This 1922 Detroit Electric car is on display in the foyer at show venue Cobo Hall, in Detroit, a reminder that motoring history has a habit of repeating itself. More than 12,000 of them were built between 1907 and 1939.
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This particular car was given to the Henry Ford Museum in 1934. Electric cars were particularly popular with women drivers – outselling petrol cars in the early 1900s – because they didn’t need several turns of the crank handle to start them.
But when the electric starter was invented – for Cadillac – in 1912, it marked the beginning of the end for that first generation of electric cars which in those days had a range of about 60 miles (100km) and a top speed of about 25mph (40km/h).
