History of the electric car

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The history of the electric car began in the middle of the 19th century. Probably between 1832 and 1839, the Scottish inventor Robert Anderson developed the first electric vehicle in Aberdeen. The first known German electric car was the flake electric car from 1888; it was manufactured by the A. Flocken machine factory in Coburg . This four-wheeled electric carriage was probably the world's first electrically powered passenger car . At around the same time, the Russians Yablotschkow and Romanow constructed the first cars with electric motors. In the early days of motor vehicles , after the steam engine , but before the vehicles with combustion engines , which were considered the basis of automobiles from around 1910, electric vehicles were technically superior to their competitors in several respects.

From around 1910, electric cars had largely been pushed out of the streets and led a niche existence for almost a century.

It was only in the 1990s that research into new battery technologies and electric drives was intensified, and these were shown in a number of prototypes , small series vehicles and new model series. The main reasons for this were the growing air pollution in the metropolitan areas due to the massive spread of vehicles with internal combustion engines, supply problems with oil in the 1970s, and efforts to limit climate change .

Beginnings (from 1821)

Charles Page's battery-powered locomotive (1851)
Electric exhibition track from Siemens

The development of the electric drive determined the beginnings of the electric car. Michael Faraday showed in 1821 how a continuous rotation could be generated with electromagnetism . From the 1830s onwards, a wide variety of electric motor types and battery variants were used to create various electric vehicles and table models, for example by Sibrandus Stratingh and Thomas Davenport . Davenport tested his electric motor on a model locomotive, which he let turn its rounds on a circle of rails about one meter in diameter. Around 1832 Robert Anderson is said to have built an "electric cart". In 1839 he built the first electric vehicle in Aberdeen.

The Scot Robert Davidson (1804-1894) tried an electrically powered vehicle on the railroad between Edinburgh and Glasgow in 1842 , which reached a speed of four miles per hour, but no further loads could be pulled or passengers could be carried. In Frankfurt am Main in 1840 Johann Philipp Wagner succeeded in driving a small car driven by an electric motor with a trailer on a circle of rails with a circumference of 20 meters.

The US patent clerk Charles Grafton Page (1812–1868) began building a locomotive powered by two electric motors near Washington, DC in 1850 with a government grant of $ 20,000. The 15 kilowatt “reciprocating” motors basically consisted of two electromagnets that moved an iron rod back and forth by alternately switching on the coils like in a piston steam engine ; this movement was transmitted to the wheels via a crank mechanism . On April 29, 1851, a test drive was carried out with this machine, fed by a large battery, with a top speed of up to 31 km / h, which the locomotive only achieved temporarily. A battery invented in 1836 was the Daniell element , followed in 1839 by the improved battery by William Grove, and from 1860 there were rechargeable lead-acid batteries . They go back to the invention by the French Gaston Planté in 1859.

Werner Siemens had a two-axle electric locomotive pull three wagons with wooden benches for six passengers each on a 300-meter-long circuit in Berlin in 1879 . Similar exhibition tracks were soon presented elsewhere. For example, at the Viennese trade fair in 1880, Béla Egger , a former employee of Werner Siemens, had a motorized platform truck drive back and forth over a 200-meter-long route, which was suitable for five to six standing people and also pulled an attached seating car behind it .

First electric road vehicles (from 1881)

1881 Trouvé Tricycle
1882 Ayrton & Perry Electric Tricycle
Electromote from Werner Siemens , Berlin 1882, the world's first trolleybus

Trouvé

The first "officially" recognized electric vehicle was created by M. Gustave Trouvé in Paris in 1881 (and is often confused with the subsequent vehicle by Ayrton and Perry).

Gustave Trouvé rode a three-wheeled bicycle ( Starley Coventry) through Paris in 1881 , which he used as a test bench for the electric motors he built. He used lead-acid batteries from Gaston Planté , in which the lead plates were arranged in a spiral. The world's first vehicle of its kind drove 12 km / h with a range of 14 to 26 km.

The Trouvé Tricycle was exhibited in 1881 at the "exposition de l'électricité" ( International Electricity Exhibition) in Paris. Trouvé was ahead of the Ayrton & Perry electric vehicle presented a few months later, which was equipped with a further development of the Plantés lead-acid battery by Camille Alphonse Faure .

Siemens

On April 29, 1882, Werner Siemens demonstrated an electrically powered carriage, known as the Elektromote , on a 540 meter long test track in Halensee near Berlin . It was tied to a two-pole overhead line and is considered the world's first forerunner of today's trolleybuses .

Ayrton & Perry

A few months later, two English professors, William Edward Ayrton and John Perry , built an electric tricycle with two large wheels on the front axle and one small wheel on the back. They used a tricycle from Howe Machine Company of Glasgow for their electric vehicle . The speed was regulated by individually switching on and off the ten accumulator cells by Camille Alphonse Faure . These had a capacity of 1.5 kWh and a voltage of 20 volts. The engine developed 0.37 kW (1/2 PS). This vehicle had a range of up to 40 kilometers and reached a top speed of around 14 km / h. In addition, unlike Trouvès' vehicle, it no longer had any pedals and was therefore completely dependent on the electric drive. In October 1882 they drove their electric vehicle for the first time on Queen Victoria Street. The Ayrton & Perry Electric Tricycle is the first vehicle with electric light. A reconstruction of this vehicle is on display in the Autovision Museum.

Jeantaud

The Parisian wagon builder Charles Jeantaud built a Stanhope (wagon) with a Gramme electric motor in 1881 with the support of Renier and Faure and exhibited it at the "exposition de l'électricité" ( International Electricity Exhibition ). The Tilbury is a light, single-axle gig that was presumably provided with a third wheel and steering for this purpose, similar to the 1887 Volk Electric Dog-Cart. The performance wasn't convincing. The breakthrough came a little later.

The first experiment (date not known) was carried out by Jeantaud in front of his workshop. He drove a few meters until the batteries were drained by a short circuit and the vehicle stopped.

people

1887 Volk Electric Dog Cart

Magnus Volk from Brighton built his first electric carriage in 1887. The three-wheeled dog-cart had an electric motor from Acme & Immisch from London, this made ½ HP. The car drove nine miles an hour on asphalt. In 1895 Volk built a four-wheeled electric car for the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid .

Andrew L. Riker

The first American followed with his electric vehicle in 1890 - again a tricycle. Four batteries gave the vehicle an output of 1/6 HP. Since the cruising speed was only 12 km / h, the maximum range of 48 kilometers was longer than that of the Trouvé Tricycle .

Riker was the winner of the first circuit race in the USA in Providence ( Rhode Island ) in 1896, ahead of another electric car, the Electrobat II .

First electric cars (from 1888)

Reconstruction of the flake electric car from 1888

Cars, technically called passenger cars , are vehicles for passenger transport with at least four wheels.

Flakes

The first known German electric car was built by the A. Flocken machine factory in Coburg in 1888 . It is believed that this four-wheeled electric car was the world's first electrically powered passenger car.

Morrison

Morrison Electric with owner Harold Sturges; built around 1890 by William Morrison. Sturges installed a new engine in 1895 and entered the Chicago Times-Herald Contest , the first car race in the USA. The car cost the horrific sum of US $ 3,600 in 1891 and is considered to be the pioneer of the electric drive. Fig from 1893.

The US inventor and chemist William Morrison deserves special mention among the other manufacturers of electric cars . He is considered to be one of the first manufacturers of fully functional electrically powered cars. Up to twelve vehicles were built between 1887 and 1896, of which only the first two are well occupied. They were built between 1887 and 1890. The vehicles, which were typically based on carriages, were mainly used to test the battery he had patented and were sold when he no longer needed them. Details of an indefinite Morrison Electric (probably the first) name eight batteries that supplied the power for a 2.5 HP electric motor, sufficient for a speed of 10–12 km / h.

By far the most famous Morrison Electric is the second. Not only is it considered to be the first truly successful four-wheel electric powered car and it was widely featured in the media when owner Harold Sturges exhibited it at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition . Morrison designed it with a 4 hp engine under the vehicle, rear-wheel drive, Siemens fittings (a patent followed later) and a patented steering system using a hand lever and yoke rod. 24 batteries under the seat provided the drive power. Sturges registered the vehicle with a new engine at the Chicago Times-Herald Contest on November 28, 1895, where it failed early.

Morris and Salom

Morris & Salom Electrobat II (1894)

The engineer Henry G. Morris and the technician Pedro G. Salom are among the most important pioneers of the electric vehicle in the USA. Their vehicles were created using many components from different carriages, Salom being responsible for the electrical engineering and Morris for the chassis and body. They received support from Isaac Rice and his Electric Storage Battery Company (ESB); the latter hoped to be in a favorable position in time if a market for electric cars emerged. From this cooperation, the Electric Carriage & Wagon Company (ECWC) emerged in 1897 , the first commercial electric car manufacturer in the USA. The company was sold after 13 copies were built.

Their Electrobat II from 1894 is considered to be the second fully functional vehicle of this type in the USA after the Morrison Electric and as a more mature one. It had two 1.5 hp Lundell engines and ESB batteries. This vehicle also started in the Chicago Times-Herald Contest . Both failed, but Morris and Salom received a gold medal for the design. Hiram Percy Maxim was drawn as referee in the race . He came into closer contact with electric cars for the first time, which prompted him to propose one to his employer, the Pope Manufacturing Company , shortly afterwards . Maxim was then chief engineer at Columbia Automobile Company in Hartford, Connecticut , for several years .

Parker

Parker's electrically powered car, around 1895, in front of his home in Tettenhall.

According to a 2009 article in The Telegraph , Thomas Parker invented the first electric car as early as 1884. However, historical evidence is missing. The only historical document shows a Parker electrically powered car in front of his home in Tettenhall around 1895.

Warrior

The Kriéger brand was once the most widespread among electric vehicles in Europe, especially in the taxi business. The Société des Voitures Electriques, founded by the French Louis Antoine Kriéger (1868–1951) in Courbevoie near Paris in 1897, initially produced trailer cars with wheel hub electric motors (avant-trains) for horse-drawn carriages, and from 1898 also complete vehicles.

The great age of electric cars (1896–1912)

Electric cab, top speed: 25 km / h
Camille Jenatzy in his La Jamais Contente electric car , 1899
The all-wheel drive racing car from Lohner-Porsche , built in the same year as the star of the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900

In 1897 the founding meeting of the Central European Motor Vehicle Association took place in Berlin. The president of the senior building councilor a. DA Klose, stated on September 30, 1897: “As motor vehicles which carry their energy with them for locomotion, three categories are currently noteworthy, namely: vehicles moved by steam, vehicles moved by oil engines and vehicles moved by electricity. The first type is likely to come into consideration in the future mainly for wagons on rails and heavy road vehicles, while the large area of ​​the vast country is rushed through by oil motor vehicles and the smooth asphalt surface of the large cities as well as the road rails are animated by wagons driven by collector electricity will. ”The range of the historic vehicles was just over a hundred kilometers, significantly lower than in the present, with up to over 600 kilometers. Around 1900 almost 34,000 vehicles were electrically operated in the USA. In 1912, most electric vehicles were sold to date. After that, the market share fell massively. Between 1896 and 1939, 565 brands of electric cars were registered worldwide.

Germany

Electric car manufacturers: Andreas , Dixi / Wartburg , Elektra, Fahrzeugfabrik Eisenach , Fiedler, Flocken , Geha, Geist, Hagen, Henschel , Hercules , KAW , KEW / ABAM , Kliemt , Kruse , Kühlstein , Lloyd , Lux, Maier, Maxwerke , Messerschmitt-Bölkow -Blohm , Namag, Pflüger , Scheele , Siemens , Slaby-Beringer , Stoewer , Talbot (Berlin) , Vulkan .

It is thanks to the former Lanz employee and inventor Andreas Flocken that in 2013 Germany celebrated “125 years of the electric car”.

United States

In the USA, electric cars were manufactured commercially from 1897. The first were again Henry G. Morris and Pedro G. Salom, who embarked on an interesting path as partners and technical directors of the Electric Carriage & Wagon Company (ECWC). Salom in particular was convinced that maintenance and servicing were too complex to be mastered by untrained private individuals. Instead of handing over individual vehicles to customers, they wanted to first build a fleet of the same vehicles, which would be charged and serviced via a shared charging station. These vehicles were to be rented out to customers, following the example of the rental stables that were widespread at the time, which gave horses and teams in this way. The company quickly came into the focus of financial people who wanted to take over the taxi monopoly in major European cities with electric vehicles. They bought ECWC in 1897 and, from Isaac Rice, their competitor Electric Vehicle Company (EVC), which was for a short time the largest automobile manufacturer in the world. A reorganization brought Albert Augustus Pope on board as a production specialist. Its own electric car company, Columbia Automobile Company , was run as a joint venture between EVC and Pope and produced the vehicles of both brands. EVC took over the rental concept. In the individually negotiated contracts, maintenance and charging costs were also regulated and driver training was simplified. A network of service stations was set up in several cities, where this work was carried out and, above all, the battery packs were replaced. The taxi project failed due to financial and technical problems. The latter included the insufficient range of the vehicles, which would have required a far too large number of such relay stations for a profitable operation to be possible. Even so, the first motorized taxis in New York and other major cities were powered by electricity.

EVC or Columbia Hansom Cab power truck , circa 1904

By 1900, 40% of automobiles in the United States were steam cars , 38% electric cars , and 22% gasoline cars. In New York in 1901 there were even 50% electric cars and 30% steam cars; the rest were naphtha, acetylene, and compressed air cars . The peak of the electric car wave was reached in 1912: 20 manufacturers built 33,842 electric cars; However, with a total of 356,000 automobiles and 22,000 commercial vehicles, this was less than a 10% share of the market with a downward trend. Ford alone built more cars than all electric car manufacturers put together, with 78,440 or 22%.

Other well-known US electric car manufacturers at the time were Detroit Electric , Baker Motor Vehicle, and Studebaker Electric . Henry Ford developed an electric prototype based on a Ford Model T. However, it did not go into series production, while 15 million units of the petrol-powered T-model were built in the USA between 1908 and 1927.

Detroit Electric alone produced a total of 12,348 electric cars and 535 electric trucks from 1907 to 1941. The widespread use was reflected in comics, among other things, where Grandma Duck drives such a car.

Austria

In 1899 the Lohner-Werke presented the Egger-Lohner C.2 at the automobile exhibition in Berlin . In 1900, Ferdinand Porsche , who worked in the electrical industry, also stepped into the limelight at the World Exhibition in Paris with an electric car that he had designed for Lohner. The Lohner- Porsche had wheel hub motors on the front wheels. Porsche saw the greatest advantage of the electric drive in the fact that neither gear nor other mechanical elements were required for power transmission. The otherwise short range of the car had also preoccupied him, which is why he functionally combined an electric engine with a combustion engine. The gasoline engine supplied electricity via a generator for the accumulator, which in turn fed the electric motor. In the same year 1900, a racing version was also built, which reached a top speed of 60 km / h with a 1800 kg battery. This variant had the wheel hub motor on all four wheels.

Italy

In 1905, the Società Torinese Automobili Elettrici (STAE) was founded in Turin , which used a license from the Compagnie Parisienne des Voitures Electriques.

Historic speed records

The first speed record for a land vehicle turned the French racing driver Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat on 18 December 1898 and the electric car Jeantaud Duc of Charles Jeantaud in Achères ( Yvelines , near Paris on). The speed achieved was 62.78 km / h. This was broken on January 17, 1899 by the Belgian Camille Jenatzy in the same place with the electric car CGA Dogcart with 66.66 km / h. On the same day, in the same place, Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat brought back the record for himself and Jeantaud with the Duc and 70.31 km / h. Ten days later, the speed record in Achères went back to the CGA Dogcart, which was now driven by Camille Jenatzy, at 80.35 km / h. On March 4th Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat with the Jeantaud Duc Profilée set himself and Jeantaud the third time the record with 92.78 km / h. This record was lost to Camille Jenatzy, who was the first person to drive over 100 km / h, namely 105.88 km / h, with his La Jamais Contente electric car .

Displacement of the electric car after 1900

The decline of electric cars began around 1910, when starting gasoline cars by using a starter instead of cranking it became much more convenient. The much greater range and the availability of cheap oil for carburetor fuels were further factors in the decline in demand for the smooth-running electric means of transport with their "highly sensitive batteries". Under the influence of Standard Oil, gasoline became the main fuel in the USA and in all countries influenced by Standard Oil. In a few tourist regions (for example in Zermatt in Switzerland since 1931), electric cars temporarily dominate all traffic. As early as the 1920s, however, motor vehicles with electric motors no longer played a serious role.

Niche (1912–1990)

The Dutch technical historian and literary scholar Prof. Ing. Gijs Mom takes the position that the decades of stagnation in the development of (individual) electric mobility cannot be explained from a scientific and technological point of view. He explained that cultural factors in particular prevented the spread of electrically powered cars. As early as the 19th century it was known that the strengths of battery-powered electric vehicles lie in local traffic , where they can even be superior to vehicles with combustion engines, as a technical journal in 1958 made clear. It was also concluded that "in the interests of the economy, all branches of the economy should be interested in using electric vehicles wherever appropriate operational requirements exist." But even the oil price crises of the 1970s could not trigger the rethinking towards electric drives with batteries.

However, the electric drive found widespread use in vehicles that did not have to carry the driving energy with them in accumulators. B. from overhead lines ( electric locomotive , trolleybus , tram , diesel-electric drive ).

A milk float .

One niche in which motor vehicles with electric motors was found was local transport with small delivery vans , for example for the daily delivery of milk bottles in Great Britain and parts of the United States , the milk floats . There were tens of thousands of these cars in service, especially in Great Britain. The leading manufacturers of milk floats in the UK in the 20th century were Smith's, Wales & Edwards , Morrison Electriccars, M&M Electric Vehicles, Osborne, Harbilt, Brush , Bedford and Leyland . With the drop in home deliveries, only Bluebird Automotive , Smith Electric Vehicles and Electricar Limited were left. Smith Electric Vehicles is (2008) the largest manufacturer of delivery vehicles and trucks with electric drive. The Dutch manufacturer Spijkstaal has been producing electric vehicles since 1938, mostly for special tasks.

The use of electric vehicles for postal administrations is particularly well-known, for example at the German Reichspost (e.g. parcel delivery vehicles from Bergmann ), the German Bundespost , the German postal service of the GDR , the Austrian post and telegraph administration (see e.g. the article Elektro-Niederflur-Omnibus ) or der Deutschen Post AG , which even runs its own production company for electric vehicles with its subsidiary Streetscooter .

Another niche in which motor vehicles with electric motors could assert themselves was the transport of ice cream and fish in the fishing ports , as the use of combustion engines was not permitted in the auction halls due to their exhaust gases. Borgwards Hansa-Lloyd AG in Bremen developed specialized electric tugs for this area of ​​operation in the interwar period, some of which remained in use until after the year 2000. One of these vehicles is now in the collection of the Deutsches Museum in Munich. From 1945 onwards, the British Rhine Army was primarily interested in the BE3000 / EL3000 , which was later followed by a mail delivery vehicle with the same name.

In the Federal Republic of Germany , among others, Auto Union built electric vehicles based on the DKW high-speed truck in 1956 , which were used by electricity companies to exchange meters. Later there were various test attempts with hybrid and duo buses . The developments were based on political funding programs and soon ended again when these programs expired. In 1953, electric vehicles were put into operation for the post office in Berlin in the GDR . These originally came from Bergmann in the 1920s and were given a modern structure in the GDR and used for emptying mailboxes and delivering parcels.

In the United States, electric vehicles survived as so-called neighborhood vehicles. These are small vehicles that are easier to register because of their low speed. From 1960 to 1964, Henney built an electric version of the Renault Dauphine small car with the kilowatt . Global Electric Motorcars is a major US manufacturer of light passenger transporters .

The Enfield 8000 from Enfield-Neorion , 1973

The Enfield 8000 of Enfield-Neorion was developed in 1969 and built from 1972 to 1975, including 120 in the UK. The car was equipped with a 48 V 30 kWh battery. Half of the vehicles were sold to an electricity company, with no commercial success.

In a car sharing attempt in Amsterdam that was started in 1974, electric cars by the inventor Luud Schimmelpennink were used as a means of transport. The three-wheeled two-person car reached 30 km / h, and its batteries could be charged at stations in seven minutes. The “Witkar” project, however, had no lasting response and was abandoned in 1986 due to failure to achieve its goals.

In Denmark, several prototypes of the Hope Whisper were made in two versions between 1981 and 1986 . However, there was never any series production. At the premiere of the first generation, 3000 invited guests, including the then Danish Prime Minister Poul Schlüter , had an accident with a prototype of the Whisper W1 .

Renaissance (1990-2002)

General Motors EV1 , featured in the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? was immortalized
Drive set as used in PSA's 10,000 electric cars
Tatra Beta , developed in the early 1990s
Toyota Prius , since 1997. First hybrid car in large-scale production.
Parts of this section are not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

Efforts to use electric motors for propulsion in automobile construction were increasingly tackled after the oil crisis triggered by the Gulf War in the 1990s and increasing environmental awareness. Above all, the regulation drawn up by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and passed as a law in California in 1990, to gradually offer emission-free vehicles , forced the automotive industry to develop products.

This not only led to new types of accumulators that could replace lead accumulators as traction batteries , but also to the development of a large number of electric cars, which were later only partially offered on the car market. During this time, battery technology was mainly driven by the rapidly increasing demand for cell phones and notebooks.

In 1992, the electric car concept vehicle Horlacher Sport I achieved a range of 547 kilometers on one battery charge (with an average speed of 55.4 kilometers per hour). In 1991, BMW developed the BMW E1 with a sodium-sulfur battery , but discontinued the project before it was launched. Only the design language (aerodynamically glazed headlights etc.) was adopted for the new model generation E36.

The development of Nicolas Hayek's Swatch Car , planned as a small car with electric drive, began in cooperation with Volkswagen before 1993 . After production was canceled, two design studies were carried out by March 1994, now with Mercedes. However, the Mercedes subsidiary MCC abandoned the planned electric drive and developed the Smart from it - "The [...] gasoline-powered Smart is a product from Daimler-Benz and has nothing in common with the plans of the former Swatch team"

Between 1992 and 1996, an experiment to test the latest generation of electric vehicles was carried out on the island of Rügen with 60 cars .

The production of most electric cars was discontinued after the relaxation of the CARB legislation and deliveries stopped. According to the respective manufacturers, this was due to "lack of demand" or because "spare parts supply cannot be guaranteed". This contradicts the offer of environmental organizations and activists to accept large editions. Since the vehicles were left to the end users exclusively on a leasing basis, the manufacturers could object to an extension of the contract and have the fully functional vehicles - partly forcibly - withdrawn and scrapped. For example, while newly produced Honda EV Pluss were scrapped immediately after production and only a few individual copies of the GM EV1 escaped scrapping, the scrapping of most Toyota RAV4 EVs by citizens' groups such as Don't Crush! be prevented.

With the Golf CitySTROMer , VW tried an electric version of the Golf between 1992 and 1996. Only 120 copies were made and delivered to large energy suppliers. The vehicle was not freely available. The technical data were checked by the Research Center for Energy Economics and an efficiency of 49% was determined. The energy consumption from the socket was around 25 kWh / 100 km. The main reason for the rather high energy consumption was the high weight of the vehicle due to its original base as a combustion car, the lead-acid batteries used and the poor efficiency of the charger.

The Hotzenblitz , a small 2 + 2-seater electric car developed in Germany, was produced in small numbers from 1993 to 1996 and is considered the most consistent German electric vehicle from that time.

From 1994 to 2012 the CityEL was produced by the forerunner of Smiles AG in Aub near Würzburg. The beginnings of the vehicle go back even further, as early as 1987 the vehicle was designed and the first models of the predecessor MiniEL were manufactured in Denmark. The Twike , which was originally developed and manufactured in Switzerland and is now manufactured by Fine Mobile in Rosenthal near Marburg in Germany, has been in production for around the same time . Both vehicles represented a large part of the electric car scene in German-speaking countries at the turn of the millennium. The Sam electric vehicle was originally a development project at a Swiss university of applied sciences and was first sold with lead-acid batteries. After a new development with lithium batteries a few years ago, the relaunch started; today the vehicle is produced in Poland. The general importer in Germany is Elemo.

From 1996 to 1999, General Motors built the EV1, a series electric vehicle with an edition of around 1100. 800 of these vehicles were given to selected customers such as celebrities. The remaining vehicles were available through leasing contracts, but the contracts were not extended after three years due to a lack of spare parts. Toyota built around 1500 of the fully electric RAV4 EV , Nissan built around 220 " Hypermini " and Honda the Honda EV Plus .

1997 began sales of the Toyota Prius , the first mass-produced model with hybrid drive . Almost four million of these vehicles had been sold by the end of 2016. In total, Toyota had sold more than nine million hybrid vehicles by the end of 2016.

The A-Class electric developed by Daimler-Benz was made ready for series production by 1997. The Zebra traction battery used provided a range of 200 km at 30 kWh. A double floor for the batteries was planned in the underbody of the A-Class. The A-Class has been following the relaxation of the " Clean Air Act and zero emission mandates brought" but only with internal combustion engines on the market and is largely unknown in the electric version in Germany. Since the double floor now remained without heavy batteries, the A-Class lost its low center of gravity and the well-known moose tests took place , in which the A-Class fell over in rapid alternating curves.

New developments (from 2005)

Tesla Model S since 2012, first full-size electric car
Tesla Roadster 2008–2012, range 350 km

A new generation of electric vehicles began in 2005 with models such as the Tesla Roadster and Tesla Model S from Tesla, as well as various small car series such as the Think City from Think Global , the Citysax and the Stromos . Because of their comparatively short ranges, long charging cycles and high acquisition costs, these models were not yet fully competitive with internal combustion engines. However, the advantages of these models come into play for short journeys close to and within cities. This sparked a new dynamic in the market, so that other manufacturers started or resumed the production of electric vehicles. In 2012, a total of 15 (partially) electric vehicle series from the major automobile manufacturers were offered on the German market - 12 of them fully electric - from manufacturers including VW, Daimler, General Motors, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Groupe PSA , Volvo and Toyota. Demand in Germany, however, remained weak and state subsidies were unable to stimulate it. However, electric cars were increasingly used for car sharing in inner-city areas.

Web links

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Individual evidence

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