MTFCA Forum

To tell the truth the country was not ready for electric cars then and in many used maybe still not now!! In the middle teen's if you had power you live in town or had a light plant! Bud.

To tell the truth the country was not ready for electric cars then and in many used maybe still not now!! In the middle teen's if you had power you live in town or had a light plant! Bud.

Great story Steve, that pic of the touring body being installed is a new one to me. Do not believe I have seen in in any of the reference books.

Electric cars are old tech. Excellent electric cars were available well over 100 years ago. The problem with them then was limited battery capacity, limited battery service life, high battery weight and bulk, and nasty battery chemicals, among other battery issues. The same issues limit the appeal of electric cars today, more or less. The rotary electric motor is pre-Civil War tech, older than rotary internal combustion engines... if that matters. As far as that goes, the chemical electric battery is very old tech, perhaps the oldest of all. See: "Baghdad Battery". Back in the day, many rural households had "Delcolite" plants and wind chargers which could have been used to charge an electric car. Of course, the light plants used that horrid gasoline as their primary energy input .... and the wind chargers were as fickle as the wind and still are. But a clever farmer could have used either or both to (eventually) charge up his Baker so Mama could make her weekly butter and egg run to McKee's Store, if the road was good. If someone ever comes up with a really good, practical battery, electric cars will quickly displace IC cars and other IC vehicles, and I would expect to see a great many IC vehicles repowered with electric drive, absent regulatory interference. Electric cars as available today would get a great boost in consumer appeal if we could find an inexpensive way to fully air condition them without using the large amounts of power that curret automotive HVAC systems require.

Back 50 years ago most vehicles did not have a refrigeration plant installed in their car for "passenger comfort" - we had "4-60" air conditioning, Bee-catcher swamp coolers, etc... even 30 years ago my work truck had a heater and vent, and if you needed it cooler there was a 2 speed fan bolted to the dash - high or low - and that was it. Windows fogged up? Turn on the defroster and OPEN THE WING VENTS... I drove various VW bugs in 100+ degree weather... open the wings, roll down the windows, open the "bat wing" rear windows (if the car had them) and while maybe not like sitting in a 65 degree box, it was tolerable to get from A to B.

There IS a necessity for a cooling system, but it's not for the passengers as much as it is to keep the battery stack cool while it's under charge/discharge modes...

And there’s my history lesson for this week. Perhaps HF was just trying to impress TAE.

I put 600,000 miles on a solid black, solar-heated 1968 Ford F-100. That thing could get HOT in the Texas sun! It did have kick panel vents and vent windows in the doors. Modern bubblecars would be intolerable for most people without HVAC. Some of them have 2 acre dashboards and lots of inward-slanted glass area. At least the '68 Ford had some shade inside, with its more nearly vertical windshield and other glass.

The author missed a bit on the actual success of Edison's new battery and the early electric cars, from 1900 to 1914 only about 10 mfg.of electric passenger cars existed. There were many more commercial trucks, delivery type with battery power then too.

Showing the last adv. with Henry and Tom was fortunate, as the Baker Elec. car company went bankrupt the year of the adv. 1914.

His 'new' battery in 1909, found success limited. The initial truck type Edison A weighted 700 lbs. at a cost considerable more than the then in use lead/acid type. Early battery cars and trucks worked for a while, then gasoline power made better economy. Cost to operate over distance and could carry heavier loads.


In 1909, the year of Edison's new battery, only handful of commercial trucks were battery powered, and at this New York show, no electric passenger cars were shown, same show that displayed the new Model T Ford.

Edison's new battery.
Some of the results of testing
Ford did better sticking to gasoline for the T....early battery technology, even with Tom Edison tinkering, was limited.

As per title, [Henry throw's a fit] I think the famous fit was when Henry came back from the other side of the pond and found the car that was to replace the early Model T!!! A well written story on this is in Tin Lizzie by Stern!!! Bud.