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.