Subscribe Here! ➡    / @thecuriouscollective  

For centuries, getting around by horse and cart was the standard mode of transportation. But by the 1800s, these haypowered haulers were causing problems on busy city streets. As more people moved into cities, the number of horses dramatically increased, and with so many equines on the roads came public health concerns over disease and mountains of manure. Marketed as clean, quiet, and easy to drive, early electric cars became so popular that by 1900, they accounted for around onethird of all automotive vehicles on roadways. The earliest known fullsized electric car was designed by Robert Anderson, a Scottish inventor who built his version in the 1830s, though that car (and many of its successors) didn't go very far. It would take about three decades for electric car batteries to improve, and starting in 1881, batteryoperated buses began ferrying passengers in Paris, Berlin, London, and New York. A few years later, Iowa chemist William Morrison applied for a patent for his electric carriage, which could travel around 50 miles on one charge at a top speed of 20 miles per hour. By 1897, the topselling car in the U.S. was powered by battery, though electric vehicles would hold the market for a relatively short time. By 1913, manufacturer Henry Ford had finetuned the mass production of gaspowered cars, dropping their price and helping to usher in a new era of private transportation. And now for some fun facts. In the 1890s, New York City streets produced 2.5 million pounds of manure per day. In 1913, GMC debuted its "Rapid" line of vehicles, the company's first electric trucks. And in 1912, the price of an electric car was over $53,000 in today's money, while Ford's Model T only cost $650. Thank you for watching the curious collective.