4.1 The Motor & Battery

• The Electric Motor: Possibly the first practical electric motor suitable for use in a vehicle was built in 1833 by Thomas Davenport (American).

• The Battery: See Part 1. Section 10.2.

4.2 The First Electric Powered Cars

• Britain: Sometime between 1832 and 1839 Robert Anderson invented a crude electric, three-wheeled, carriage.

• It was powered by non-rechargeable primary cells.

• Holland: In 1835 Professor Sibrandus Stratingh designed a small-scale electric car.

• It was built by his assistant Christopher Becker.

• United States: In 1847: Moses G. Farmer fitted an electric motor onto a carriage, the first known electric car to run in the USA.

• His vehicle was powered by 48 Grove cell batteries and carried two people.

• France: Charles Jeantaud, assisted by Camille Faure, built an electric powered vehicle in 1881.

• Britain: In 1884: Thomas Parker built an electric vehicle.

• United States: Fred M Kimball is reported to have built an electric powered car in 1888.

• Britain: In 1888 J.K Starley, the founder of the Rover Company, experimented with and built an electric powered three-wheeled car. 

• Belgium: The Belgian gun maker Pieper started making electric cars in 1889.

• United States: In 1890 William Morrison built the first US four-wheeled electric powered car. Note: It may have been the first vehicle fitted with a steering wheel.

• Canada: In about 1893, electric powered cars were being built by W. J. Still and by Mr Dickson at his “Carriage Works”.

• France: Louis Antoine Krieger started making electric horseless carriages in 1894.

• United States: In 1895, the American inventor Hiram Maxim designed an electric powered car for Colonel Albert A. Pope.

• The car was a horse-drawn runabout converted to electric power.

• Pope produced these electric cars for several years before changing to the internal combustion engine.

• Germany: Sometime between 1898 and 1900 Ferdinand Porsche invented a battery powered car. It had four electric motors - one at each wheel.

4.3 Peak in Popularity of Electric Powered Cars

• By the late 1800s/early 1900s commercial electric powered cars had the majority of the motor car market, outselling petrol and steam powered vehicles.

• In 1899 ninety percent of the taxi-cabs in New York City were electric.

• By 1904 one third of all the cars in Chicago, New York City and Boston were electric powered.

• Production of electric vehicles reached its peak in 1912.

4.4 Speed and Endurance of Electric Powered Cars

• The electric car built by Morrison in America was capable of running for 13 consecutive hours at 14 mph (22.4 kph).

• The top speed of the early production electric vehicles was limited to about 20 mph (32 kph).

• A racing version of the electric car produced by Ferdinand Porsche (German) in about 1890 was capable of 56 kph (35 mph).

• In the late 19th/early 20th century electric cars were the fastest cars in the World.

• In France in December 1898 the French Jeantaud car, powered by a single electric motor generating 36 hp, set the first land speed record with a speed of 62.78 kph (39.24 mph).

4.5 Advantages of Electric Powered Cars

• The advantages of electric cars over their competitors in the early 1900s were:

• No vibration, smell or noise associated with petrol powered cars.

• Electric cars did not require gear changes. At that time gear changing in petrol powered cars was very difficult.

• Electric cars started promptly unlike steam cars, which on cold days, took up to 45 minutes.

• The range of the electric powered car (on a single charge) was greater than that of the steam car because the steam car needed to be refilled with water.

4.6 Decline in Popularity of Electric Powered Cars

• The decline in popularity of electric powered cars can be attributed to a combination of reasons.

• In 1912 Charles Kettering’s (American) invention of the electrical starter motor ignition system did away with the need to start petrol powered cars with the cumbersome, and sometimes dangerous, hand crank.
• Compared to petrol powered cars they became too expensive.

• The horsepower of electric powered cars was limited in comparison to the emerging petrol powered cars.

• The ever-growing need, especially during the 1920s, to travel longer distances.

• The increasing availability of petrol.

• By the late 1930s, the electric motor car industry had almost completely disappeared.