Electric vehicles: Look to history for lessons

"THE dawn of commercialisation of electric vehicles is upon us."

The above words appeared in print in newspapers... in 1898! In 2019, the Tesla Model 3 was touted as the first electric taxi to be approved in New York. In reality, electric vehicles (EV) found the first commercial application as a fleet of New York electric taxis in 1897.

The EV is nothing new. It will come as a surprise to many readers that the electric car was invented 2 centuries ago in 1832, and that this is not new technology. The first EV even predates the first internal combustion engine by 50 years.