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The Electric Vehicle and the Burden of History (Paperback)
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The Electric Vehicle and the Burden of History (Paperback)
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In the late 1890s, at the dawn of the automobile era, steam,
gasoline, and electric cars all competed to become the dominant
automotive technology. By the early 1900s, the battle was over and
internal combustion had won. Was the electric car ever a viable
competitor? What characteristics of late nineteenth-century
American society led to the choice of internal combustion over its
steam and electric competitors? And might not other factors, under
slightly differing initial conditions, have led to the adoption of
one of the other motive powers as the technological standard for
the American automobile? David A. Kirsch examines the relationship
of technology, society, and environment to choice, policy, and
outcome in the history of American transportation. He takes the
history of the Electric Vehicle Company as a starting point for a
vision of an ""alternative" automotive system in which gasoline and
electric vehicles would have each been used to supply different
kinds of transport services. Kirsch examines both the support-and
lack thereof-for electric vehicles by the electric utility
industry. Turning to the history of the electric truck, he explores
the demise of the idea that different forms of transportation
technology might coexist, each in its own distinct sphere of
service. A main argument throughout Kirsch's book is that
technological superiority cannot be determined devoid of social
context. In the case of the automobile, technological superiority
ultimately was located in the hearts and minds of engineers,
consumers and drivers; it was not programmed inexorably into the
chemical bonds of a gallon of refined petroleum. Finally, Kirsch
connects the historic choice of internal combustion over
electricity to current debates about the social and environmental
impacts of the automobile, the introduction of new hybrid vehicles,
and the continuing evolution of the American transportation system.
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