Another example is the electric vechicle... Up until recently, I was unaware that back in the early 1900's the electric car outsold gasoline vehicles. Pictured at the top is Thomas Edison with his electric car. It seems that around 1920 Texas hit the crude oil boom which made gasoline extremely cheap. Around that time, a hand crank was developed which made starting gasoline engines easy. Unfortunatly the situation is different today with electric vehicles being far cheaper to operate than petroleum, despite the other benefits, like low noise pollution, and uber fast acceleration to name but a few. Also, I'm guessing, if Edison had been around today, he'd likely be smoking an ecig, or epipe, if he was a smoker at all.