"Electric and Hybrid Cars"Internal Combustion: How Corporations and Governments Addicted the World to Oil and Derailed the Alternatives
Edwin Black, 2006, St. Martin's Press
This book changed my understanding of the history of electric cars. The account of a suspicious arson at a factory in which Henry Ford and Thomas Edison hoped to launch a new partnership is fascinating. Black and his team of researchers did a masterful job in digging out historical details, though the book can be a bit long-winded about them. He blows it in the final chapter, however, when he switches from solid historical research to sheer speculation about the future. The book ends with a puff piece about the dream of hydrogen fuel-cell cars that ignores the many formidable obstacles and impracticalities that will make hydrogen cars unrealistic for decades to come. Skip the last chapter, and it's a solid book.
By: Sherry Boschert
Posted on: Wed, Nov 21st, 2007
