Product Description

Recent attention to hybrid cars that run on both gasoline and electric batteries has made the electric car an apparent alternative to the internal combustion engine and its attendant environmental costs and geopolitical implications. Few people realize that the electric car—neither a recent invention nor a historical curiosity—has a story as old as that of the gasoline-powered automobile, and that at one time many in the nascent automobile industry believed battery-powered engines would become the dominant technology. In both Europe and America, electric cars and trucks succeeded in meeting the needs of a wide range of consumers. Before World War II, as many as 30,000 electric cars and more than 10,000 electric trucks plied American roads; European cities were busy with, electrically propelled fire engines, taxis, delivery vans, buses, heavy trucks and private cars.

Even so, throughout the century-long history of electric propulsion, the widespread conviction it was an inferior technology remained stubbornly in place, an assumption mirrored in popular and scholarly memory. In The Electric Vehicle, Gijs Mom challenges this view, arguing that at the beginning of the automobile age neither the internal combustion engine nor the battery-powered vehicle enjoyed a clear advantage. He explores the technology and marketing/consumer-ratio faction relationship over four "generations" of electric-vehicle design, with separate chapters on privately owned passenger cars and commercial vehicles. Mom makes comparisons among European countries and between Europe and America.

He finds that the electric vehicle offered many advantages, among them greater reliability and control, less noise and pollution. He also argues that a nexus of factors—cultural (underpowered and less rugged, electric cars seemed "feminine" at a time when most car buyers were men), structural (the shortcomings of battery technology at the time), and systemic (the infrastructural problems of changing large numbers of batteries)—ultimately gave an edge to the internal combustion engine. One hopes, as a new generation of electric vehicles becomes a reality, The Electric Vehicle offers a long-overdue reassessment of the place of this technology in the history of street transportation.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1663904 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 440 pages

Review

"Those interested in the history of automotive technology should read -- and will enjoy -- this book." -- Choice

"The Electric Vehicle makes an important contribution to the scholarship on the history of the automobile. The author has managed to develop one of the most wide-ranging comparative examinations of a particular technological system since Hughes' Networks of Power. Mom's scholarship is impeccable." -- Bruce E. Seely, Michigan Technological University

"Crossing disciplines, combining technical, economic and social concerns, and adopting an international perspective, The Electric Vehicle is a very important book that sets a new standard for research in the history of technology." -- Clay McShane, Northeastern University

"A stunning compilation of examples and figures." -- Zachary M. Schrag, Enterprise and Society

"Mom provides a clear argument that demands consideration from historians of technology as well as policymakers." -- Michigan Historical Review

"An impressive empirical study." -- Staffan Hulten, EH.Net

"This book is more than just a single case study where present-day technology was around 100 years ago. This book reveals how History is full of possibilities. The challenge is not to learn the lessen too late." -- Sandro Mendonca, Up

Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Dutch

About the Author
Gijs Mom is an assistant professor in the history of technology at the Technical University of Eindhoven.

Customer Reviews

A European Perspective on EV's ... But a Bit Dry ...
This is a book about the rise and decline of the electric car and the formation of the modern transportation network from the 19th century. It is an interesting topic, and this book tells the tale from a European perspective, where the ending is the same (EV's declined, the ICE tiumphed) but the path to the ending is a little different.

I really liked the meticulous data, graphs and detail showing the uses and comparing the EV to the ICE and the use of them compared to the size of the cities. What is interesting is that in Europe the EV as a mainstream vehicle lasted a lot longer in the form of fleet vehicles than in the US (In the US the EV stopped being sold in the Depression, in Europe it lasted until the 1950's).

All the data and graphs make for a rather dry read, and if there is a complaint, it is this. First and foremost I was looking for a good read, and I feel I have an academic textbook.

If you want a good read, there are other books out there that provide it. If you want a European perspective, and don't mind the textbook like read, this is a decent pick!