History of the electric vehicle Colten in the United States in 1847. Rechargeable batteries that provided a viable means for storing electricity on board a vehicle did not come into being until 1859, with the invention of the lead–acid battery by French physicist Gaston Planté. Camille Alphonse Faure, another French scientist, significantly improved the design of the battery in 1881; his improvements greatly increased the capacity of such batteries and led directly to their manufacture on an industrial scale. An early electric-powered two-wheel cycle was put on display at the 1867 World Exposition in Paris by the Austrian inventor Franz Kravogl, but it was regarded
Volta potential electrostatic potentials, but instead the difference in Fermi level between the two materials, a difference that is exactly zero at equilibrium. The Volta potential however corresponds to a real electric field in the spaces between and around the two metal objects, a field generated by the accumulation of charges at their surfaces. The total charge formula_2 over each objects' surface depends on the capacitance formula_3 between the two objects, by the relation formula_4 where formula_5 is the Volta potential. It follows therefore that the value of the potential can be measured by varying the capacitance between the materials by a