When Was the First Electric Car Made?

By Renee Valdes 06/09/2023 4:00pm

It’s debatable when the first electric car was officially made and who was first. Several inventions led to electric vehicle innovation from a series of breakthroughs. However, those breakthroughs, from the battery to the electric motor in the 1800s, helped put the first electric vehicle in use.

The innovators behind the breakthroughs include Scottish inventor Robert Anderson, who created the first electric carriage in the 1830s using a non-rechargeable battery, and a Vermont-based blacksmith, Thomas Davenport. Davenport experimented with electromagnets, and in 1834, he developed an electric motor and, a year later, a small electric car that ran on tracks.

According to the United States Department of Energy, Iowan inventor and chemist William Morrison created a super-efficient storage battery and added it to a horse-drawn carriage, inventing the first American 4-wheeled electric vehicle around the 1890s.

Other developments are also worth noting. According to Scientific American, “In 1897, the Electric Carriage and Wagon Company in Philadelphia assembled a fleet of electric-powered taxis for New York City. By 1902 the Pope Manufacturing Company in Hartford, Conn., had built around 900 electric vehicles, most of which were used as cabs.”

Just before the turn of the century, Ferdinand Porsche, the founder of the sports car company bearing his name, developed the P1 electric car in 1898. According to Porsche, its founder also created the first hybrid electric car powered by a gas engine and electric motor around the same time.

Around this time, nearly one-third of all vehicles on American roads were electric before cheaper gas-powered cars became more popular.