The economic boom in the industrial 20th-century US was powered by electricity and gasoline. But as businesses, the gas station and the electric company couldn’t be more different.
The gas station arrived in the early 1900s, and soon after came the affordable automobile, championed by Ford. Because the gasoline they sold was identical, the only way gas stations could set themselves apart from the competition was by offering cheaper fuel. Gas stations broadcasted their cheap prices from gigantic billboards at traffic intersections – today, there are 120,000 gas stations in the US, fighting in a highly competitive market.
Electricity on the other hand was not a cut-throat hustle – it was soon almost a fundamental right, a necessity for the citizens of the US. Competing for business didn’t make sense because electricity had become a utility. The electric company emerged as an entity that would bear the cost of building and maintaining the grid, and in exchange would enjoy a territorial monopoly in the fuel business. To prevent abuse of power, each state in the US created a public utility commission to oversee the utility’s complicated pricing schedules. Electricity became one of the most sophisticated, discreet, and uncompetitive markets.
The advent of the EV has changed the game completely.
What had been a symbiotic, indifferent relationship between gasoline and electricity suddenly came to a situation of financial parity. Without question, the electric vehicle will tip the scales in the utility’s favor – with its onset, the dominant fuel will become electricity, replacing gasoline and winning the public favor as the clean alternative to the villainous, polluting fossil fuel.
The utility monopoly goes unnoticed in our everyday life, but it has immense influence over society. It will be interesting to see how.
Also Read: Dark Hub- World’s First EV for Last-mile Couriers
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Post written by: Yamuna BIndu
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