Welcomed at end of the 19th century as the solution to the severe problem of horse manure in city streets, electric trucks soon became the norm for short-haul commercial deliveries. Though reliable, they were gradually replaced by gasoline-powered trucks for long-haul deliveries--although a fleet of electric milk trucks survived in Great Britain into the 1960s. Industrial electric vehicles never disappeared from factories and ports. During the past decade, with the availability of the lithium-ion battery, the electric truck is back on the road for all payloads and all distances. The fourth in a series covering the history and future of electric transport, this book chronicles the work of the innovative engineers who perfected e-trucks large and small.

In the context of regulations requiring emission so low that electric and hybrid cars will be necessary, Kirsch (industrial ecology, U. of California-Los Angeles) takes the Electric Vehicle Company as a starting point for a vision of an alternative automotive system in which gasoline and electric vehicles would each have been used to supply different kinds of transport services. He argues that technological superiority was in the hearts and minds of engineers, consumers, and drivers. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR