The Electric Vehicle: A Brief History and its Comeback

Since the invention of the automobiles, advancement of its technologies and its manufacturing processes, its pioneers and predecessors have always sought new means of powering the vehicle. While the convention has been to use gasoline or diesel to power the first vehicles, aspiring visionaries saw a future in which a vehicle could be powered by a battery (or rather set of batteries) along with an electric motor.

The first mass produced electric vehicle was made by GM with their EV1 vehicle. Unveiled in the early 1990’s but not manufactured till the late 1990’s, the EV1 was an attempt to usher in a new era of fully battery electric vehicles. While it won many praises from climate change and oil-independence advocates alike, the EV1 was discontinued in 1999, with many vehicles unfortunately getting scrapped.

Soon after the EV1, two engineers by the name of Marc Tarpenning and Martin Eberhard started the Tesla Motors inc. And thanks to the backing of the now infamous Elon Musk, mass manufactured electric vehicles once again made a comeback. Electric vehicles have picked up a lot of popularity and served as a wake up a call to legacy and newcomer automakers to add more electric vehicles to their product lines.

With the advancement of battery technology and its manufacturing processes, many companies are racing to add fully battery electric (or at least hybrid electric) vehicles to their portfolios. And with bright minds leading this new revolution, new innovations in electric mobility (also referred to as eMobility) and autonomous driving systems, the future of zero emission vehicles is very much a reality. And where we go from here is limited only to our imagination!