We tend to think of electric cars as something new, completely revolutionary in their design, but electric motors had existed since the late 19th century, and applying them to wheeled carriages or bicycles was the occupation of a number of inventors. One of those inventors was a Toronto man named William Still. He was already designing batteries and engines for horseless carriages when contacted by Frederick Bernard Featherstonhaugh, a well-heeled lawyer, to produce a special car according to Featherstonhaugh’s specifications.

On this day, December 5, in 1893, William Still produced the first electric car in Canada. Still’s design was built at Dixon Carriage Works, and included a number of innovations: lights, windshield wipers (rather crude, but effective), mud flaps, and a knuckles on the ends of the axle to help steering.

Still and a number of investors opened an electrical engine manufacturing plant, but their success was short-lived, as the more powerful and efficient gasoline-powered internal combustion engines took over. Gasoline was the latest power producer in the already centuries-long history of cars, which even before electricity first included wind-capturing sails and then steam power engines.