I knew electric cars existed back then, i had no idea it was ever a top seller. Thats awesome and really interesting.
2 weeks ago
| 1,900
I only get multiple choice questions right when "I don't know" is one of the choices.
1 week ago | 100
Already know this one only cause I'm a car nerd. People act surprised but for simple, slower cars, electric is a lot more mechanically simple. More than enough for that brief time period.
2 weeks ago | 1,500
electric cars are honestly very simple, it was mostly just the battery tech that is the reason they didnt dominate the markets
2 weeks ago | 88
I seem to remember that they were marketed for ladies use. Having no crank to start and a very simple driving system.
2 weeks ago | 257
Advanced History student from Germany here, I wrote a paper on the race of engine types during the turn of the century. That Electric engines were ahead of petrol engines is quite an urban legend, petrol engines were never really threatened in cars by other engine types. The problem mostly lies in the data, 1900 the production of cars was quite low, so cars could easily be 'most selled'. Just a few years later, Henry Ford would produce more petrol cars in a year than electric cars were ever built. The majority of the scientific community of the time was convinced, that petrol cars would succeed and electric cars were the better technology but the worse cars (at that time)
2 weeks ago | 283
I came back to this channel like after 3 4 Years and it's still so fresh with fascinating stuff. I wish this channel never stops uploading and keeps science fun to learn 😊🙏
1 week ago | 2
That’s why I love this channel. Not just a silly poll, but a lesson
1 week ago (edited) | 1
If it hadn’t been for the kerosine industry we would have never have discovered gasoline which is actually the byproduct of making kerosine for lamps. Before its use as a fuel it was the best cleaner around!
2 weeks ago | 110
It should be known that it took a couple of days to charge for 20-30 miles. Top Speed was around 20-30 mph. Price was very high, and charging was nothing like it is today. I heard the story of 'he already had electric cars' a couple of times. But the truth is, we don't have the technology to replace combustion engines yet. I daily drive a fully electric vehicle. They have a lot of positive things going for them.
1 week ago | 4
Considering it's a veritasium question, and considering that in the early days before proper car infrastructure was a thing, electric cars were quite popular. This is no surprise to me at all. Petrol took over because if you want to go fast, electric just wasn't viable in 1900, by far the most important reason electric cars are taking off is because battery technology has come to a point that you can drive 100km/h and still have a very long range (100s of km). In the early days electric cars were much cleaner and more silent than the oil spouting extremely loud engines that required quite a lot of manual labour to get working (cars in 1900 didn't have starter engines). And since people were used to horse and carriage, a car that could only go 20 km/h for 30 min was deemed completely acceptable. These cars were already faster than horse and carriage by quite a margin and didn't require you to keep a horse fed all day. And going much faster wasn't an option anyway in cities and towns where the infrastructure still assumed horse and carriage speeds. It's only when petrol cars got better and became more convenient in use that they became mainstream. Electric cars couldn't keep up, because their range and top speeds were extremely limited at the time.
2 weeks ago | 5
Gas cars had a flaw that made them very dangerous in the early days…you need to hand crank them to get them started. This is what you see in cartoons set in the early 1900s like the Arostocats. This made starting a car somewhat dangerous because the engine could cause the crank bar to move violently, causing bruises and sometimes broken bones. Gas cars became much more viable when they took the lead-acid battery of those old electric cars and used that to start the engine.
2 weeks ago (edited) | 143
Nailed it. Purely used a metagame strategy since I know they'd be up to some shenanigans by making us commit to an answer before showing us the surprising truth.
2 weeks ago | 23
Absolutely love your videos mate! You're a legend and it's always awesome seeing you release a new video. Glad you're doing it sustainably with bringing in some new faces! Also PS, I guessed it was electric because it must have been a sneaky question. Love the trivia!
2 weeks ago | 15
Learned that from Jay Leno, his channel has some very interesting video's about cars from those days.
2 weeks ago | 69
My humanities professor failed this question lol. I asked him if electric cars were more popular than gas at the turn of the century. He said no. I learned that fact from the loading page on Forza Motorsport 3 lol.
2 weeks ago | 121
In 1900, a total of 4,192 passenger cars were sold in the United States, which was the only country manufacturing cars at that time. Of these 4,192 vehicles, 1,681 were steam-powered, 1,575 were electric, and 936 were gasoline-powered.
2 weeks ago | 3
The 6 ltr vw phaeton W12 is a car that I am particularly fond of from 100 years later.
1 week ago | 1
I never knew that electric cars were a thing back in 1900s! 😮 thank
1 week ago | 0
Veritasium
In 1900 what type of engine was in the top selling car? - https://youtu.be/AGglJehON5g
2 weeks ago | [YT] | 10,062