When Henry Ford finally made it big with his Model T, his wife Clara made him buy her a fancy car: a 1914 Detroit Electric. Electric cars were the 'good' cars,

When Henry Ford finally made it big with his Model T, his wife Clara made him buy her a fancy car: a 1914 Detroit Electric. Electric cars were the 'good' cars, easier to run, not as dirty or hard to start, more luxurious. But they were an expensive luxury. The Model T was cheap, easy to fix, and adaptable to many other uses (like hooking a wheel to a belt and running a saw to cut wood.) The Model T was a classic disruptive invention: less good but much, much cheaper; it created an entirely new market of car buyers. It may be that that electric is a better option now: oil is expensive and non-renewable, and burning fuel pollutes. But neither of these reasons were very compelling a century ago.