BS. It took a genius the level of Elon and his superior genetics to think of putting an electric motor in a car.
this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2026
248 points (97.7% liked)
Today I Learned
30592 readers
537 users here now
What did you learn today? Share it with us!
We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules (interactive)
Rule 1- All posts must begin with TIL. Linking to a source of info is optional, but highly recommended as it helps to spark discussion.
** Posts must be about an actual fact that you have learned, but it doesn't matter if you learned it today. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.**
Rule 2- Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding non-TIL posts.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-TIL posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.
If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.
Partnered Communities
You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.
Community Moderation
For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
You know some absolute dumbasses would actually believe that.
Well Elon does.
I heard he invented electricity. I'd confirm that with the supercomputer in my pocket, but why bother? I have a great education, and in all my years in school, they never mentioned anyone else experimenting with electricity before Mr. Musk, so he must have invented it, and if you don't agree, you have Trump Derangement Syndrome.
load more comments
(1 replies)
All he did was put up investment money.
His family's blood emerald money. But he had to COUNT the money, so that's almost the same as his.
He probably didn't even count it. I bet he hired a flunky to do that.
Valid, some accountant just did a wire transfer.
How did they let these die? They're so stylish, we should bring them back immediately except with solid state batteries that can let them drive 200+ miles and charge in 5 minutes.
Those older cars with the huge windows and great visibility handled rollover accidents by crushing the heads and necks of everyone inside.
At some point we decided the passenger cabin shouldn't be the primary crumple zone, so you can't make cars like that anymore.
Also, it probably has a top speed in the neighborhood of 30mph.
The low speed may have been that car's only safety feature.
You wouldn't want to go 30 in that thing. You'd feel like you're in a rock tumbler.
Especially given the state of the roads at the time.
Assuming you've even got a road lol
I kinda want to see what the wind would look like on this thing going 60 (96.5 km/h). I suspect you'd get more lift than is comfortable. And speaking as someone who's had turbulence in a modern car (interstate driving into an Illinois windstorm), it's terrifying even in a car that doesn't want to roll over.
Edit: seriously thought about it and am more concerned about the moment/torque it might get from the wind
load more comments
(1 replies)
I'd buy that.
I think one of these except more modern with all the advanced necessary features would actually be awesome.
But we gotta keep the 1920s car design. You csn put a modern battery, and bluetooth, and inputs for auxilery audio devices, and modern stereo syatem, and gps, and all this other stuff......but we gotta keep the old car vibe.
Without the monocoque, I doubt it can pass modern crash safety tests. Nor is there any safe place to install air bags.
Nah buddy, 30's design is where it's at, look at this thing:
Honestly, people love to shit on the PT Cruiser but at least it tried to be a little different - arguably in a cool retro way!
The PT Cruiser looked amazing.
I'd be very happy if more manufacturers took similar style risks.
Buuuut, apparently we get the ~~swasticar~~ cyber truck.
This is why most cars these days are black, white or grey. "We don't want something someone WANTS to look at, just something that isn't offensive to the eyes" (sports cars don't count here)
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(20 replies)
load more comments
(2 replies)
Honesty it seems like a decent car
I'm honesty surprised they managed to get 80 miles of range. That's pretty much what you get with a older Nissan leaf
Yea it was an actually decent car. We went the easy route and fucked up the planet by choosing the internal combustion engine.
load more comments
(7 replies)
I always knew that reading Donald Duck comic books would pay off one day, I've known about these since I was a child, that's Grandma Duck's car!
There were quite a few electric cars, they started in the late 1800s made by multiple companies. Shit they even had electric trains.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Remember when thought was given to the beauty of the design of cars (like above), and nowadays we have the mutant electric shaver that is Teslas?
The cyber truck is disgusting. It's what happens when you give billionaires all the decision making authority. It seriously looks similar to a dumpster.
Dumpsters have 100 times more style and class than the cybertruck.
Also less people die in dumpster fires.
The really horrible part is Teslas used to actually look great.
Their body stylings are petty lousy lately, but then again so are most modern cars.
load more comments
(2 replies)
No, by the time I was born beauty was secondary to aerodynamics. It was the right decision, but I do understand what we lost is something to be sad we've lost.
With teslas my bigger issue is build quality. Though the dumpster they sell is ironically one of the few deviations from the modern prioritization of aerodynamics over aesthetics, it's just done by someone who doesn't understand good taste. Compare it to those Honda EVs to see a similar idea done much more beautifully.
Good taste and profits often conflict. When they do, profits almost always win.
I dunno. I recently saw the new Twingo and it's a very nice and cute looking car. Their 2025 hatchback was also very cool and futuristic looking.
load more comments
(1 replies)
An even earlier manufacturer was Baker Electric of Cleveland, Ohio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker_Motor_Vehicle. They werem't the first (EVs had been around since 1880), but by 1906 they were the biggest car maker, running the largest manufacturing plant in the world.
Main market was for those who made frequent short stops, and didn't want to get their hands dirty hand-cranking the gas or steam motor starters. Their coupe model had a 'boat-tiller' instead of a steering wheel.
Jay Leno has a restored 1909 Baker Electric he showed on an old car show: https://youtu.be/OhnjMdzGusc
There was a glut of electric cars, then gas-powered ones with longer range showed up. In 1912, the electric starter was introduced for gas cars, taking away one of the main features of EVs. By 1914, Baker would merge and then shut down.
I wish it would’ve gone into how the battery worked. I just can’t imagine that that part of it was too great.
It was lead acid batteries, same as are used today in most gasoline cars to start the engine. That technology has been around for a very long time. It worked for car like this because the car itself was very light, and it didn't go that fast maybe 30 mph or so peak speed. So the power consumption was way way way less than a modern electric vehicle.
load more comments
(1 replies)
view more: next ›