I always thought that electric cars were novelties with the sole use of avoiding Congestion Charges. Not so apparently if you are to believe the story of Chevron-Texaco and their electric car.
The biggest drawback to the electric car has been its limited range: one charge lasted around 60 miles, then the car stopped. So the distinguished engineer Stan Ovshinsky created a battery that could run up to 300 miles at 70mph on a single charge - enough to get from London to Scotland, and make the car extremely popular. The oil company Chevron-Texaco bought the technology. It has not been seen since.
Why? Why would a string of corporations turn down cash and scrap a potentially extremely profitable techology? Isn't that contrary to everything we are taught about how market economies work?
The oil companies had an obvious interest in stopping an alternative to fossil fuels. There is $100 trillion of oil left in the earth, and they plan to mine it - even if doing so will make the planet uninhabitable. Anything that could divert that cash away from them is a threat to be crushed.
We have never needed the electric car more than we do now. But for reasons that can only be explained by our crazy market economy it looks like being mothballed in the vaults of Chevron-Texaco for some time yet.
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