Electric Vehicles Had A Brief Resurgence In The 1960s When the going gets tough, the tough get going. And when gas prices shoot up, people start looking into alternatives. It's a trend that has happened for over a century: if you ever see a renewed interested in electrified vehicles, there's a very good chance it's somehow tied to gasoline.
Sometimes—especially more recently—an EV resurgence is driven by a need to combat pollution from internal combustion vehicles. But other times, the volatility of gas prices or the scarcity of fuel will cause automakers and customers alike to think about what else is out there beyond the standard engine. In the 1960s, there was renewed interest from automakers to create electric vehicles, prompted by rising gas prices in various global markets.
Granted, the world wouldn't see true oil crises for another decade , but the trends got a lot of people thinking. They began experimenting both with EV conversions of existing combustion cars as well as radical new ways of building cars (and making them out of plastic, fiberglass and materials other than steel) and powering them with electricity. The 1950s were a decade of postwar places in many places but austerity in others.
After that, the 1960s became a decade of experimentation, both in terms of design as well as technology. Cars started to take on the shape that would become the standard for decades to come and designers came up with wild concepts unlike anything that had ever been produced.
