Electricity, Oil Or Gas? Fueling The Motorcar Age

In 1925, D.H. Killeffer, a chemical engineer, predicted that the supply of gasoline to power cars would run out in ten to twenty years. Citing his calculations of the nation's crude oil supply, he believed that alcohol-powered engines held the best chance of powering American's autos.

"'[Yet,] against competing technologies, gasoline ultimately won because it was inherently a more useful form of storing energy,' said Michael L. Bromley, a automobile historian in Bethesda."

"Technology held out the hope -- in some minds -- of squeezing a fantastic number of miles out of a gallon of gas. Charles F. Kettering, the chief of research at General Motors, asserted in 1922 that autos in the near future would get as much as 100 miles to the gallon because of changes in the gasoline refining process."

Thanks to Jon Cecil, AICP