THE EVOLUTION OF ELECTRIC VEHICLE: IS IT VALUEABLE TO GENERATION Z?

THE BEGINNINGS OF ELECTRIC VEHICLES

Electric vehicles introduced more than 100 years ago, have grown in popularity for many of the same reasons they were when they began. While electric vehicles (EVs) have only just started rivaling internal combustion engines (ICEs) for the future of transportation, they have been around for more than a hundred years. The long history of electric vehicles has been full of twists and turns.

During the 20th century, there were more electric vehicles on the road than gasoline-powered ICE vehicles. This prevalence was challenged when Ford's moving assembly line made passenger cars more affordable. Ford, empowered with the knowledge that gasoline was more widely available than electricity, developed a gasoline-powered transportation system that would remain for over 100 years.

The history of EVs is an interesting one, with numerous ups and downs that resulted in the development of this new technology. This article provides a summary of the history of electric vehicles, the present scenario of electric mobility, and the expectations for the EV revolution.

ELECTRIC VEHICLE HISTORY OVERVIEW 

It is challenging to attribute the invention of the electric vehicle to an individual or country. Instead, a succession of innovations in the 1800s, from the battery to the electric motor, resulted in the first electric vehicle on the road.

FIRST ELECTRIC VEHICLES (1830-1880)

As early as the 1830s, inventors in Hungary, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States were attempting to bring together these advances in technology to build a motorized automobile. Although this is a contentious issue, many believe the first small-scale electric vehicles were produced between 1828 and 1832.

The first electric car was presented at an industrial conference in 1835 by a British inventor called Robert Anderson. Robert Anderson's vehicle ran the wheels by a disposable battery powered by crude oil. 

In the same era, Hungarian scientist Ányos Jedlik and Dutch professor Sibrandus Stratingh developed model electric vehicles. On the other side of the Atlantic, Thomas Davenport, an American blacksmith-turned-inventor, is thought to have invented key components of the electric motor that powered the first electric car.

THE REVIVAL OF ELECTRIC VEHICLES (1970–2003)

Automobile manufacturers, sensing these social movements, began exploring alternative fuel vehicles, including electric cars. For example, General Motors constructed a prototype for an urban EV, and NASA helped raise attention when their electric Lunar rover became the first manned vehicle on the moon. However, electric vehicles still had significant disadvantages over gasoline-powered vehicles, such as limited range and modest top speeds, making them difficult to market to customers.

Over the years to come, manufacturers evolved popular models to develop electric variants, hoping to improve batteries and reach range and speed comparable to gasoline-powered vehicles. One of the most notable breakthrough moments was the appearance of the Toyota Prius. The Prius, which launched in Japan in 1997, became the world's first mass-produced hybrid electric vehicle. The Prius was released internationally in 2000 and quickly became a success. Since then, increased petrol prices and growing concern about carbon pollution have led to the Prius being the best-selling hybrid globally.

GOING TOWARDS ELECTRIC (2003-2020)

After consuming the increase of lithium-ion battery capacity in their previous firm, Eberhard and Marc established Tesla Motors in 2003. Fast forward to 2006, and the Silicon Valley startup announced that it would begin developing a luxury electric sports car capable of traveling more than 320 kilometers on a single charge. 

At the same time, new battery technologies reached the market, extending EV range and lowering battery costs. To highlight this, despite a small rise in battery costs in 2022 due to inflationary pressures and increased raw material costs, lithium-ion battery prices have fallen by more than 97% since 1991. This, in turn, has helped to reduce the overall cost of electric vehicles, making them more affordable to consumers. 

THE FUTURE OF ELECTRIC VEHICLES

As technology grows and efficiencies of scale develop, the cost of electric vehicles will decrease, making them more affordable to a wider variety of users. Future battery developments may also significantly cut charging times, closing the present gap between ICE refueling and EV charging stops. For the time existence, EV drivers are still primarily urban, just as they were when the first Detroit Electric arrived in 1907. However, unlike back then, electric vehicles are now fully competitive with, or even superior to, their ICE rivals in most regards. Suffice it to say that tomorrow's EVs will not suffer the same fate as the initial electric vehicles.