Contents Notes |
Substituting for the horse, choosing propulsion -- Separate spheres : culture and technology of the early car -- Failed experiments : the first-generation electric taxicab -- Horse power : the city car, the touring car, and the crisis of 1907 -- The Trojan horse : the competition for the taxicab market -- The electrified horse : the commercial vehicle in Europe -- The serious side of mobility : the electric truck in the United States -- Off the road and back : utilitarian niches or new universalism? -- Alternative technologies and the history of tomorrow's car. "In Electric Vehicle, Gijs Mom challenges this view, arguing that at the beginning of the automobile age neither the internal combustion engine nor the battery-powered vehicle enjoyed a clear advantage. He explores the technology and marketing/consumer-feedback relationship over four "generations" of electric-vehicle design, with separate chapters on privately owned passenger cars and commercial vehicles. He makes abundant comparisons among European countries and between Europe and America." "The Electric Vehicle offers a long-overdue reassessment of the place of this technology in the history of street transportation."--BOOK JACKET. |