) in 1881 made it possible probably the first electric car – five years before the birth of the combustion engineThe model was built by the Frenchman Gustavé Trouve: the tricycle with its rechargeable lead battery traveled up to 12 km/h.

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While Messrs Benz and Daimler were still working on their invention, numerous electric vehicles were already driving around Paris – and were the first to reach a speed of 100 km/hThey were also popular in the USA. Lemmel: "At the turn of the century, gasoline cars were in the minority in the USA at 22 percent – ​​electric cars accounted for 38 percent, and steam engines 40 percent of road vehicles."

E-vehicles were also part of the street scene in Berlin: Electric hotel buses from the Motorvehicle- and Engine factory AG drove in fleets, Department stores and warehouses rely on electric delivery vehicles. During the Weimar Republic, there were even electric taxis; in 1926, Daimler and Leaz built small, manual series of electrically powered delivery vehicles for the Austrian Post Office.

Fifteen years later , due to wartime gasoline shortages, Peugeot built the VLV, a two-seater with a folding roof powered by electricity . At the same time, manufacturers of all kinds were working on small and very small production runs of electric models. Even well-known manufacturers were involved, such as BMW in Germany with its E1. In 1991, the Munich-based company built prototypes whose charging port was hidden in the front grille and which could travel 250 kilometers after an eight-hour charge. However, series production never materialized.

Before the breakthrough

However, there were many announcements. Even renowned newspapers such as Frankfurtr General Newspaper (FAZ) headlines already spoke of 100.000 electric cars that would be on the streets within a very short time. And that was in the 90s. Renault, Ford, Volkswagen, and General Motors built electric cars, but – contrary to bold announcements – only built in small rows were.

Little has changed in this regard, even though the actual breakthrough is announced every year. Currently, everything points to 2013/2014, when the first models in real mass production are expected to roll off the production line. After all, some series are already reaching four-digit production numbers.