Chicago EV Charging Stations … 105 Years Ago

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Naturally, we tend to think of electric vehicles as a new thing. Those of us who have been learning about them for at least a few years know that electric vehicles were a big chunk of the market 100 years ago. (Things then got complicated, with the market changing for a variety of reasons.) Though, I think even for those of us who have read quite a bit about the electric car market at that time, the following map is a bit of an amazing eye opener.

Tip of the hat to @stekkerauto on Twitter and u/jjlew080 on reddit for the find.

Electric car charging stations in Chicago, 1916
byu/jjlew080 inelectricvehicles

One person on Twitter noted these could be 33 kW charging stations! That wouldn’t be too bad, especially for 105 years ago!

It’s also interesting that they had sub-stations that could be used by EV drivers in the case that they needed an emergency charge.

Overall, though, the most striking thing seems to be how many charging stations there were.

Any other top highlights?


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Zachary Shahan

Zach is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director, chief editor, and CEO. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao. Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA], NIO [NIO], Xpeng [XPEV], Ford [F], ChargePoint [CHPT], Amazon [AMZN], Piedmont Lithium [PLL], Lithium Americas [LAC], Albemarle Corporation [ALB], Nouveau Monde Graphite [NMGRF], Talon Metals [TLOFF], Arclight Clean Transition Corp [ACTC], and Starbucks [SBUX]. But he does not offer (explicitly or implicitly) investment advice of any sort.

Zachary Shahan has 7324 posts and counting. See all posts by Zachary Shahan