Car History 4U

History of Electric Powered Motor Cars / Automobiles

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).

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.

4.7 Electric Car Web Sites

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