In the late 19th century, as today, many people thought that technology would solve mankind’s problems. This was the era when electricity became a modern power — the first electric motors were developed by such men as Elihu Thompson, Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison and Hiram Maxim, who became better-known for developing the machine gun.

Electric vehicles were seen as high technology in the late 19th century, and they came into favor at a time when nobody foresaw the problems of air pollution and oil spills that would arise decades later.

It’s a dark night, it’s drizzling and you’re approaching a foreboding curve with various looming undulations of landscape on both sides of the road. Your eyes focus on the brightly shining reflectors running along the centerline of the narrow highway. If the reflectors weren’t there to catch your headlight beams, if they weren’t evenly spaced to mark the coming route like stitches on the planet’s crust, you’d probably feel uneasy. Without them to point the way, you could find yourself hurtling off the dark asphalt.