How Laptops Brought EVs Back From The Dead

Key Takeaways

[Music] Today, I rented what most people consider cuttingedge electric vehicle technology. But what if I told you that your great great grandma might have driven something remarkably similar about 120 years ago? This is Robert Anderson's motorized carriage made in the 1830s, way before the Ford Model T in 1908. Now, what if I told you that the same car was fully electric? Surprisingly, electric cars had a grip on the US economy in the late 1800s. By 1900, around a third of American vehicles on the road were electric. It seemed like we had an electric future all but guaranteed 125 years ago, but then it just disappeared until recently. So, if electric cars were winning big in 1900, what killed them and what brought them back for a second go in the 2000s? The answer involves a Japanese electronic company, a breakthrough that was hiding in your laptop this whole time, and one of the most dramatic corporate resurrections in history. So, yeah, this was the first documented EV. Scottish inventor Robert Anderson built it in 1830 something. It had four wheels and ran on non-rechargeable batteries. And because of its limited range and primitive battery tech, the first EV boom didn't really spark until the late 1800s. So, let's put it in reverse and go there. Now, gas and steam powered cars at the same time were just not cutting it. Steam vehicles required long startup times, up to 45 minutes in the cold, and gas cars required a lot of manual effort to drive, needed to be cranked to start, were noisy, and the exhaust was filthy. So many people actually broke their wrists cranking these cars that they invented a term for it called chauffeur's fracture. There was a clear demand for clean, quiet, and easy to operate personal vehicles that were perfect for cities, especially among upper class urban women who just needed a quick and easy ride to social events around town. >> The reason why electric vehicles came first well before uh simply because they're simpler. >> This is Gary Art, the host of Everything Everywhere podcast, and he produced a whole episode on the history of EVs. When they started developing vehicles like this, it was natural for them to go to electricity first because they had already figured out how to hold a charge and a battery and they had crude electric motors. People at the time were using batteries to power telegraph networks, telephones, and doorbells, but cars were an entirely new frontier. The bottom line is that EVs had selling potential in the 1800s, but it took a bit more time for the technology to really click. In 1889, Ian inventor William Morrison built the first successful US electric vehicle. This wagon may not look like much, but it jumpst started about 30 years of EV adoption and innovation in the US. While the US was getting its EV market together, London debuted a new line of electric cabs in 1897. Nicknamed Hummingbirds, these batterypowered taxis were a common sight on London's roads just three years after their invention with an equivalent on the roads of New York City at the same time. Then another trailblazer, Ferdinand Porsche, the founder of another pretty famous car company that's just not coming to mind right now, developed an electric car in 1898 called the P1. Even the president of the United States, trusted his life to electric power. President William McKinley's ambulance was entirely electric. Meanwhile, electricity began to spread to more homes in the 1910s, so charging became easier, just like they do today. People would just plug their cars into a wall outlet and get about 40 miles out of one charge, depending on the model. The future looked blindingly bright for electric vehicles. That is until a three-year perfect storm killed the industry for nearly a century. The first gear fixed that nasty chauffeur's fracture. Thanks to a new invention, gas cars became just as easy to start as electric cars. The second gear takes us to the gas tank. In 1892, mechanic and amateur geologist Patillo Higgins suspected that there might be oil in them hills. Specifically, this one spindle top hill near Bowmont, Texas. It took him nearly a decade to convince wealthy oil men to look into it. But in 1902, this one oil field produced 17.5 million barrels of oil. To put that in perspective, the US produced 69,389,000 barrels of oil in total in the previous year. Suddenly, gasoline was abundant and cheap for customers. But electricity, well, even by 1920, only 35% of homes had it. And besides, lugging around a heavy spare battery on a family road trip wasn't going to work. But a comparatively lightweight gallon of gas. Well, that was easy. The third and final gear was the big knockout punch thanks to another famous inventor. In 1913, Henry Ford revolutionized how cars were made. Previously, they had to be built by expert craftsmen. Ford introduced the assembly line approach. Interchangeable parts, division of labor, and continuous flow created a streamlined 24-hour operation. The equation is simple. Faster, less specialized production equals cheaper cars. By 1912, a Model T was $650 compared to an electric roadster at $1,750. Once internal combustion engines became better, well, you could just fill up a tank with fuel and go very far. And as the road network in the United States expanded in the early 20th century, more and more people wanted to take longer and longer trips. And the only real viable option for that was an internal combustion engine. So, cheaper cars, abundant fuel, and smoother technology gave a serious competitive edge to gas cars. Therefore, electric cars were all but scrapped. Bye-bye. Now, according to Car and Driver, one of the last EVs was the 1923 Detroit Electric. It could go 25 mph with a range of 80 mi, but the writing was on the wall already here. EVs were mostly relegated to golf carts and forklifts in the years after, removed from their former glory. And this is the way that it was in the US for about 80 years until one small component of your laptop changed everything. Essentially, the whole auto industry flipped on its head from a piece of laptop tech. And now you can use the same laptop tech to access a dynamic list of 50 breakthrough transportation companies. In here, you're going to find our insights on funding, data, and the overall transportation market, including EVs, autonomous vehicles, flying taxis, and much more. This tracker gives you all the data on who's moving the needle and where the opportunities lie. So, scan up this QR code or click the link in the description to get your transportation tech tracker right now. Your laptop will thank you. And speaking of your laptop, this battery here may not look like much, but it changed technology forever. In 1991, Sony commercialized lithium ion batteries for consumer electronics. The goal was to make a longerlasting lowmaintenance rechargeable battery and the company succeeded. Yeah. Before that, EV manufacturers had to rely on lead acid batteries. >> Electric cars were basically stuck with using lead acid batteries, which were incredibly he heavy. They couldn't go very fast and they couldn't go very far. >> Lead acid powered rechargeable batteries had a recharge time of 6 to 8 hours. Fast or partial charging would ruin their functionality. Lithium ion batteries, on the other hand, had three times the energy density of the lead acid batteries that had failed electric cars previously. Think about that. Three times the energy in just this than what used to power entire vehicles. And so, the battery was set into mass production for phones, cameras, and laptops. But translating these new batteries to cars took a while longer. GM experimented with nickel hydride for its EV1 car, which it killed in 2003 due to its small size and short range. Nissan's 1998 Ultra EV also didn't pan out, even though it was using one large lithium-ion battery. The huge battery led to high production costs. And on top of that, public adoption was pretty low. But then in that same year, Martin Everhard and Mark Tarponing founded Tesla. You heard that right, no Elon yet. Now, Tesla's, instead of making one big battery, had the idea to use a bunch of smaller lithium-ion laptop batteries, 6,831 of them to be exact. And after 5 years of trial and error, in 2008, they revealed this, the Tesla Roadster. It was the first lithium ion EV, and it boasted an over 200 mile range. Now, to pump the brakes for a minute, things weren't exactly that easy. EVs still face some of the same problems they did 100 years ago. gas car industry dominance, lack of charging infrastructure, and a high price tag. And as much as lithium-ion batteries have revolutionized other areas of consumer tech, translating them to cars was a whole other challenge, like creating the Tesla Roadster. Tesla invented new cooling systems to prevent batteries from overheating and wrote new software to manage power distribution. The company also implemented safety features to protect the driver and the battery packs during accidents. But Tesla's one reveal set the stage for the EV renaissance. All of this goes to show that sometimes breakthroughs aren't all about new tech. Sometimes they're about repurposing existing tech. Regardless, EVs are now in their second wave thanks to lithium battery tech. But they're not dominating the car industry quite yet. I said at the get- go that in 1900, EVs made up almost a third of cars on the road in the US, but now they accounted for just 1.4% 4% in 2024. According to an Experian report, this slowed adoption of EVs can be chocked up to a few things. First off, Elon Musk's political diversion is one big wrench thrown into Tesla adoption in the US and abroad. And while other EV makers like Ford, GM, and Honda have shown growth, Tesla clearly dominates the market. Meanwhile, Chinese companies like BYD are producing highly affordable electric passenger vehicles, but face significant barriers to entering the US market due to trade policies, tariffs, and national security concerns. Also, the staying power of gas cars will be tough to topple. For example, right now in 2025, Walmart is investing heavily in gas stations. And at the end of the day, EV charging time is still long versus a 5minute fillup. The last roadblock here is that lithium isn't an unlimited resource. Lithium requires huge amounts of water to extract. About 500,000 gallons of water are used for a single battery. Today, nearly 60% of lithium is mined for battery applications, a figure projected to jump to 95% by 2030, according to Carbon Credits. Regardless, we're not witnessing an EV birth. We're witnessing an EV renaissance. And they have the same advantages that they did in 1900. Quiet, clean, with an added bonus of range and fueling efficiency. But they also come with the same challenges. Infrastructure, consumer behavior, and charging time. >> I think the holy grail is like 5 minutes. When that happens and it becomes easy to do and people see the cost benefits because charging a car costs a whole lot less than gasoline, then I think you're going to see adoption. >> Now, we're rapidly approaching millionm EV batteries. BYD, a Chinese EV company, is proving that affordable EVs are possible with LFP chemistry. They're just not in the US for political and economic reasons. It might just only be a matter of time, though. History suggests that when technology and economics align, adoption explodes. So, all thanks to the laptop in your bag, it looks like we're finally back on the road of an EV future, just after a quick 80-year detour. And if you want more information about EVs and specifically why the US isn't letting Chinese ones into the country, check out my colleague Ka's story on the channel. But for now, I'm all out of power. Over the last 120 years, nailed it. >> All right. Now, how do I do you know, is it like a Huh? Okay. Now, how do I Doesn't seem like there's a button or anything. Maybe it's on the Oh, yeah. We're a business, baby.