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History Lesson: The evolution of the electric car [Infographic]
The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) recently released an in-depth report on electric vehicles. The ILSR’s report, Choosing the Electric Avenue – Unlocking Savings, Emissions Reductions, and Community Benefits of Electric Vehicles, authored by John Farrell, is a treasure trove for those looking to learn more about electric vehicles. One particular section of ILSR’s report provides a helpful history lesson to better understand the evolution of the electric car.
Farrell writes, “Electric cars aren’t new. At the dawn of the U.S. auto industry in the late 1800s, electric vehicles outsold all other types of cars. By 1900, electric autos accounted for one-third of all vehicles on U.S. roadways. Of the 4,192 vehicles produced in the U.S. and tallied in the 1900 census, 1,575 were electric.”
Some well-recognized names were heavily involved with electric cars early on. “Electric vehicles sales remained strong in the following decade and provided a launchpad for fledgling automakers, including Oldsmobile and Porsche, that would go on to become industry titans. Even Henry Ford partnered with Thomas Edison to explore electric vehicle technology. Battery-powered models, considered fast and reliable, sparked a major transportation renaissance.”
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Above: Porsche’s first car in 1898, the P1, was electric (Source: Upworthy via Porsche)
That said, electric cars fizzled out as gas-powered cars gained prominence: “the momentum shifted over the first few decades of the 20th century, as the electric starter supplanted hand-cranking to start gas engines. The prices of those models dropped. A network of inter-city roadways enabled drivers to travel farther — more easily done in those days in gas-powered vehicles — and the discovery of domestic crude oil made gasoline cheaper. The internal combustion engine gained a superiority that would persist for decades.”
Fast forward: “Nearly 100 years later, a second wave of electric vehicles arrived, driven by California’s zero-emissions vehicle policy in the late 1990s. Unfortunately, it faltered. The enthusiasm of electric vehicle owners couldn’t overcome the reluctance of cash-flush automakers to invest in alternatives to gas-powered vehicles. Automakers also mounted successful lobbying efforts to weaken the zero-emissions vehicle policy.”
Above: Top 8 electric cars ahead of their time (Youtube: FIA Formula E Championship)
This short-lived second wind for electric cars came to an abrupt end when, “In 1999, General Motors ended production of its own promising electric vehicle, the EV1, after just three years. The automaker removed all 1,100 models from the roads, despite outcry from their drivers. It blamed its pivot away from electric vehicle technology on the EV1’s 100-mile range and the high cost of development compared to sales. Oil giants, still powerful political lobbies, also opposed electric vehicle innovation.”
However, it finally appears that the electric car is here to stay (and thrive) at last. “Nearly two decades later and 120 years after its introduction, the electric car is making an unmistakable comeback. This time, it’s aided by better technology as well as environmentally sensitive consumers and policymakers looking to supplant fossil fuel use with renewable electricity.”
The ILSR’s report concludes that much of the electric vehicle’s recent turnaround is due to the efforts of Elon Musk and Tesla. But, it’s not just Tesla, the past few years have been encouraging industry-wide: “Sales of electric cars are growing… In just the first quarter of 2011, for example, more electric cars were sold than General Motors leased throughout the entire 1990s. In 2016, U.S. auto dealers recorded 158,000 plug-in vehicle sales — up more than 30 percent from 2015. The trend shows no signs of stopping.”
For a timeline of EV milestones dating all the way back to 1832, be sure to check out this handy infographic…
Infographic
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Note: Article originally published on evannex.com, by Matt Pressman
Source: Institute for Local Self-Reliance / Infographic: Nikkei Asian Review
Elon Musk
Nvidia’s board meets on Jensen Huang, and Elon Musk already has an answer
Elon Musk says it would be an honor to hire Jensen Huang amid Nvidia turmoil.
Elon Musk says he would welcome Jensen Huang at one of his companies if Nvidia’s board decides to push out its longtime chief executive.
On Wednesday evening, the financial account ZeroHedge posted “Elon please hire Jensen” on X. Musk replied roughly two hours later: “That would be an honor.” Neither Huang nor Nvidia had responded publicly as of Wednesday night.
Musk’s reply came as Nvidia’s board met to decide Huang’s future. The Wall Street Journal reported that directors were preparing to oust him following reports of two extramarital relationships. One involves Alice Huang, a Singapore-based businesswoman whom U.S. intelligence officials reportedly believe was working for China’s Ministry of State Security. The New York Times separately reported a relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care. Huang acknowledged being unfaithful in a memo to employees on Sunday but gave no details.
@zerohedge That would be an honor
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 12, 2026
Under Nvidia’s bylaws, a majority of its 11 directors can remove the CEO with or without cause. Bloomberg reported that the board has been working with an outside firm on possible replacements and may name an interim chief, with CFO Colette Kress seen as the likely pick. Nvidia shares fell more than 8 percent in extended trading, according to CNBC, and the company is scheduled to report quarterly earnings on November 17.
Musk has more riding on Nvidia’s leadership than most tech executives. In August, he told investors on SpaceX’s first earnings call as a public company that it would build its AI infrastructure exclusively on Nvidia hardware, calling Vera Rubin “the best architecture.” SpaceX is also working with Nvidia on the compute payload for Starmind, its planned orbital AI constellation. In October, SpaceX said it had a binding commitment for a roughly $40 billion lease of Vera Rubin GPUs and related equipment, with the leases expected to begin in the first half of 2027.
The scale of that dependence is already enormous. On its Q3 call, SpaceX said it was bringing roughly 200,000 to 220,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs online each month and expects 2.5 to 3 GW of nameplate compute by the end of the year. That buildout is now reaching new sites like the proposed $24 billion power plant and supercomputer campus at Starbase.
The relationship between the two executives also goes back nearly a decade. Huang has often told the story of personally delivering Nvidia’s first DGX-1 AI supercomputer to Musk in 2016, when no other customer wanted one. “Nobody wanted to be part of it, except for Elon,” Huang said on the Joe Rogan Experience last December.
Musk did not say what role Huang might fill, and his reply stops short of a formal offer. Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and still owns about 3.6 percent of its stock, so any move to a Musk company would depend on whether, and how, he leaves the chipmaker he has run for more than three decades.
SpaceX officially launched the Starlink Mini 2 on November 10, delivering the first portable Starlink terminal designed around independent power.
Invitation-only preorders for select U.S. customers are priced at $999 plus tax, a figure that includes a full year of Roam Unlimited service valued at roughly $2,100. A refundable $100 deposit reserves the kit, with the balance due at shipment, expected to begin in mid-December. Broader availability is listed as coming soon.
Starlink just unveiled Mini 2, its next-gen portable dish.
Quick-swap battery, up to 4.5 hrs per charge
USB-C power
Built-in Wi-Fi
Online in about 60 secondsPreorders are open now. https://t.co/QawqgbswrQ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) November 10, 2026
The headline feature is the quick-swap 71 Wh battery. Clipped to the rear of the dish without tools, it delivers up to 4.5 hours of connectivity on a single charge.
The 490-gram pack includes its own USB-C port and LED indicators, so users can charge a spare separately and swap it in seconds while staying online. Starlink notes that the terminal can continue operating while the battery charges or run directly from a 60 W USB-C source. The retail box includes one battery, a 60 W USB-C charger, and a 3-meter cable.
Beyond power, the Mini 2 is thinner at 23.1 mm (versus 38.5 mm on the original Mini) while measuring 263 × 314 mm. With the battery and kickstand attached it weighs 1.6 kg.
Built-in Wi-Fi 6 expands coverage to up to 1,800 square feet, an IP67 rating protects against dust and water, and a standard 1/4-20 tripod thread plus physical power button round out the design. Field of view remains 110 degrees, and the unit retains support for mobile use.
For travelers, campers, and remote workers, the swappable battery removes the longstanding requirement for an external power bank or vehicle outlet that defined the first Mini. Spare packs sold separately further extend runtime, turning the compact terminal into a more self-contained solution.
While the bundled $999 invitation price sits well above the original Mini’s current $149 starting point, the included year of service and genuine untethered operation mark a clear step forward in portable satellite internet.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s $24B Starbase supercomputer plan slipped past a key roadblock
SpaceX wants a Starbase tax break for a $24 billion gas plant and supercomputer campus.
SpaceX is asking its own company town for a tax break on a $24 billion natural gas power plant and supercomputing facility at Starbase, Texas, and the land it picked sits just outside the reach of a data center moratorium that took effect in neighboring Brownsville last week.
A City of Starbase public hearing notice says SpaceX “proposes to construct, own, and operate a gas-fired power plant and super-compute facility” on roughly 444 acres between Boca Chica Boulevard and the Port of Brownsville. The $24 billion figure covers only the initial phases, and the notice leaves room for future expansions. The Starbase City Commission will consider a property tax abatement and a related economic development agreement at a 7 p.m. hearing on December 9. The notice does not disclose the size or length of the abatement, or how much computing capacity the site would hold.
The location has a history. Over the summer, SpaceX asked Brownsville to remove the tract from its city limits and offered $220 million for water and wastewater projects in return. Brownsville approved the move in August, and Starbase later annexed the land. Brownsville’s own 90-day pause on data center applications took effect last week, and had the tract stayed inside the city, the project likely would have needed a different home.
The power side is already in front of state regulators. SpaceX has applied to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for air permits covering 35 mobile gas turbines producing roughly 750 megawatts, according to Politico, which also noted that two of the three Starbase commissioners voting on the incentives are SpaceX executives.
Building its own plant lets SpaceX skip the Texas grid. Gov. Greg Abbott paused new data center grid connections in August pending an audit, but a facility that generates its own electricity does not need one. The air permit still has to clear the TCEQ, where Abbott also ordered a halt on data center permits.
The bigger test arrives in January. Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa, who unseated Abbott last week, has said she will block data center approvals until the legislature passes new protections, and she has already asked state officials to hold off on any sale of Boca Chica State Park to SpaceX until she is sworn in. Tesla and SpaceX shares both fell the day after the election, and Musk’s first reaction on X was “Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now.”
That line points to Starmind, SpaceX’s orbital compute constellation. Musk has said terrestrial compute will be “peanuts compared to orbital compute” and expects monthly orbital deployments to pass ground deployments around the end of 2028, as Teslarati reported. Until then, SpaceX still needs gigawatts on the ground. It ended the third quarter with 1.7 GW of nameplate compute, is targeting 2.5 to 3 GW by the end of this year and wants at least 10 GW more in 2027. Its existing Colossus sites around Memphis already run on gas turbines and face a lawsuit from residents over emissions.
Local reaction is split. The South Texas Environmental Justice Network has announced a protest, citing air quality, water use and energy bills, while some Brownsville residents told the Tribune they welcome the jobs. SpaceX did not respond to the Tribune’s questions about the project.
Nvidia’s board meets on Jensen Huang, and Elon Musk already has an answer
Starlink Mini 2 arrives with one feature for true off-grid connectivity
