About this research and writing project:
The challenge: In 2022, electric vehicles were being sold as revolutionary technology, but the marketing hype obscured a century-old cycle of adoption, inflated claims, and infrastructure collapse. Without this historical context, readers couldn’t recognize the pattern repeating itself.
My approach: I dug into 1911 Orlando newspaper archives and found Captain R.W. Belo tooling around in his Detroit Electric with a home charging station, 111 years before Tesla became a status symbol. I connected this forgotten history to current IEA data showing how electric vehicles went from 17,000 globally in 2010 to 7.2 million by 2019. The piece traced how battery performance issues, exaggerated advertising, and infrastructure gaps plagued both eras, revealing that today’s “disruption” is actually a repeat cycle.
The impact: Published in the Orlando Sentinel, the piece reframed electric vehicles from cutting-edge innovation to historical pattern, giving readers a sharper lens for evaluating current adoption challenges and marketing claims. The work demonstrated how archival research can cut through contemporary hype.
Originally published in the Orlando Sentinel on March 1, 2022
Sales of electric cars are exploding. But the technology isn’t new.
In the early 20th century, a part-time resident Orlando didn’t have to worry about gas prices.
On this day 111 years ago, on March 1, 1911, the Daily Reporter-Star newspaper in Orlando ran a front-page item on a “new electric car,” the Detroit Electric.
Its owner, Capt. R.W. Belo, had a “complete charging outfit” to ensure he’d never lose power, the article noted.
Detroit Electric, manufactured by the Anderson Carriage Company, was the market leader among American electric vehicle makers at this time, according to the company.
Although people could buy electric cars in the 1910s and later, the price of gasoline-fueled automobiles dropped dramatically, leading them to dominate the market, according to Kerry Segrave in “The Electric Car in America, 1890-1922: A Social History.”
But back in those days, even as gas guzzlers were destined to win out for the next 100 years, part of the marketing for the Detroit Electric played up the idea that driving electric was easier than operating a gasoline-fueled car.
However, another big problem plaguing the electric-car industry in general the early 20th century was that many advertisements for them were exaggerated or fake, Segrave notes.
Contrary to what some ads touted, the cars’ electric storage batteries performed poorly, Segrave writes.
Over a century later, drivers worldwide again began craving the convenience — and in some cases, status — that the part-time Orlando resident Belo enjoyed in 1911.
As recently as 2010, there were only about 17,000 electric cars in circulation worldwide, according to the International Energy Agency.
“By 2019, that number had swelled to 7.2 million,” nearly half of them in China, IEA says.
Only a few years ago, buying an electric car was seen as a bold and edgy choice. But the vehicles have quickly become mainstream, particularly as more models and charging stations are available, and battery life has improved.
By reducing air pollution, electric vehicles are also seen as key in alleviating climate change.
Perhaps that’s something Capt. R.W. Belo could have appreciated back when spring 1911 approached and Orlando was filled with the perfume of orange groves.
The city’s “delightful climate” was one of the main reasons he decided he was going to stay here, quietly tooling around in his Detroit Electric, throughout the summer, the Daily Reporter-Star reported.
Tiffini Theisen 
Leave a comment