The early 19th century had not embraced the miracle of electricity, but a few British, French and then American pioneers became interested in electric engines. They believed they had a future as they were less polluting than steam engines or animal carriages. In the late 19th century, the scientific journal "La Nature" announced the production of many electrical forms of transportation, including the implementation in Paris of electrical automobile coaches following a contest. Eleven electric cars and one automobile were participating. In 1898, the jury declared: "It seems clear that petrol coaches cannot sustain a public car operating system in a large city." The future of the electric engine seemed obvious. 150 years later, the prospect of better quality of life is more pressing, and electric vehicles, or EVs, are at the forefront again. I will now review the history of electric car innovation to explain how innovative it is today. This will be split into two parts. First, let us talk about innovation with regards to automobile mobility. We will then be able to contextualize the history of electric cars in an explicit analysis. Let us start with the term "innovation". In concrete terms, innovation is: a market or non-market good or service massively produced and successfully commercialized or deployed for the first time. It is a good or service which transforms or revolutionizes a business segment, a social practice or the lives of many individuals. In other words, innovation is a social novelty. This is why the economist Schumpeter did not single out technological inventions as they were implicit. They announced future forms of innovation. The takeaway from Schumpeter is that, to transform technological inventions into innovations, we often have to innovate with production and distribution models, outlets and raw materials. We mention innovation so you understand that the following overview aims at explaining if and why electric cars can be considered as an innovation. Electric cars must then be considered in a wider social, political and economical context to identify what can foster or prevent innovation. In this spirit, Gabriel Dupuy coined the notion of "automobile system" to explain the monopoly of thermal cars in society. This system is made up of elements which interact to make this system powerful and consistent. These elements are: innovative technologies, mass production to generalize the product and a distribution network suited to production, available energy, road and parking infrastructure, and services: repairs, gas stations and insurance to make usage easier, and lastly, regulations made out of uniform norms and codifications, such as traffic rules, signs and driving licenses. The system is supported by actors following the same pathways to the same goal. The actors include: car manufacturers, the energy industry, users, the state and local governments. The more numerous, the harder and longer it becomes to reach a consensus regarding the goals and pathways. As we know, the system has peaked for thermal cars as represented by the Ford Model T and its autonomy and low production costs. Let us now talk about EV history which spans over 150 years and is still looking to spread out. The history of EVs is chaotic, filled with successes, burials, and more or less long resurgences. Their early stages date back to between 1850 and 1900. They peaked between 1900 and 1920 before coming to a long and sudden standstill between 1920 and 1960. Two short paroxysms occur in 1975 and 1990 before the resurgence of EVs as of 2007. Let us review these steps. First, we will identify the elements of the automobile system and their evolution, before inserting the social, political economic and environmental data which shaped the actors' strategies. First, the evolution of automobile systems. The first prototype of an autonomous individual electric vehicles, or IEVs, was created by a Scottish businessman in 1830. It was a cart propelled by an electromagnetic engine. But it was in 1859 that the history of IEVs took a decisive turn when Planté, a Frenchman, invented a lead-acid rechargeable battery which was able to store electricity. This innovation started the rise of IEVs while a petrol prototype was produced. Both types of engines were in fierce competition. Following the trend of the French, British and American inventions, the first EV was commercialized in 1884. EVs achieved recognition in 1899 when La Jamais Contente, whose batteries represented over half its total weight, was the first vehicle to drive over 100 km/h and another EV won a car race in the United States. This dynamic was also carried by user costs lower than those of a thermal engine. Petrol was then very expensive and thermal cars use a lot of fuel. In 1900, there were over 30 000 EVs in circulation in the USA. There were more and more electric car manufacturers there and in Europe. However, pretty soon, EVs turned out to be less efficient on long distances and recharging the batteries to be complicated without a standardized charging station network. However, on shorter distances, it was a decent alternative. Electric taxi services were born in New York and Paris. The fact that EVs produced no noise or odor nuisances, and were easy to start and clean, made them a great commercial success. During the 1920s, EVs came to a sudden standstill and remained on the sidelines until the late 1960s. The progress in thermal engines due to, first, Rudolf Diesel, whose engine consumed less energy, and secondly, Ford who invented assembly lines, the mother of mass production for affordable prices, were key. EVs, on the other hand, were stagnating. They were still heavy, their autonomy remained around 100 km. They were more and more reserved to short distances for technical usages, light vehicles, dump trucks. Many manufacturers went bankrupt. However, the IEV industry was not completely closed off. The more efficient thermal cars were experiencing a tremendous rise. Two inventions would allow IEVs to sporadically resurface: first, hybrid engines in the 1920s and fuel cells in the 1990s. Neither of these inventions would allow EVs to shake off their historical downsides, low autonomy, battery weight, and high production costs. Making EVs a fixture in the contemporary mobility landscape now rests on the invention of lithium batteries, which is on average 5 times lighter than lead batteries. However, their cost remains high. Lithium batteries were the cornerstone of EV1 production commercialized by General Motors between 1996 and 1999. The program was brutally interrupted. The last resurgence dates back to 2007 and is still ongoing. All manufacturers, in Japan, China, Europe and the United States were mass producing electric cars. Lithium batteries were making leaps and bounds like Elon Musk's Tesla's battery in the United States which offered 300-kilometer autonomy for 60 000 euros. This slide shows three emblematic models of EVs. Lastly, we will connect all these evolutions with their political and economical context The 1929 global financial crisis worked to the disadvantage of EVs, weakened by the competition of thermal cars. The automotive industry focused its investment on more solid cars. On the contrary, the 1940 World War and the accompanying petrol shortages allowed EVs to make a two-year come back. Then, a simpler evolution followed, as it was based on two alarms sounded in the 1960s and 1970s and then repeated more insistently in 1995 and 2007. The first alarm was about the growing oil dependence of many countries' economic systems. There were oil shocks and a shortage of fossil fuels for several months. The second alarm was about thermal engine polluting emissions which were growing. Both alarms announced three times the resurgence of electric engines. The basis for the first resurgence was the fuel cell. In 1990, the second resurgence would lead some governments to translate ecological considerations into regulations. The most famous initiative was led by the State of California which passed laws on zero-emission vehicles, so by 2013, zero-emission vehicles would represent 10% of the car fleet. Manufacturers resumed their research on lithium batteries which led to the EV1 in 1996. The resurgence of 2007 followed the national and then global institutionalization of sustainable development and the energy transition. This came to fruition through the Paris Agreement in November 2016. Lithium batteries now represent the reference technical solution in more or less complex models. That being said, these resurgences occur in more and more complex contexts. Automobile markets become globalized, industrial competition is intensifying, Japan, then China, with production costs lower than other countries, have become involved. Other important actors joined the system. As early as 1965, the states interfered in industrial research programs. Thanks to the considerable funding of the American space program, the first fuel cells were manufactured and used in electric vehicles. Later on, electricity producers and suppliers would take on a major part. Depending on the countries, they favor different technical industries. In France, for Michel Callon, the involvement of Électricité de France in the trend of energy research pushed fuel cells into the background in favor of research on accumulators and nuclear energy. The EV program became central and a government matter. ÉDF was in the driver's seat. This situation was due to a lack of involvement and strategy from the French government with regards to environmental and technical issues at the time. The actors and the electric industry became more diversified by integrating all short-distance transport modes. The global, national and local systems of actors thus became more complex. And yet, the global recognition of the ecological issues led to standardizations in the system of electric mobility for each area of the world. The standardization of functions, materials and various elements were required to make usage easier and reduce the still-high costs of EVs. In a nutshell, the system of electric mobility is a living and active system. Will it go back to the status it acquired at its peak as a social innovation? Remember three things from this overview. A technical invention can be analyzed through the system which carries it toward innovation. The history of electric cars now spans 150 years without any stabilization of its mobility system, as thermal cars soon developed a highly-efficient competing mobility system autonomy- and cost-wise. Electric mobility is undergoing a transformation due to the institutionalization of sustainable development and the energy transition but we are unable to clearly predict its future in time and space.
