Yahoo Finance 8 Decades of EVs Costs When They Were First Released vs. Now
In the 1830s, Robert Anderson of Scotland built the world’s first electric vehicle (EV). The Galvani — named after the galvanic cell batteries that powered it — could travel 1.5 miles at 4 mph while towing six tons. When railroad workers learned of its efficiency and power, they destroyed the prototype to protect their jobs tending locomotive steam engines.
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In the decades that followed, models like the Electrobat, Columbia and Detroit Electric improved the power, range and reliability of electric vehicles, and for a time, EVs were poised to rule the roads — but were they poised to be budget friendly?
Eventually, a man named Henry Ford came along and got America hooked on gas.
Here’s a look at what electric vehicles cost from then until now. Cost comparisons are according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics calculations.
Also here are five hidden costs of EVs.
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1900s: $58,168 or More
According to Car and Driver, Henry Ford’s original Model T cost $850 In 1908 or about $29,084 in today’s dollars. However, most EVs of the time cost at least twice that amount.
In the mid-1910s, a battery pack upgrade alone for a Detroit Electric — famously preferred by Henry Ford’s wife over her husband’s loud, dirty Model T — cost $600 or $18,700 in today’s dollars.
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1920s: $56,210
By 1923, Ford had gotten the cost of a Model T down to under $300 or about $5,621 today. However, according to Car and Driver, typical EVs of the era cost 10 times that amount. That means EV costs had barely budged from 15 years earlier, while Model Ts were roughly one-fifth of the inflation-adjusted price from a decade and a half earlier.
1950s: $39,078
In 1959, the Henney company listed its first Kilowatt — based on the Renault Dauphine — at $3,600 or a little more than $39,000 in 2024 dollars. For context, a gas-powered Dauphine cost $1,645 the same year. One of the first truly serious electric vehicles, it had a 36-volt system that could travel at 40 mph for up to 40 miles. In 1960, it was upgraded to 72 volts, which gave it a 60-mile range at up to 60 mph.
1970s: $20,184
Several automakers responded to the oil crisis of the 1970s with inexpensive electric vehicles designed to sidestep the pull that OPEC had over prices at the pump — but they weren’t just inexpensive. They were cheap.
Among the most notorious was GM’s painfully underpowered, hideously underperforming and impossibly ugly 1974 CitiCar, which the Historical Society of Martin County said had an original MSRP of $2,988 — or a little over $20,000 in today’s money.
1990s: $67,262
In 1997, Car and Driver wrote that its extended test drive of the GM EV1 signaled “the start of something big.”
The Electric Vehicle 1 came with an MSRP of $33,995 or a little over $67,000 when adjusted for inflation, which was too much for a battery — but it marked an automotive milestone from which there was no going back.
The publication wrote that “GM’s first real attempt at an electric car couldn’t go far on a charge, but it was a glimpse of the future.”
EV 1 was a short-lived experiment, but it offered the prototype for the modern electric vehicle and made the EV revolution of the approaching century possible.
2000s: $146,153
The modern EV revolution began in 2008 when Elon Musk unveiled the original Tesla Roadster, which came with a $98,000 price tag or about $146,000 today.
It was well out of reach for the average buyer, but it provided the blueprint for what was to come.
2010s: $36,319
Two years after the Roadster proved EVs could be feasible, Nissan proved they could be affordable when it debuted the Leaf in 2010, the world’s first mass-produced electric vehicle.
It had a sticker price of $32,780 or about $47,622 today, but a new $7,500 federal tax credit reduced the price to about $25,000 or roughly $ 36,319 today.
2020s: $56,575
The most recent Kelley Blue Book data reveals an astonishing tale of economic irony and century-separated automotive price parity.
As of September 2024, the average price of an electric vehicle in the United States is $56,575 — just $365 away from being identical to the inflation-adjusted cost of an EV a century ago in 1923.
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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: 8 Decades of EVs Costs When They Were First Released vs. Now
