Electric vehicles have been helping Americans get around for more than a hundred years. At the start of the 20th century, a third of the vehicles on the road were battery powered. Ferdinand Porsche, founder of the sports car company that still bears his name, was among the first to develop an electric vehicle, debuting the P1 in 1898. Even Henry Ford dabbled with the technology in the early 1900s. Then again, it was also his mass-produced Model T that decimated demand for EVs in the first place.
