Lack of energy infrastructure explains the rise of the gasoline car
In a study recently published in Nature Energy we aimed to understand what gave rise to the gasoline car rather than the electric.
The conventional take is that electric vehicles were more expensive and technically inferior.
Aided by data on more than 36,000 U.S. automobile passenger car models manufactured during 1895-1942, we found that electric vehicles were more expensive, but not in relation to performance.
Why then were gasoline cars favored? Our analysis brings us to the key importance of infrastructure, that came too late for electrics.
The New Deal came decades too late for the producers of electric vehicles.
The most plausible counterfactual scenario is a dual transportation system-also suggested by technology historian David Kirsch-with electric vehicles servicing metropolitan areas, and gasoline cars having a stronger position in touring and the countryside.
Are we getting it right this time? The case of modern electric vehicles is no doubt a case in point.
The supply of charging stations is still a bottleneck, and so is infrastructure required for complementary charging technologies like electric roads.
Electric vehicles as of 2021 still account only for a negligible fraction of the vehicle stock, in many cases augmenting the vehicle stock rather than substituting the gasoline models.
It will therefore take years before the transition to electric vehicles will make a dent to the rising levels of greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector.