Electric Cars In The 1900s

150 Words1 Pages
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the electric car manufacturing industry was relatively robust and successful. In 1900, for instance, out of the total of 2,370 automobiles found in New York, Chicago and Boston, 800 of those cars were fully electric. Surprisingly, only 400 cars were powered by gasoline and the remaining 1,170 were steam-powered automobiles -- popular because at the time steam technology was familiar and proven After just a few decades of improvement, electric cars around this time were clean, quiet and relatively efficient. Most resembled horse-drawn carriages, since that's what most automobiles looked like at the time -- a horse cart without the horse. In 1899, there were about 12 manufacturers making electric cars in the