31 August

Here’s Michael Faraday, genius, who invented the electric motor in 1821 while working on laws of induction, which those who’ve done physics will appreciate. Over a century ago. A thing of almost sublime beauty, with next to no moving parts or friction, and almost infinitely scalable power. With a Faraday engine, an ordinary family electric car can go from 0-100 in under 2 seconds. That’s better than a Formula 1 car. They have so much torque, engineers have to scale it back to prevent discomfort. I think in less than 5 years we’ll be wondering what the hell we were thinking, sticking with the (much later) combustion engine, with its hopeless inefficiency, filthy exhaust fumes, expensive fuel, and thousands of moving parts that need constant servicing. Some electric trains have been running with the same unchanged electric motors for 80 years.