The Rebirth of the Electric Vehicle

For several weeks in 2005, a group of passionate electric vehicle enthusiasts held a vigil outside General Motors’ offices in Burbank, California, to protest the recall and scrapping of the carmaker’s all-battery electric car, the EV1. To the dismay of proponents and drivers, General Motors and other major automakers had decided that electric cars had no future.

This was just one of several false starts in a history of electric vehicles that dates back to the late 1800s, but?Matthew N. Eisler?notes that it opened the door to Silicon Valley engineers who were looking to reinvent the automobile. These new carmakers, guided by their experience in information technology, employed a powerful new metaphor for rethinking the design and development of EVs: the computer on wheels.

“While the analogy of the EV as a kind of large mobile device proved a fruitful thought experiment,” Eisler argues, “it was not easy to translate into industrial engineering practice.” Instead, these new automakers used Silicon Valley innovation practices and public policy support to revive the electric vehicle.

Read more about how a metaphor borrowed from consumer electronics helped spark an EV revival.

Plus:?On the latest episode of?The Ongoing Transformation,?Matthew Eisler?talks with?Jason Lloyd?about the complex history of electric vehicle development and adoption?and what the EV revival might mean for infrastructure such as electric grids.