What if EVs had always ruled the road?

Rory Sutheland wrote a funny and thought provoking article in the Spectator, imagining a world where the internal combustion engine was invented today - in a world full of electric vehicles. Would these newcomers to the market be a hit?

It’s easy to imagine a world where this could have happened. At the beginning of the 20th century, around 38% of U.S. cars were electric, 40% steam, and only 22% gasoline. Electric cars were quiet, clean, and didn’t require hand-cranking. Had there been more investment in battery R&D and charging infrastructure early on, EVs could have become more viable before gasoline got entrenched. The other factor was the Model-T. Henry Ford’s invention of the assembly line allowed his factories to print out cars that were cheaper than any of the EVs on the market and ushered in the age of the petrol powered automobile.

Early electric vehicles. Creative Commons, CC via Gilmore Car Museum, Museum of the City of New York