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Yonah Freemark
@yonahfreemark.com

And yet gas-only cars constituted 77% of the new vehicle market in the US over that period. Has the US ever been this far behind the world average in new tech adoption for a major product type?

Sammy Roth@sammyroth.bsky.social

Gasoline-only cars now make up just 49% of global new vehicle sales, down from 73% in 2021: electrek.co/2026/10/05/g...

electrek.coGas cars fall below 50% of global new car sales for the first timeGas cars made up 49% of global new car sales in the first half of 2026, down from 73% in 2021. But hybrids are taking as much share as EVs.
Yonah Freemark
@yonahfreemark.com

Well that’s a difficult one because the US was for a time quite ahead of the world in railroad electrification—at least if you count interurbans

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Mark Riley
@wrylee.bsky.social

The Milwaukee line ran over the pass near my house in WA. In the early 1900s the train was electric and regenerated power on the downhill-side of the mountains.

David Jaša
@djasa.bsky.social

🙂 bsky.app/profile/djas...

David Jaša@djasa.bsky.social

I still see an alternative history of Milwaukee Road having chosen an 'old style' low-freq AC system instead of then-new 3kV DC in 1910s. With an AC system, they could have scaled it to the whole transcon, thus avoid ripping it up in early 1970s, thriving through the oil crises... What next?