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the streets to watch and cheer. The newspapers reported on it extensively. Such races gradually became frequent,
     much-anticipated events. And the motor car became a source of amusement rather than a nuisance that disturbed horses and made the streets unsafe: Particular cars or drivers took on the quality of a favorite sports team or sports figure, and the race thus became something one could participate in without having to experience firsthand.
    Auto racing was exciting, but the transportation option that was having the most success in finding new customers in the 1880s was the motorcycle. In many ways, the idea of individual transportation for the masses had started not with the car, but with a two-wheeler, the bicycle. The bicycle had been popularized in Paris in the mid-1800s, and it was a natural step for many of Europe’s bicycle manufacturers to find a way for a two-wheeler to propel itself. So
     began the motorcycle business.Though auto races slowly increased people’s appreciation of the automobile, it was nevertheless the motorcycle that seemed the logical mode of transportation for everyday life, and they caught on much more quickly than cars. From 1921 to 1931 the number of motorcycles in Germany rose from 26,700 to just under 800,000. For that reason, at least in big cities like Vienna, the traditional horse-and-carriage manufacturers started
     making motorcycles as well. One such place was Jacob Lohner & Co., a company that would play a big role in Ferdinand Porsche’s development. It was one of the oldest and most respected luxury coach–building establishments in the world, and the official supplier for the Imperial Majesty himself, Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
    Motorcycles brought new business for carriage maker Jacob Lohner, and he was glad to have taken the risk of getting into the new venture. In 1896, however, seeing the demand for two-wheelers beginning to taper off, Lohner decided it was time to take an even bigger risk. He wanted to try his hand at developing the new technology of motor cars. To do so, he’d need to expand his staff. He wanted someone young, someone curious, someone who knew his way around an
     electronics shop. Being friends with some of Ferdinand Porsche’s coworkers, Lohner soon heard about their unusually talented colleague from the country. Ferdinand was the perfect candidate: young, curious, and longing to try his hand at building a car. Lohner asked him if he might like to come around the shop sometime. What Lohner wanted, he told Ferdinand, was to build an electric car. Luckily, electricity was already something Ferdinand understood well.
    Energy and its relation to mobility 4 has long been a mysterious connection that innovators are hungry to explore. Engines are basically controlled explosions of energy; building an engine is a way of directing energy to achieve maximum force, and it comes with a compelling rush of adrenaline. Leonardo da Vinci started making drawings of self-propelled vehicles
     as far back as the fifteenth century, but it was only at the turn of the twentieth century that something modestly resembling the modern automobile wasdesigned. In those years, men like Karl Benz, the highly respected German engineer who acquired the first patent for a gasoline-powered car in 1886, worked mainly with automobiles that used internal-combustion engines. But Lohner wanted to try using electricity. Many of the first auto races had actually been won by
     using either steam or electric power, so it was still a toss-up as to which way the future would go: by no means did it look certain that the world would become oil-dependent (the petroleum industry was only just getting started, and that industry was certainly not dependent on cars). Lohner chose electric power because he had the Imperial Majesty to consider. Being the official supplier for the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s transportation, if he was going to make a car, it had
     better be regal. That meant something