Except this was a company R&D project not an individual. When I was at Michigan State in the early seventies there was an EE prof who drove a battery powered

Except this was a company R&D project not an individual. When I was at Michigan State in the early seventies there was an EE prof who drove a battery powered VW that he built himself in his garage. I thought that it was cool, overwhelmingly everyone else thought he was eccentric. He told me the entire industry will go electric once someone invents a better battery. He thought it would happen by the year 2000. Sadly he passed away before the birth of Tesla.