Jay Leno's Baker Electric Car

In 1909, there were thousands of Baker Electric cars cruising the streets of NYC quietly and at 35mph. You didn’t need to go much faster inside the city. 100 miles to a charge, good old fully recyclable glass lead acid batteries. Gasoline vehicles eventually outcompeted them by reaching 60mph and having more range (sound familiar?) but the parent isn’t wrong about Rockefeller, cheap and abundant fuel came 2 years later: > …growing electrification of lighting produced a drop in kerosene demand, creating a supply problem. It appeared that the burgeoning oil industry would be trapped into over-producing kerosene and under-producing gasoline since simple distillation could not alter the ratio of the two products from any given crude. The solution appeared in 1911 when the development of the Burton process allowed thermal cracking of crude oils, which increased the percent yield of gasoline from the heavier hydrocarbons. [LINK] Jay Leno has an entertaining segment driving around LA in his restored Baker, he can tell you all about it, fascinating vehicle: (starts at 3:20) [VIDEO]

Jay Leno (tv host and car enthusiast) has a few very old electric cars in his collection. In one video (link at the end) he talks about how he and his wife drove one of the electric cars down to a fancy hotel. They expected to be a surprising and exotic sight, but one of the bellhops asked them if they knew Mrs X, who had been driving to the hotel for 5 or six decades until 2001 in her similar electric car. [VIDEO]

I find it surprisingly, and interestingly, similar to the first wave of electric cars, over a hundred years ago, such as the Baker [1]. They were small, didn't require much mechanical insight (as EVs do) and particularly suited for small drives to the grocery store. [1] [VIDEO]