electric car from 1911

[ARMANDO PADILLA]

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[Art138]

Any history to it? Was it functional?

 

[mdcoleman]

https://www.blissfrombygonedays.com/post/take-me-back-to-the-future-with-your-electric-car

 

[devdrone6]

EV are not new, we have had them for a long time. It’s the range and weight that has kept them from being mass market.

 

[ARMANDO PADILLA]

Don't forget to mention the oil industries lobbyist and choke hold on the automotive industry and their anti-alternative fuel propaganda.

 

[ARMANDO PADILLA]

you know before fossil fuels were discovered we relied on whale oil to light our lamps. imagine if that didn't happen? the discovery of fossil fuels. what would transportation look like today without oil from fossil fuels?

 

[ARMANDO PADILLA]

If you haven't seen the movie " there will be blood" with Daniel Day Lewis, The film is about the driving force of capitalism as it both creates and destroys the future. This movie is about the vanishing American frontier. The thrown-together buildings look scraggly and unkempt, the homesteaders are modest, stubborn, and reticent, but, in their undreamed-of future, Wal-Mart is on the way.

 

[jf64k]

IIRC, that had one of those old EV’s (maybe not that exact model) on display at the Peterson Automotive Museum.

ETA: It‘s an 1896 Riker

https://www.petersen.org/vehicle-spotlights/1896-riker-electric-roadster

ETA 2: They have an EV exhibit as well

https://www.petersen.org/alternating-currents-exhibit

 

[firsttruck]

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When were electric cars most popular?
Answer: 1900 — 1912
In the U.S., electric vehicles accounted for around 30% of all vehicles on the road.

Timeline: History of the Electric Car | Department of Energy
https://www.energy.gov/timeline-history-electric-car

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Electric cars have been around since before the US Civil War
By Peter Valdes-Dapena and Ivory Sherman, CNN Business
Published July 18, 2019 Updated October 10, 2019
https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2019/07/business/electric-car-timeline/index.html

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Electric cars and electric track cars/locomotives have existed since at least 1832, long before gasoline cars were invented.

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1832
Scotland’s Robert Anderson built a motorized carriage powered by non-rechargeable batteries (galvanic cells).

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1880
French electrical engineer and inventor, Gustave Trouvé made the world's first rechargeable battery electric vehicle ( BEV ).

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1884
The first viable electric car
Famed English inventor Thomas Parker -- called the “The Edison of Europe” -- creates the first commercially viable electric car.

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1897
Electric taxi fleets
Fleets of electric taxi cabs are introduced in both Paris and New York.

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1898
Dr. Ferdinand Porsche’s first car was electric NOT ICE
The Egger-Lohner Model C.2 Phaeton, which was powered by electricity.


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An easy-to-operate, electrically powered “parlor on wheels” provided expanded personal mobility for wealthy urban women in the 1900s and 1910s.

Electric cars: 100 years ago and today
November 29, 2011
By National Museum of American History
https://www.americanhistory.si.edu/explore/stories/electric-cars-100-years-ago-and-today

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Clara Ford, wife of Henry Ford, kept her electric car (Detroit Electric). She didn't drive Ford Model-T.

Henry Ford’s Wife Wouldn’t Drive Ford Model T, Kept Her Electric Car
2013
By Zachary Shahan
https://cleantechnica.com/2014/04/11/henry-fords-wife-wouldnt-drive-model-t-kept-electric-car/

......
Here’s more info, from DetroitElectric.org, via the GM-Volt forum:

An electric car that can go over 200 miles on a single charge? What modern day miracle is this? What if we told you that this modern day miracle is almost 100 years old? How about a plug in electric car from the early 1900’s? In 1914 a Detroit Electric went 241 miles on a single charge setting a new record! To be fair the car had a top speed of 25 MPH but that was almost 100 years ago and the new electric cars can go maybe 100 miles on a charge, on a good day, downhill, with a little breeze and a nice smooth road. In 1914 they were traveling over dirt roads or maybe at best cobblestone.

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And here’s even more on the subject, from The New York Times, via the GM-Volt forum:

Well-dressed society women could simply drive to lunch, to shop, or to visit friends without fear of soiling their gloves, mussing their hair or setting their dresses on fire.

“These were women’s shopping cars,” said Mr. Leno, who is a serious hands-on collector of autos and motorcycles dating from the 1800s to the present. “There was no gas or oil, no fire, no explosions — you just sort of got in and you went. There were thousands of these in New York, from about 1905 to 1915. There were charging stations all over town, so ladies could recharge their cars while they were in the stores.”

A cleaner ride. A smoother ride. A safer ride. No oil, no grease, no gasoline. These same benefits exist again today. Got an electric?

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1914 Detroit Electric Model 47 Brougham, Personal Car of Clara Ford (wife of Henry Ford)
https://www.thehenryford.org/collec...-collections/artifact/209957/#slide=gs-214227

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Detroit Electric - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Detroit_Electric

.....
Notable people who owned Detroit Electrics cars included Mamie Eisenhower, Lizzie Borden, Clara Ford, Thomas Edison, Charles Proteus Steinmetz, and John D. Rockefeller Jr.

Between 1907 and 1939, Detroit Electric built a total of 13,000 electric cars.

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[ARMANDO PADILLA]

Word of the day mussing! never heard that one before. we say messed up their hair or their dress. okay I guess Mussing their hair is another way.

 

[firsttruck]

Any history to it? Was it functional?

I am not sure what brand and model the 1911 car in the original post is but there were fleets of electric taxis in some major cities over a decade before 1911 ( 1897 ).

In some places they even had a battery swap depot.

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Electric cars have been around since before the US Civil War
By Peter Valdes-Dapena and Ivory Sherman, CNN Business
Published July 18, 2019 Updated October 10, 2019
https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2019/07/business/electric-car-timeline/index.html

.....
1897
Electric taxi fleets
Fleets of electric taxi cabs are introduced in both Paris and New York.

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The forgotten history of New York’s first electric taxi fleet—in the 1800s
More than a century before Teslas hit the road, battery-powered taxicabs zipped silently through the streets of Manhattan.
By Christopher Klein
June 4, 2024
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/history-of-new-yorks-19th-century-electric-cabs

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The bustling streets of 19th-century Manhattan had a horse problem.
The estimated 150,000 horses roaming the city each produced 22 pounds of waste daily.

The inauguration of New York City’s motorized taxicab service on March 27, 1897, promised a cleaner solution. Cleaner because New York City’s first taxis weren’t powered by gasoline — but were powered by electricity.

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The taxi fleet experienced substantial growth, expanding from a mere dozen vehicles in 1897 to over 100 by 1899

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The pioneering Electrobat

When Nikola Tesla was the only Tesla making headlines, the Electrobat emerged as the first commercially viable electric vehicle. Crafted by Philadelphia engineers Henry Morris and Pedro Salom in 1894, this 2,500-pound car was propelled by a lead-acid battery, achieving top speeds of 15 miles per hour and covering distances of up to 25 miles on a single charge.

Furthermore, the pair devised an ingenious battery-swapping system inside a former Broadway roller skating rink to keep its cabs in continuous operation. Working with the efficiency of a NASCAR pit crew, employees maneuvered vehicles with elevators and hydraulics as an overhead crane, plucked out the depleted 1,000-pound batteries, and inserted fresh ones. The process took only three minutes. “It was much faster than changing a horse team and probably as fast as what we would today associate with filling a tank of gas,” Kirsch says.

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The Bersey Electric Cab (also known as the London Electrical Cab) was an early electric-powered vehicle and the first electric taxi cab in London. An initial service of 12 cabs began on 19 August 1897 and a total of 77 were built, with a maximum of 75 in service at once.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bersey_Electric_Cab

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