How Electric Vehicles Went From Golf Carts to Global Fleets

In 1900, roughly a third of all cars on American roads were electric — quieter and easier to start than the gas cars of the day, which required hand-cranking. Then cheap gasoline and Henry Ford's assembly line made gas cars far cheaper, and electric vehicles nearly vanished for almost a century. Today, more than 14 million electric vehicles were sold worldwide in 2023 alone. What happened in between, and what changed?

- Trace the major turning points in EV history, from 1900s electrics to modern lithium-ion cars. - Explain why gasoline vehicles won out for most of the 20th century. - Identify the battery technology breakthrough that made modern EVs practical. - Compare how different countries are approaching the shift to electrification today.

Early electric cars used heavy lead-acid batteries that gave a range of only about 30 to 40 miles, but that was plenty for the short trips wealthy city drivers took around 1900. They were prized for being clean and quiet compared to noisy, smoky steam and gasoline cars of the era. That advantage started to disappear once two things happened: Henry Ford's moving assembly line dropped the price of a gas-powered Model T from about $850 in 1908 to around $260 by the mid-1920s, and in 1912 Charles Kettering invented the electric starter, which meant drivers no longer had to hand-crank a gas engine to start it.

For most of the 20th century, electric cars were a footnote. The 1970s oil crisis briefly revived interest, and in 1996 General Motors released the EV1, a purpose-built electric car with a range of 70 to 100 miles. But lead-acid and later nickel-metal-hydride batteries stayed heavy, expensive, and slow to charge. GM only ever leased the EV1, never sold it, and controversially recalled and crushed nearly the entire fleet by 2003, arguing there wasn't enough market demand to keep supporting it.

By 2023, EVs made up more than 80% of new car sales in Norway, driven by decades of tax breaks and toll exemptions for electric vehicles. China now produces more EVs than any other country, led by manufacturers like BYD, backed by heavy government investment in both vehicles and battery supply chains. The European Union has proposed ending sales of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035, and the United States passed tax credits of up to $7,500 for qualifying new EVs through the Inflation Reduction Act. None of this works without charging infrastructure, which is why public charging stations have expanded rapidly worldwide over the past decade, though unevenly — rural areas still lag far behind cities.