Do you feel that you are seeing more Teslas than ever before?  It’s not your imagination; Electric cars account for 2.1% of vehicles sold in the US in 2018 with Tesla as the electric–vehicle sales leader in the US by a wide margin during the first half of 2019.

Alternative fuels also consist of Hydrogen, Propane, Ethanol and more currently being developed and tested.

While we may look at this as a recent development and a way of combatting climate change, of course it is not at all new.  In the beginning of the “Horseless Carriage” only one fifth of them were powered by gas.  Internal combustion engines were noisy, unreliable and smelly.  The preferred power was electric and external combustion (steam).

Eventually, with more research and development the reliability improvements, addition of an easy starter and the superior power of the combustion engine pushed it far ahead in the competition.  With Ford’s Model T and mass production initiated, gasoline became the standard fuel (smelly and all).

It’s taken us a long time to get the power of the electric cars to match, and now, even out -perform  petroleum driven engines ( For example the case of Tesla’s recent incredible 0-60 timing of 1.9 seconds!).

But there is still a collector’s draw to the original steam and spark engines. Just this October in Hershey PA, the RM Sotheby’s auction saw 10 of these original models on the block.    The most expensive one wasn’t an electric drive, as many would have thought, given the relevance to the current Tesla surge, but it was a Stanley (Steam) for $170,500.00.

If you are game to secure one of these collectibles for your garage you needn’t mortgage your house.  A 1901 Mobile Model 9 Dos-à-Dos Steam Runabout sold for a mere $35,200.

You won’t win any drag races, but you could turn a lot of heads!

Some content here derived from an original article by Hagertys.  View it to learn more about the early steam and electric designs https://bit.ly/35UJicm