In mentioning early EV adoption in this thread, I remembered reading a long time ago, when I was doing research for a carriaging article I was writing for a carriage driving magazine, about an interesting early auto enthusiast named Horatio Nelson Jackson. His adventures ended up being figured in the article I wrote on road infrastructure in the horse drawn era.
Not surprisingly he found his way into Wikipedia (which was a decade away from existing as yet when I wrote the article):
Jackson [a physician living in Vermont], was an auto enthusiast who differed with the then-prevailing wisdom that the automobile was a passing fad and a recreational plaything. While in San Francisco's University Club as a guest on May 18, 1903, he agreed to a $50 wager (equivalent to $1,629 in 2022) to prove that a four-wheeled machine could be driven across the country. He accepted, even though at age 31 he did not own a car, had practically no experience driving, and had no maps to follow. Jackson and his wife planned to return to their Burlington, Vermont, home in a few days, and both had been taking automobile driving lessons while in San Francisco. She returned home by train, allowing him to take his adventure by automobile. [BTW - her dad was one of the richest men in Vermont at the time who made his fortune in a partnership manufacturing and selling what we'd call today "snake oil". ]
Having no mechanical experience, Jackson convinced a young mechanic and chauffeur, Sewall Crocker, to serve as his travel companion, mechanic, and backup driver. Crocker suggested that Jackson buy a Winton car. He bought a slightly used, two-cylinder, 20 hp Winton, which he named "The Vermont", after his home state, bade his wife goodbye, and left San Francisco on May 23, carrying coats, rubber protective suits, sleeping bags, blankets, canteens, a water bag, an axe, a shovel, a telescope, tools, spare parts, a block and tackle, cans for extra gasoline and oil, a Kodak camera, a rifle, a shotgun, and pistols.
His adventures in driving this novel machine across a horse-centric machine-unready county is, in one word, hilarious. The part where the car made so much noise that the intrepid doctor and his companion failed to hear their supplies falling off the back of the car along the way was beyond funny. But their trials even getting out of San Francisco also echoes the stumbling blocks of any new intrusion into society and the prevailing infrastructure. Back then, Jackson set off into it a landscape of horse drawn vehicles and their wide and firmly established support system, while virtually nothing supported the automobile. The horse ruled economically and socially, and cars were looked upon with suspicion and wonder and (most times) derision. Only in the cities did cars gain an early foothold in acceptance, although fuel and service was both scarce and difficult to find.
Pretty much the same playbook that the EV is following today. Except that EVs don't have to worry about scaring horses like the noisy ICE cars did back then. We just have to deal with the reverse - government recently mandating "noise" programmed into our silent cars up to 7mph so we don't "scare" pedestrians. And yes, I actually did startle a few people with my earlier EV because they only saw movement but no sound. At least my current EVs sound like spaceships (which is how a pedestrian described it to me because he thought the sound was really cool).
It took over 20 years, and lots of mechanical and supporting innovation for the car, combined with the development of abundant and easy fueling along all major roads, for the car to finally dethrone the horse. It took another 30 years after that for a President who saw the need for a national highway system to be developed with paved roads in lieu of dirt, and had it built.
I wish I could peek into the future to see how long before EVs become the dominant mode of personal transportation with charging infrastructure on every corner and in every home, apartment and condo. If history has any say, it will be another 20 years.
I wonder if I'll still be driving my first electric truck then, or have replaced it for a truck that drives me....
"Alexa, take me to the grocery store, please."
"
Of course. Taking you to the grocery store now."
