How to Prepare Today for the EV Customer of Tomorrow Vehicles powered by electricity aren’t a new thing. Some experts have said the first ones were developed as early as 1828-1832. A British inventor named Robert Anderson displayed another prototype in 1835 at an industry conference. In the late 1880s, a chemist named William Morrison fitted a carriage with a battery. The carriage could carry 12 people and travel about 20 mph. When automobiles began replacing horse-drawn vehicles between 1880 and 1914, their power was provided in three different ways: steam (40%), electricity (38%) and gas (22%). Steam proved to be impractical. Drivers had to wait 45 minutes before they could start driving, and engines needed to be refilled continuously with water. But even though Thomas Edison and Henry Ford worked on building an EV, gasoline won the three-way race. Gasoline had been discovered in Texas and was easier to provide to rural areas than electricity, which tended to be limited to cities. Also, Henry Ford’s assembly line proved itself as an efficient way to build gas-powered vehicles. Until the 1970s, when the U.S. began experiencing high prices and shortages, gas-powered engines dominated the market. People wanted to be less dependent on imported oil, especially after the 1973 Arab Oil embargo. However, a limited driving range and slow top speeds were a problem. The Toyota Prius was released in Japan in 1997, then worldwide in 2000. Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning (not Elon Musk) started Tesla Motors in 2003; Musk became the board chair in 2004 and the fourth CEO in 2008. The Nissan LEAF debuted in 2010. Lithium battery costs declined 97% between 1991 and the end of 2021. Unsurprisingly, people have been predicting the advent of EVs for a long time. But the time of high expectations continued on page 14 13
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