22/05/2026
Fun Fact: Electric cars were invented before petrol cars. By 1900, one-third of all vehicles were electric. 🔋
While Scottish inventor Robert Anderson kicked things off with a crude electric carriage way back in 1832, here are some more examples of early EV’s
• 1888 – Flocken Elektrowagen: Widely considered the world's first real four-wheeled electric passenger car.
• 1894 – Morris & Salom Electrobat: One of the earliest successful American EVs, later used as a commercial taxi.
• 1897 – The 'Hummingbird' Taxi: Walter Bersey’s famous fleet of 50 electric cabs that dominated London’s streets.
• 1898 – Egger-Lohner C.2 Phaeton (Porsche P1): The very first vehicle designed by Ferdinand Porsche.
• 1923 – Detroit Electric: A massive success story, driving up to 80 miles on a single charge in the 1920s.
• 1985 – Sinclair C5: A one-man electric trike that was decades ahead of its time (even if it looked a bit silly on British roads!).
• 1997 – Honda EV Plus: A rare 90s pioneer. It was the first major EV to drop old lead-acid batteries for advanced NiMH tech, getting an impressive 80+ miles of range in the 90s
Henry Ford’s mass-production line made petrol cars vastly cheaper, and the invention of the electric key-starter in 1912 took away the pain of hand-cranking petrol engines. Making electric vehicles decline in popularity.
