Iraqi forces rolled into Kuwait in August 1990, and probably because I was the newest mid-level editor, I became de facto energy editor of BusinessWeek. What followed was a rash of stories about oil, natural gas, and U.S. dependence on fossil fuels. That led to articles about conservation and alternative energy-and, inevitably, to cars.

Then, as now, internal-combustion-engine vehicles consumed a huge percentage of all fossil fuel burned in the United States. We wrote about electric cars and other technologies that promised to wean Americans of their gas-guzzling ways. When I bought a new car in January 1992, less than a year after the Gulf War ended, I told my friends it was the last conventionally powered vehicle I would ever own.