"Because they did not use electric motors."

Wooooo let's go back to 1827 for a moment and have a chat with Anyos Jedlik. Or maybe Andres Flocken in 1881. Let's see how they did electric vehicles.

Oh, lookie there, no SiC.

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MobiusHorizons 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I mean sure, motor control existed before solid state switching devices, but it was also much lower efficiency and used much lower voltages. Power electronics absolutely are critical for the efficiencies and handling characteristics of modern electric propulsion.

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moooo99 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

A yes, and because the electric vehicles in 1881 were so convincing, we are all driving EVs today....wait

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lightedman 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Point still stands - no vehicles electric or otherwise were using SiC until around the 1970s (and even then that was really niche applications) and widespread use wasn't until the 2010s.

Until then, we were predominantly using SiO2 MOSFETs and IGBTs.

	▲	MobiusHorizons 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You will note that timeline also maps quite well on when electric vehicles started to become viable in the market . Of course battery technology also had a lot to do with that, but efficient high voltage power electronics absolutely are an important part of the equation.