Electric Cars dominant

[Yankoslavian]

What would be the nearest POD for America to be dominated by electric, rather than internal combustion-powered, vehicles?

[DominusNovus]

Originally Posted by Yankoslavian

What would be the nearest POD for America to be dominated by electric, rather than internal combustion-powered, vehicles?

Either you put the country in the hands of idealists who don't have any sense (idealist with any sense [though thats an oxymoron] would just go after low emissions), or you eliminate oil reserves.

[Yankoslavian]

I'll make it easier: We can have "diesel" powered heavy trucks and such but electric cars are dominant.

[Diamond]

What about a collaboration between Thomas Edison and Henry Ford? Between the two of them, maybe they can come up with an 'electricar' as easy and quick to produce as the Model T.

Couple this with some event that cuts off America's supply of Middle-eastern oil, and you could have electricars as the dominant means of transportation by the 1930s. A side effect might be earlier rural electrification.

For a slightly ASB-effect, throw Tesla into the Edison-Ford mix, resulting in electricars running on wireless broadcast electricity.

[David S Poepoe]

I don't think the Middle East was exporting too much, if any, oil to the United States in the 1930s. There were probably no major oil imports by the United States until the 1950s or 60s.

Earlier breakthroughs in the design of electric batteries are necessary since in OTL thats when the electric car lost out to the internal combustion engine. However, I do think it would be fairly easy to develop hybrid cars, IC and electric battery, like the Toyota Prius.

[DuQuense]

Have a couple of the electric Car and MC makers survive till WW 2 then when rationing hits Electric cars are the car of choice.

[Adam Parsons]

I've been thinking of this for some time now. My general goal was to create a timeline with lots of American electric cars by 1970. I went at it by having a random American genius come up with the idea for hydrogen fuel cells in the late 50's, start selling the technology to foreign companies in the early 60's, makes plenty of money overseas, get the American car manufacturers interested by 1964, as well as the military. By 1970, most American/W. European cars and military vehicles are running on the cells, with the Soviets slowing converting their military with stolen designs. Of course, most of this isn't too likely, but it's just a wild guess.

Actually, the thing I find most interesting about this idea is what would happen to the OPEC nations, who have just had their financial underpinnings destroyed? Revolution? Democracy?

[NapoleonXIV]

The likeliest TL does seem to be the one involving rationing and remaining electric car manufacturers making a hybrid sometime during WWII.

Or maybe have the Germans develop something revolutionary during WWII to try and make up for their lost oil reserves. It wouldn't be enough to win the war but would be good for changing development. The end of WWII seems to be the nexus point to me. The last time when the model/image of the American car was fluid enough to permit any real change.

It might actually be financially beneficial to OPEC. Oil is used for heating and petrochemicals, too. Without the extreme demand created by gasoline they would still make a lot of money and not have the expense created by having to control the market and deal with competition from other harder-to-get sources. They might even use some of it to improve their countries rather than corrupting themselves and most other governments as well.

[fortyseven]

Consolidated Electric could be formed in the Great Depression and in WW2 rationing of gasoline,etc would result in electric cars becoming dominant.