Disputed event: The development of modern battery-powered vehicles since the 1990s.
First allegations: 2006 documentary film Who Killed the Electric Car? is a notable claim of technology suppression.
And they would have gotten away with it, too: ... as conspiracies go, the conspirators didn’t do a particularly good job with this one.
The first electric car was exhibited in Paris in 1881, five years before Carl Benz received his patent for the internal combustion engined car.
For the following century, electric vehicles used the infamous lead-acid battery, very heavy and not particularly good at storing energy, as anyone who leaves the lights on in their petrol or diesel car can attest.
The technology was limited to very specific applications: milk trucks, rubbish trucks, forklifts and golf buggies.
The modern electric car industry arose in California in the 1990s as the state government mandated cleaner cars.
American car companies initially enthusiastically developed electric models then seemingly abandoned the idea as they concentrated on SUVs.
Maybe a secret organisation of oil companies stage-managed this or maybe big, blokey 4WDs were just more profitable. Sometimes the market’s invisible hand seems like an intelligent operator is masterminding things.
Now this conspiracy has turned on its head - now it is EVs that don’t let you in to the traffic and take up one and a-half car parks. That’s progress.
Solar panel enthusiasts exchange rumours of the top-secret landfills clogged with the dead EV batteries they need to expand their off-peak storage.
China’s state investment arms are buying up every element in the periodical table and the humble piston is looking decidedly broke.
