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By 1912, gasoline-powered vehicles also incorporated an electric starter, making them just as easy to start as electric cars. This advance further deteriorated sales of electric cars, relegating them to near extinction. The discovery of oil in places such as Texas in the early 1900s and increasing road networks connecting large cities further helped decline electric cars. Oil prices in the 1920s and 1930s were low, making it affordable for people to power their cars. By 1935, electric cars were largely extinct from roads throughout the world.<ref>For more on how the Model T helped bring the downfall of early electric vehicles, see: Sato, T. (2015). <i>Smart grid standards: specifications, requirements, and technologies</i>. Singapore: John Wiley & Sons Inc, pg. 161. </ref>
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From the early 1900s to about the 1960s, electric car batteries effectively did not change. Only in the 1970s, during the first major oil crisis that led to the rapid increase in oil prices, electric cars and electric batteries became of interest. Even in the early 1970s, electric car capabilities were not that much more effective than their early industrial age predecessors.
In the 1990s, California did pass a bill that car manufacturers could sell vehicles in the state with a zero-emission option. This likely helped the creation of the EV1, perhaps one of the first more practical electric cars. GM's EV1 car, which traveled up to 80-100 miles and could accelerate from 0 to 60 in 7 seconds, made it one of the best electric cars to emerge from research funding from the 1970s. This remained perhaps the best electric car available and represented another small comeback in the 1990s when the car's production developed. GM had spent over 300 million dollars to help make the EV1 a viable vehicle. However, GM stated he never made money from this car, and eventually, it was killed off in 2001, with cars being recalled from their leasers. The car was only leased in a few states. Only slightly over 1000 of these cars were made.<ref>For more on the EV1, see: Mantle, J. (1995). <i>Car wars: fifty years of backstabbing, infighting, and industrial espionage in the global market</i>. New York: Arcade Pub. </ref>
By the 1990s, Japan had become a global leader in battery research. During this time, in 1997, a new car emerged, the Toyota Prius that changed the perception of efficient vehicles. The Prius, a brand that is still being made, is a hybrid that switched between electric and gasoline sources. In the early 2000s, the Prius began to be exported, which coincided with a sharp rise in gasoline prices and renewed environmental interests. The Prius' performance-matched many gasoline vehicles, selling over 10 million vehicles by the 2010s. This now also prompted companies to look for alternative vehicles that required no gasoline.
== The Emergence of Tesla and the Renewed Push for Electic Cars==
