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What was the first electric car?
I know about famous electric car brands like Tesla and Lucid, and now I’m feeling curious about the history of electric vehicles. What was the first electric car?
Ru Chen · Updated on
Reviewed by Shannon Martin, Licensed Insurance Agent.
What a great question! The first electric vehicle was a prototype called the Galvani made by Rober Davidson in 1837.
Yep, all the way back in the 1830s, people were trying to create electric locomotives that might take over the horse and carriage industry.
In 1841, an improved version of this new invention could go four mph while towing six tons, before it needed new batteries. Batteries weren’t rechargeable like today, after all.
Interestingly, railway workers saw this prototype of an electric vehicle as a threat. They more so saw Galvani as a machine of the devil, and thus destroyed it.
And so in a way, electric cars were invented long before the first internal combustion car appeared on roads (which happened only around 1886).
Car insurance only came around half a century after. In 1897, automotive
liability insurance
was purchased for the first time! …Not that auto insurance was all that great back then.
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