Chapter 666

• But the tide turned. When Japellonian carmakers got obsessed with hydrogen cars and couldn’t pull themselves out, the big Eprye and Camria car companies also began ditching electric-car R&D. Everyone ended up back on the same track.
• Part of it was the tech gap. Those companies held piles of mature patents in fuel engines, gearboxes, and other high-end systems. They didn’t want to give up the huge profits that came from those tech moats.
• There was also the safety problem of power batteries, short range, and strict laws in many states. All that kept electric cars from taking off.