PURDUE UNIVERSITY PRESS
The EV Guys How Caltech Engineers Reinvented the Electric Car Charles J. Murray
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9781626713338 Pub Date: 9/15/2026 Ship Date: 8/15/2026 $32.99 Discount Code: t Hardcover 336 Pages 23 BW and color photographs Technology & Engineering / Automotive TEC009090 9 in H | 6 in W Status: FORTHCOMING
A story of underdogs, this is the largely unknown tale of the development of the modern EV powertrain by a group of independent outsiders from California. Corrects the popular notion that the electric car's technology was the exclusive product of Tesla Motors. It was not. The technology was invented and developed by a small group of engineers at a company called AC Propulsion. Interestingly, Elon Musk has repeatedly acknowledged the importance of AC Propulsion's role. Vividly demonstrates that technical breakthroughs must sometimes come from outside the prescribed boundaries of a discipline. In this case, the auto industry had already experienced more than a century of electric car failures and had built an impenetrable wall of prejudice around it. AC Propulsion had no such prejudices, and so succeeded.
Summary The EV Guys: How Caltech Engineers Reinvented the Electric Car is the true account of the auto industry outsiders whose electric drivetrain revolutionized the automobile. Starting from their early years at Caltech, the book chronicles their development of an electric car faster than any Ferrari or Corvette. It then recounts how the founders of Tesla Motors stumbled onto their technology, adopted it, and used it as a foundation for the birth of what would become one of the world’s most valuable companies. The EV Guys breaks new ground in its depiction of the electric car’s history, and is the first book to explain how a small group of engineers in a California garage reinvented the EV and forever changed the auto industry.
Contributor Bio Charles J. Murray has written about science and engineering for over forty years, during which he has published more than five hundred articles about batteries and electric cars. His work has appeared in engineering journals such as IEEE Spectrum, Design News, EE Times, and Semiconductor International, and in many consumer publications, including the Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, and Popular Scie...
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