ELECTRIC VEHICLE HISTORY 1950 to 2000
1950 ? - GM Corvair (Date Estimated) Electric Prototype - Click Here
1950 ? - Taylor Electricr (Date Estimated) Funky Electric Car - Click Here
1951 - Autoette Electric "Thing" Against the 50'2 Chevrolets - Click Here
1967 NBC (New York - USA) broadcasts news story about electric cars
1976 following the gas crisis that came with the oil embargo of 1973. Congress passes a new law to allow more research on hybrid and electric cars.
1976- Citicar Electric One of the first "Practical" Electrics - Click Here
1977-79 General Motors spent over $20 million in electric car development and research, reporting that electric vehicles could be in production by the mid-1980s.
1979 - Leopard "Lectric" High gas prices fueled EV's in the 70's - Click Here
1980 - 1980 Endura Maxima ETV-1 Designed by Chrysler and built on an Omni Horizon chassis - Click Here
1988 General Motors’ research for such a vehicle results in the production of the “EV1”.
1990: California passes its Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate (ZEV’s), which requires two percent of the state’s vehicles to have no emissions by 1998 and 10 percent by 2003. Under political pressure, the law is repeatedly weakened over the next decade to reduce the number of pure ZEV’s it requires.
1993: The Clinton Administration announced a government initiative called the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV). A partnership between the government and the auto industry worked to develop a clean car that could operate at up to 80 miles per gallon. A few years later and a billion dollars, the PNVG emerged with three prototypes, each of which was a hybrid. Toyota was not included in the PNVG program, prompting Toyota to embark on a crash program to develop its own car that would improve fuel efficiency by 50 percent.
1997: Toyota introduces the first Prius to the Japanese market, two years before its original launch date. First year sales were nearly 18,000.
1981 Datsun 310 Lectra Produced by Lectra Motors Las Vegas, NV - Click Here
1993 - City-E Electric Rare EV made in Denmark - Click Here
1996 - ElectricCars.com Goes Online! Virtually at the beginning of the "worldwide web" - Click Here
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