Taking Charge: The Electric Automobile in America

by Michael Brian Schiffer

The tumultuous history of inventors and corporations who have tried to bring the electric car to the market.

Amazingly, in 1900 28 percent of all cars were electric. By 1920 the electric car had all but vanished and gas-powered cars dominated the market. In Taking Charge , Schiffer deftly explores how cultural factors, not technological ones, explain the rise of gas-guzzling cars. Schiffer brings the history of the electric car into the present, arguing that despite the Detroit Big Three’s reluctance to make electric cars, their time has finally arrived.

240 pages, Paperback

First published August 17, 1994

About the author

Michael Brian Schiffer is Fred A. Riecker Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of Arizona and Research Associate at the Lemelson Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. He is the author of six previous books on technology.

Reviews

[Butch Byers · Rating 5 out of 5]

The version of this book that I wound up reading was an older one, copyright 1994. I am in awe of two things: how we learn certain things as a society and its engineers, then we move on and forget; and, Schiffer's prescient analysis in his now 20 year old Chapter 12 "Prognosis for the Electric Car" - everything he says was almost dead spot on, albeit time-shifted to the right by 5 or 10 years. Witness first the rise of the hybrids (Prius) - the fundamental technology of which is around 100 years old as well - and now the rise of the Tesla and its rapid proliferation in places like Silicon Valley and Norway, where in Schiffer's words "The electric car will come to be regarded as a desirable symbol of widely shared values". An interesting book for engineers like me with a really wonderfully succinct analysis as its conclusion. I look forward to re-reading it another 10 years from now.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very Good! This small book covers all the electric automobiles ever built in America including the new semi electric Toyota Prius.

[Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

The history of the electric auto in American and the reasons why it was not popular in the beginning and maybe not now for the totally electric vehicle.