Electric cars were invented in 1881 a full 4 years before the first internal combustion car.

whaleofatw2022 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Kinda interesting to ask what would have gone different if the infrastructure was in place to make electric cars 'good enough' as far as charging infrastructure.

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ben_w 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

As I understand it, the core problem back then was the batteries would mass half the car and lose a third of their maximum capacity in just 500 charging cycles.

Back when cars were new, there was no infrastructure for petrol either, that was something you got in tiny quantities from a pharmacy. (The diesel engine can run on vegetable oil, but I don't think Mr Rudolf Diesel himself ever did that?)

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UncleSlacky 5 days ago | parent [-]

Diesel did use peanut oil, though only after someone else showed that it was possible:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Diesel#Use_of_vegetable...

	▲	ben_w 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Nice find, I missed that.

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userbinator 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The batteries of the time were far less energy-dense and charged slowly. Lead-acid was the norm for EVs.

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kjs3 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Infrastructure requires demand, and energy density and convenience of a contemporary battery versus gas engine means that no one was going to demand batteries when ICE was an option. We only figured the downside much later.

	▲	noosphr 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		We figured out the effects of carbon dioxide on the atmosphere not a decade after the first working car prototype was build: https://www.rsc.org/images/arrhenius1896_tcm18-173546.pdf

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kjs3 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

False equivalence to the white courtesy phone...