The first car to be born in the 19th century was an electric car. Gasoline cars came much later, because electric cars seemed much more promising, and the electric engine’s construction was simpler than that of the internal combustion engine.
The development of electric cars is due to Faraday, who discovered electromagnetic induction. The name of the first “progenitor” of the electric car remains unknown, because almost simultaneously, Scottish-born R. Anderson, British citizen R. Davidson and American T. Davenport invented independently of each other electric carriages capable of moving at a speed of up to 4 km/h. The main problem was low battery capacity.
Over time, the batteries were changed, improved, and as a result, at the end of the 19th century first the public was presented a six-seat van, capable of speeds up to 23 km / h, and then the company “Woods” began the planned production of cars on electric traction.
The legend of the automotive world, Porsche, began his career with the production of such cars. His carriage Lohner-Porsche was already able to reach a speed of 50 km/h, driving 50 kilometers until the battery was fully discharged.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, the speed and driving range of gasoline and electric cars were absolutely comparable. By 1912, the number of electric cars was almost twice that of gasoline cars. But things were changing – new roads were being built, possible travel times were increasing, and recharging was still difficult.
So once cars with internal combustion engines became quieter and more reliable, and were manufactured on the assembly line, thereby reducing the cost of the car, this served as the beginning of the end of electric cars, dramatically increasing the demand for gasoline cars.
The first car in human history to go into space is electric! On February 6, 2018, at 20:45 UTC, a Falcon rocket carrying a Tesla Roadster electric car owned by SpaceX orbited Earth.
Both the rocket and the car were designed and assembled at the plants of Ilon Musk’s companies, with the car launched as a mock payload for the rocket.
The bright scarlet Roadster, released in 2019, is personally owned by Ilon Musk and has a unique VIN 686. Behind the wheel of the electric car is a dummy Starman astronaut in a space suit, also developed in SpaceX’s engineering labs.
The car’s audio system played David Bowie’s song “Space Oddity” during the rocket launch.
But even this was not enough for Musk! In the glove compartment of the electric car put a copy of the cult novel by Douglas Adams “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and a cloth towel with “Don’t Panic” – “Don’t Panic” inscribed on it.
The car was first launched into Earth orbit and then “laid down” in an elliptical orbit around the Sun. By the end of 2018, the Tesla Roadster, piloted by a rocket, had traveled a maximum of 255 million kilometers from the Sun, which is slightly farther than the orbit of Mars.
The electric car will have a perilous journey to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.