On april 29th of 1899, “La Jamais Contente” – “the never satisfied” – from Belgian engineer Camille Jenatzy, exceeded for the first time 100 km/h, reaching 105.88 km/h.
In 1900, among 4192 vehicles manufactured in the US, 1575 were electric, 936 were gasoline, and 1681 steam powered. The gasoline automobile finally supplanted the electric car. In a 1955 article, John B. Rae proposed a deterministic explanation for the failure of the electric car: it would have been victim of its intrinsic imperfections compared to the gasoline cars. Rae said that the development of the electric car at the beginning of the century, was a “parasitic outgrowth of the automotive industry, and that its death was grieved only by those who had the misfortune to invest their money there”. Since 1955, most historians have accepted Rae’s Theory, except Rudi Volti who was the first to question the thesis of determinism. Several technical and economical reasons have been and are still leveraged to explain the intrinsic superiority of gasoline car. In the early 2000, a book by David A. Kirsch advocates a more nuanced perspective. Indeed, relying on the work of sociology and economics of innovation (particularly those of Paul A. David), Kirsch argues this technology could have been developed in specific segments of the automotive market, including urban fleets if some social factors were not opposed. Other authors explain that electric car development failed due to cultural rather than technical problems.
