Remember the Biblical bit about the father’s sins will be visited on the offspring for umpteen generations?[1] NewScientist (9 September 2017, paywall) has a modern take on this one – that is, the reason why London ended up enveloped in smog is due, in part, to the masters of fraud, from Mick Hamer:
Source: IanVisits, which also has information on this topic.
IN THE first decade of the 20th century, transport reached a tipping point. Would the future belong to petrol, electricity or even steam? The stage was set for a decisive showdown when the world’s first practical electric buses hit the streets of London in July 1907. They were clean, quiet, reliable and fume-free, unlike their petrol-powered counterparts, which were widely reviled for their deafening din and evil smells.
Electrobuses, as they were called, were an immediate hit with the capital’s commuters, and the prospect of a successful challenge to the internal combustion engine was greeted with delight by press and public alike. “The doom of the petrol-driven omnibus is at hand,” forecast the Daily News. “The electrobus is probably a more formidable rival than the petrol omnibus, not only to the horse omnibus but also to the tramway,” concluded Douglas Fox, the country’s foremost engineer and designer of many of the world’s railways, at the September 1908 meeting of what’s now the British Science Association. …
It was a con from the start. In the spring of 1906, the London Electrobus Company announced plans to put 300 electrobuses on the streets of the capital. It offered the public the chance to buy shares worth £300,000 to finance the project, claiming that it had acquired a patent for the huge sum of £20,000 that gave it a monopoly on the electrobus. This seemingly guaranteed that investors would reap enormous profits, and the public rushed to invest.
Almost immediately, however, inquisitive reporters exposed the scam. One bought a copy of the patent. He discovered that it was for a motor vehicle transmission – about as relevant to the electrobus as a patent for a hair dryer. It was simply a device for conning would-be investors. Another reporter visited the west London works where the electrobuses were to be built. Instead of finding a production line gearing up to churn out hundreds of vehicles, he found a former stables next to a pub. Alerted by articles in the papers, angry shareholders demanded their money back. It all ended up in court and the electrobus company was forced to refund more than 1000 investors.
The story continues, and you can buy Hamer’s book, A Most Deliberate Swindle, if you find this interesting – it’s to be published in just a few days, so I haven’t read it, either.
Thus electric vehicles were crippled with a bad rap and petrol powered vehicles took over, despite complaints concerning pollution, both environmental and auditory. Today we’re digging our way out of the fossil fuel hole, not because electric vehicles were out-competed, but because the primary backers were simply swindlers.
