LIGHTBULB MOMENT

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN YEARS AGO, ELECTRIC CARS WERE KILLING IT.

They were more numerous in big cities like London and New York than cars with pistons. In fact, electric power had been quite the thing since the late 1800s: quiet, without the noxious fumes of internal combustion or the horse’s tendency to randomly defecate on city streets, battery powered carriages were perfectly suited to urban work. But they suffered from the same malaise that we still fixate upon today: they lacked range, were awkward to charge, and cost more than contemporary, mass produced cars with engines. Some people saw the potential, mind. Kept the faith, felt the literal electric thrill of motivated electrons. And one in particular did more than most, a certain Thomas Alva Edison.

Now Thomas Edison, famous inventor, technological revolutionary and general genius, was keen on two things; the many and varied ways to wrangle electricity, and hard work. Actually, make that three – he was also keen on ‘Vin Mariani’, Bordeaux wine treated with coca leaves, which also might explain his expanded capacity for creative thinking and chronic insomnia. But in-between being slightly fizzy on cocaine-laced booze, he also managed to invent the modern lightbulb, the phonograph and the basics of the motion picture industry, as well as a myriad of other widgets that we take for granted today, including various types of battery. And it’s Edison’s love of batteries that manifests as particularly relevant to our story.

It’s not hard to hold Edison