By the s, the U. With the discovery of Texas crude oil, gas became cheap and readily available for rural Americans, and filling stations began popping up across the country. In comparison, very few Americans outside of cities had electricity at that time. In the end, electric vehicles all but disappeared by Over the next 30 years or so, electric vehicles entered a sort of dark ages with little advancement in the technology. Cheap, abundant gasoline and continued improvement in the internal combustion engine hampered demand for alternative fuel vehicles.
Fast forward to the late s and early s. Soaring oil prices and gasoline shortages -- peaking with the Arab Oil Embargo -- created a growing interest in lowering the U. Congress took note and passed the Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Research, Development, and Demonstration Act of , authorizing the Energy Department to support research and development in electric and hybrid vehicles. Around this same time, many big and small automakers began exploring options for alternative fuel vehicles, including electric cars.
Even NASA helped raise the profile of the electric vehicle when its electric Lunar rover became the first manned vehicle to drive on the moon in Yet, the vehicles developed and produced in the s still suffered from drawbacks compared to gasoline-powered cars.
Electric vehicles during this time had limited performance -- usually topping at speeds of 45 miles per hour -- and their typical range was limited to 40 miles before needing to be recharged. Fast forward again -- this time to the s. In the 20 years since the long gas lines of the s, interest in electric vehicles had mostly died down.
But new federal and state regulations begin to change things. The passage of the Clean Air Act Amendment and the Energy Policy Act -- plus new transportation emissions regulations issued by the California Air Resources Board -- helped create a renewed interest in electric vehicles in the U. During this time, automakers began modifying some of their popular vehicle models into electric vehicles.
This meant that electric vehicles now achieved speeds and performance much closer to gasoline-powered vehicles, and many of them had a range of 60 miles. Instead of modifying an existing vehicle, GM designed and developed the EV1 from the ground up.
With a range of 80 miles and the ability to accelerate from 0 to 50 miles per hour in just seven seconds, the EV1 quickly gained a cult following. But because of high production costs, the EV1 was never commercially viable, and GM discontinued it in Depending on whom you ask, it was one of two events that sparked the interest we see today in electric vehicles.
The first turning point many have suggested was the introduction of the Toyota Prius. In , the Prius was released worldwide, and it became an instant success with celebrities, helping to raise the profile of the car. Since then, rising gasoline prices and growing concern about carbon pollution have helped make the Prius the best-selling hybrid worldwide during the past decade.
With more cars on the road, the streetcars, which were bound to the same traffic rules as cars, slowed to a crawl. By , it was up to a full hour, with trains regularly arriving up to 30 minutes behind schedule. The problem was compounded by the sprawling urban geography of the Los Angeles region—largely a byproduct of the streetcar system itself.
The wily Henry Huntington , who was at one time the proprietor of both the Pacific Electric and the Los Angeles Railway systems, built lines that rather conveniently brought people to-and-from large tracts of land where he was developing housing.
For Huntington, developing an efficient and economically sustainable network of rail lines may not have been as much of a concern as unlocking the massive profit potential of his considerable real estate holdings. And most of the more recent growth has consisted instead of filling in the spaces between outlying centers associated with important stations on the Pacific Electric.
The expansiveness of the original rail network allowed the region to accommodate a huge population increase the number of residents of Los Angeles County grew from under , in to more than 2 million in while preserving low-density neighborhoods full of single-family homes. That, in turn, made buses an attractive choice for transit operators; they were much cheaper than trains and could be easily rerouted as the urban area developed and rider demand shifted. We might be able to address some of the problems that we have and make it a better service.
Instead, local and state officials repeatedly punted on plans to finance badly needed infrastructure that could have helped salvage key portions of the streetcar system. A Pacific Electric-backed plan to build elevated tracks in Downtown Los Angeles was defeated at the ballot box in the s.
Instead, voters chose to fund Union Station , which gave the city a consolidated rail terminal but no infrastructure to speed up streetcar service. Throughout the s and s, proposals for subway tunnels and new rapid transit lines simply fell by the wayside. Meanwhile, local leaders eagerly gobbled up federal funding to build new roads and, eventually, freeways. Rick Wagoner, the former CEO of General Motors who resigned under pressure in , is back in the car business, joining the board of ChargePoint, which maintains a network of charging stations for electric cars.
In , GM rolled out the EV1, an innovative battery-powered car. It was introduced in response to a California law requiring car makers to produce zero-emissions vehicles in order to continue selling conventional automobiles in the state. GM produced 1, EV1s, but made them only available for lease.
While limited by their small size just two seats and a range of less than miles, the car was popular among environmentalists and celebrities like Tom Hanks and Mel Gibson. As GM was promoting its foray into renewable vehicles, it was simultaneously lobbying to weaken the California law. When the auto industry succeeded in watering down the regulations in , GM, under Wagoner, soon after terminated the EV1, citing limited demand.
In the documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car?
0コメント