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Trouvé’s Electric Tricycle, 1881

Woodcut of a shocked crowd watching a man in a coat and top hat drive a three-wheeled electric vehicle along a cobbled street, chased by several barking dogs.

Wikimedia Commons

Gustave Trouvé’s electric tricycle was fashioned on the chassis of a commercial tricycle introduced by renowned British bicycle inventor James Starley. While Trouvé was unable to patent the vehicle itself, he did go on to use its engine to build history’s first outboard boat motor a few years later.