A brief history of electric vehicles and oil

In this episode Robert speaks to historian Dan Snow covering a wide range of topics around the history of oil and electric vehicles. Robert Llewellyn enjoys a remote chat with our special guest: historian Dan Snow (History Hit TV), covering the potted history of oil and electric vehicles.

Covering topics including: Britain’s coal reserves and its role a fuel exporter, the whale oil boom in New England coastal towns, the rapid change from horse-drawn to petrol and combustion engine vehicles in the USA, the early success of electric vehicles, then losing the battle with combustion engine vehicles, electric ‘street cars’ or trams (and their dangers!), the oil industry boom in the USA, the place of oil in world conflicts, the impact of fuel crises around the world, especially in the 1970’s & renewable technology developments and its impact on the fossil fuel industry.

Dan’s shows are available here.

Still images featured in this episode

“World’s Busiest Railways” production photo
(copyright Backpack Films)

“Oil Casks, New Bedford, Massachusetts, late 1800s”
(Courtesy of the New Bedford Whaling Museum)
www.whalingmuseum.org

All other images Public domain / Wikipedia

• Henri Tudor electric car
• 100-Mile Fritchle Electric Automobile (1908) (ADVERT 104)
• Bockenheimer Warte 1900 Tram at Bockenheim depot, Frankfurt am Main, 1900
• Ford 1921 Henry Ford with Model T, Hotel Iroquois, Buffalo NY 1921
• Lucas gusher
• Lucas gusher (Spindletop, Beaumont, Port Arthur, and vicinity, Texas – oil industry)
• Operation Tidal Wave in 1943
• RIAN archive 44732 Soviet soldiers attack house
• The USS Arizona (BB-39) burning after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor – NARA
• Two women walking across East Grand Avenue in front of a horse-drawn wagon and a Grand Avenue street car
• Wagons removing snow in New York City, 1908
• The state of Oregon was the first to go to a system of odd and even numbers during the gasoline crisis in the fall…
• Auto vertrekt na het tanken, Bestanddeelnr
• Gasoline dealers in oregon displayed signs explaining the flag policy during the fuel crisis in the winter of 1973

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