I don't think this is true (not the accessible part of course). Renault started to sell Zoe in 2012, Tesla Roadster was selling for 4 years at that time and Tesla Inc was releasing new model. I don't say that Tesla single handedly pushed electric cars forward, but it draw a lot of attention to it, like Toyota Prius sparked attention to hybrid cars before that. Before 2010 electric car was treated mostly as a freaky concepts and sales were almost non-existent.