EXPLORE OUR HISTORY
The History of Electric Vehicles in America
Electric cars are not new: they shared American roads with gasoline cars more than a century ago, faded, and returned in waves. The Route 66 Electric Vehicle Museum tells that story through its own collection of 125+ vehicles, from a 1909 electric baggage truck to a 2008 Tesla Roadster.
1890s-1920s
The First Electric Age
Around 1900, electric cars were a common sight in American cities. They were quiet, clean, and easy to drive, with no hand crank, no gears to shift, and no smell. By many accounts, roughly a third of the cars on U.S. roads at the turn of the century were electric.
Electric power also moved goods and people in places gasoline could not go. Electric trucks hauled freight in cities, and battery-powered carts moved baggage through train stations and factories.
The tide turned in the 1910s. Henry Ford's affordable Model T, the electric starter that ended hand-cranking gasoline engines, and cheap Texas oil made gasoline cars the practical choice for longer trips on new rural roads.
FROM OUR COLLECTION
1909 Elwell-Parker baggage truck and trailer, an industrial electric from the era when battery power ran America's freight yards and depots.
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1920 Custer Car and Custer Chairs, built by Dayton inventor Levitt Luzern Custer, a close associate of Orville Wright. Our records describe the Custer Car as the smallest licensed electric car ever made.
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1922 Walker Truck, from the Walker Vehicle Company. Only about ten are known to survive.
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1922 Auto Red Bug, a tiny early runabout that shows how inventive the first generation of small electrics could be.​
1930s-1940s
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The Holdouts
By the 1930s, gasoline had won the mass market, but electric cars never fully disappeared. Detroit Electric kept building cars for loyal customers, many of them city drivers who valued quiet, reliable transportation over long range.
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When wartime fuel rationing arrived in the 1940s, small electric runabouts found new buyers. In California, the Autoette Electric Car Company built simple, low-speed electrics for short trips, shopping, and getting around retirement and resort communities.
FROM OUR COLLECTION
1930 Detroit Electric Model 60, from the longest-running electric car maker of its time, with production that began in 1907. Advertised range was about 80 miles, and our records note a single-charge record of 211 miles.
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1939 Tafel Autoette, a rare single-passenger hybrid.
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1940s Autoettes, including restored and unrestored examples that show the company's early designs.
1950s-1960s
Small Electrics for Postwar America
Postwar America fell in love with big gasoline cars, but a wave of small electric makers built vehicles for neighborhoods, shopping centers, and retirement communities. These micro cars and three-wheelers were inexpensive, easy to park, and perfect for short trips.
A few companies aimed higher. In 1959, the Henney Motor Company built the Kilowatt, one of the first modern attempts at a full-size electric passenger car, using the body of a Renault Dauphine.
FROM OUR COLLECTION
​1950s Marketeers, built in California, including V-nose and round-nose models, a pickup, a van, and the 1957 Californian.
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1950 Autoette Bus, the only one known to exist.
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1954 Autoette and 1956 Mobilette, both featured in the 2012 David Chase film Not Fade Away.
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1959 Henney Kilowatt, with just 4,000 original miles. Very few were ever built.
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1959–1960 Electric Shoppers, micro cars with a top speed of about 18 mph and a range of 30 to 35 miles.
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1960 Taylor-Dunn Tridents, rare three-wheelers in blue and pink, with steering wheel and tiller versions.
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1960 Autoette Power Car, the only one known to exist.
Late 1960s-1980s
Energy Crises and Electric Experimenters
Air pollution in the 1960s and the oil shocks of the 1970s brought electric cars back into the conversation. Utilities, small manufacturers, and backyard builders all experimented with electric power, and a handful of commuter cars reached showrooms.
This was also the era of the electric hot rod. A community of builders proved that electric cars could be fast, setting drag strip and land speed records that changed how people saw battery power.
FROM OUR COLLECTION
​1967 Mars II, an early modern electric. Our records note that Arizona Public Service bought one and drove it from Toledo, Ohio, to its Deer Valley Operations Center in Phoenix.
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1971 Land Rover, the first electric Land Rover conversion, featured on the Discovery Channel's Mean Green Machines.
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1980 Comuta-Car and Jet Industries Electra, commuter electrics from the energy-crisis years.
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Electric drag racers: a 1979 Mazda RX-7 our records credit as the first street car to break 100 mph in the quarter mile; the Kawashocki, built by the late EV legend Ed Rannberg and capable of about 125 mph; a three-motor Datsun 280ZX built by the late Don Crabtree, known as "Father Time"; and a Grumman postal van drag car built for the Discovery Channel's Sucking Amps.
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Early 1980s Bonneville land speed streamliners, a matched pair built to chase electric speed records on the salt flats.
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Golf carts of country music legends: Willie Nelson's personal Royal Ride and Waylon Jennings' Mercedes 450SL-styled cart.
1990s
Mandates, Solar Racers, and the First Modern EVs
In 1990, California adopted a zero-emission vehicle mandate that pushed major automakers to build electric cars. Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, Toyota, and Honda all put electric vehicles on the road, most of them leased in small numbers and later recalled.
Universities joined in too. Student teams raced solar cars across the country and built electric race cars, training a generation of engineers who would later lead the modern EV industry.
FROM OUR COLLECTION
1993 Ford Ecostar, an electric delivery van from Ford's early EV program.
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1993 Solec Evcort, an experimental electric built by Electric Vehicle Associates of Cleveland, Ohio, which originally cost $58,000.
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1993 City-El, an early Danish-built single-seat electric.
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1994 Arizona State University Formula Lightning race car, winner of the 1994 Solar & Electric 500 in Phoenix.
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1995 Renault 19, one of two prototypes built in a partnership between Renault, General Motors, and Hughes Power Control Systems.
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1997 Bombardier, a prototype for the 1998 federal standard that created the low-speed vehicle category.
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1998 General Motors S-10 Electric, a factory-built electric pickup truck.
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1999 Chrysler EPIC, an electric minivan based on the Dodge Caravan.
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1990s electric bicycles from Lee Iacocca's EV Global, and a pusher trailer built by JB Straubel, who went on to co-found Tesla.
2000s-Today
Lithium Batteries and the Road to the Mainstream
The arrival of lithium-ion batteries changed everything. Electric cars could finally offer the range, speed, and reliability drivers expected, and a small California startup proved it in 2008 with the Tesla Roadster.
Within a few years, major automakers were selling electric cars again, and electric vehicles were setting records from the drag strip to the salt flats. Today, electric cars are a growing part of everyday life, more than a century after they first appeared.
FROM OUR COLLECTION
​2000 Corbin Sparrow, a single-seat three-wheeled commuter.
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2000 Volt Runner, the last conversion by Pacific Northwest EV pioneer Dave Cloud, built to teach the public about electric cars.
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2002 Toyota RAV4 EV, one of only a few hundred built that year.
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2003 Honda FCV, a fuel cell electric car displayed as a cutaway.
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2006 ZAP Xebra, from its first production year.
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2008 Tesla Roadster #480, "The Simo", with a 53 kWh lithium-ion battery and a 220-mile range.
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Buckeye Bullet 2.5, the Ohio State University streamliner that reached 320 mph at Bonneville in August 2010 and set an FIA world record of 307.666 mph, the official average of two runs. On loan from the NHRA Museum.
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2011 Stanford Solar Car, built by students to race on sunlight alone.
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2012 Coda, from a short-lived California electric sedan maker.
LEARN
Explore the World of EVs
From the first electric vehicles to the innovations shaping tomorrow, discover the stories behind more than a century of electric transportation.
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WITH GRATITUDE
With Thanks to Those Who've Supported Our Journey
HEVF is grateful to the organizations and community partners whose support — past and present — helps us preserve electric vehicle history and bring the Route 66 Electric Vehicle Museum to life.
