Electric Vehicles—Past, Present, & Future

12:00-1:00p.m. (PDT) | Link to register.

Electric vehicles may seem like cutting-edge technology, but they are in fact quite the opposite: electric versions of the “horseless carriage” first appeared nearly two centuries ago. International EV experts Dr. Gijs Mom and Dr. Daniel Sperling will reflect on lessons from the history of EV technology and policy innovation that can help today’s policymakers and automotive experts smooth the path for cost-effective EV adoption.

Earth Day 2022 calls for us to "Invest in Our Planet," and exploring key questions about EV technology, regulation, subsidy, and charging infrastructure is critical to furthering the potential for EVs as climate-friendly transportation.

This event is co-sponsored by SJSU's Department of Urban & Regional Planning and Department of History.

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About the Speakers:

Dr. Gijs Mom is Associate Professor Emeritus at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, where he also served as Programme Director for Mobility History. Today he is recognized globally as one of the foremost experts on automotive history, known for his unique ability to blend analysis of technological, cultural, and political forces. 

Dr. Mom began his career with degrees in both literary history and automotive engineering, and briefly worked on engine development at Renault, in Paris. He next completed a doctoral degree in the history of technology. His dissertation, The Electric Vehicle: Technology and Expectations in the Automobile Age, was published in 2004. This book received both the ASME Engineer-Historian Award and the Best Book Award from the Society of Automotive Historians. 

Among Dr. Mom’s many scholarly articles is a prize-winning analysis of early electric trucking, coauthored with David Kirsch (2001). Later books include a cultural history of Western automobility, Atlantic Automobilism; The Emergence and Persistence of the Car, 1895-1940 (2014), a history of automotive technology: The Evolution of Automotive Technology, A Handbook (2014), and the first volume of his world mobility history, Globalizing Automobilism; Exuberance and the Emergence of Layered Mobility, 1900 – 1980 (2020). The last won best-book awards from both the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) and the World History Association (WHA). The sequel of this book, Pacific Automobilism, Adventure, Status and the Carnival of Mobility, 1975-2015, will be published in September 2022.

In 1997 Dr. Mom founded the European Center for Mobility Documentation, located in Helmond, the Netherlands. In November 2003, he co-founded the International Association for the History of Transport, Traffic and Mobility (T2M), which he led as president during its first five years. In 2011 he founded the journal Transfers: Interdisciplinary Journal of Mobility Studies and served as its first editor.

Dr. Daniel Sperling works at the University of California, Davis, where he is Distinguished Blue Planet Prize Professor of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science and Policy, founding Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies, and founding chair of the Policy Institute for Energy, Environment, and Economy .

Dr. Sperling has been recognized for three decades as a leading international expert on transportation technology assessment, energy and environmental aspects of transportation, and transportation policy. He has authored or co-authored hundreds of technical papers and books. Dr. Sperling was co-director of the 2007 study that designed California’s landmark low carbon fuel standard and co-director of a follow-up 2010 national study. He was also lead author of the transportation chapter on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore. His books include Three Revolutions: Steering Automated, Shared and Electric Vehicles to a Better Future (Island Press, 2018) and Future Drive: Electric Vehicles and Sustainable Transportation (1995). In 2022, he was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Dr. Sperling’s many public service roles include his appointment in 2007 to the California Air Resources Board, where he oversees state policies and regulations on climate change, low carbon fuels and vehicles, and sustainable cities. 

Prior to obtaining his Ph.D. in Transportation Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley (with minors in Economics and Energy & Resources), Dr. Sperling worked two years as an environmental planner for the US Environmental Protection Agency and two years as an urban planner in the Peace Corps in Honduras. He has an undergraduate degree in engineering and urban planning from Cornell University.