I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but I have a whole mental timeline for electric cars that divides their history into three categories: the Contender Era, when EVs and gasoline and steam cars were all equally plausible rivals; the Crap Era, when EVs developed their reputation for being slow, unusable shitboxes; and our current Tesla Era, which actually starts with the GM EV1. Today I just want to point out a fascinating detail of a Crap Era car, because I think it explains so much.