Volt-face
Luton’s Vauxhall plant is to close, partly because of the zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate which obliges manufacturers to sell increasing proportions of electric vehicles. Remarkably, the history of the electric car can be traced back half a century earlier than the combustion engine. There are several possible claims as to who built the first road-going electric-powered vehicle, but one is a Scottish inventor, Robert Davidson, who produced one in the 1830s, about the same time as Thomas Davenport in Vermont.
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