A brief history of electric cars: The Early Years

In celebration of World EV Day on 9 September, we take a look back at the history of electric cars.

You might think electric vehicles are a relatively new phenomenon, a late-20th and early 21st century answer to growing concerns around climate change and pollution.

Certainly, mass-scale production and uptake of EVs has only taken hold in this century.

As technology has improved so too has the ability of carmakers to produce viable electric vehicles on a large scale. But, if you think EVs are a 21st century solution, then think again.

Who made the first electric car?

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly who built the first electric car. But history is rife with pioneers, those inventive souls who were looking to transform their horse-drawn carriages into something that could move under its power.

Hardy inventors in both Europe and across the Atlantic in the US experimented with carriages driven by an electric motor sourcing its power from a battery.

In Scotland, two Roberts, Anderson and Davidson, independently conceived and built prototype vehicles powered by batteries.

Problem was, batteries were then a single use proposition and it wasn’t until 1859 when the rechargeable lead-acid battery was invented that development gathered steam.

In 1880, French inventor Gustave Trouve fitted a small electric motor and reusable battery to an English tricycle (pictured, above). The resulting demonstration run took place along the Rue Valois in Paris on 19 April, 1881. Today, his Tricycle electrique de Trouve is considered the first electric vehicle. 

Trouve tried to patent his invention but was rejected so perhaps in a French pique, swapped his electric motor and battery array into his boat. Cleverly, he’d made the setup portable, allowing him to remove and reinstall both the motor and battery at will. Inadvertently, the Frenchman had invented the removable outboard motor, a design that still underpins marine craft to this day. 

In Germany, Andreas Flocken was also bitten by the electric vehicle bug and in 1888, showed off his Flocken Electrowagen (below), a battery-powered four-wheel ‘chaise’. Fitted with a 0.9kW electric motor, and weighing around 400kg, the Flocken Electrowagen could reach a top speed of around 15km/h. Although never commercially viable, it is today considered the first ‘proper’ electric car.

To find commercial success of a type, we need to look to London in 1897 and Walter Bersey who designed and operated a fleet of battery-powered taxis. Not to be outdone, New York introduced a fleet of electric cabs in the same year.

In 1898, the Porsche-designed (yes, that Porsche) Egger-Lohner C.2 Phaeton (below) made its first appearance. Powered by a 2.2kW electric motor, the Phaeton could reach a top speed of 35km/h and enjoyed a driving range of around 79km.

In 1899, while early combustion-powered cars were still spluttering around on unsealed roads, belching fumes and smoke into the air and frightening passers-by at alarming rates, Belgian inventor and daredevil, Camille Jenatzy, astonished the world with his record-breaking endeavours.

In short, Jenatzy became the first person to drive a car in excess of 100km/h when on 29 April 1899 he propelled his sleek purpose-built La Jamais Contente to 105.88km/h. And it was an electric car.

It would take another three years for Jenatzy’s record to be broken, with Frenchman Léon Serpollet recording 120.80km/h in a steam-powered car. His record stood for just a few months, eclipsed by American William K Vanderbilt, who drove his Mors to a top speed of 122.438km/h on 5 August, 1902, the first time a car featuring an internal combustion engine had held the world land speed record.

While Jenatzy (above) was setting land speed records, on the other side of the Atlantic, the Baker Motor Vehicle Company was producing decidedly more sedate electric vehicles designed for the buying public and its ever-growing thirst for personal mobility.

By 1906, Baker had become the largest manufacturer of electric vehicles in the world with an annual production of 800 cars. But, as the cost of materials escalated (some Baker models cost $US4000), the time was ripe for the far-cheaper-to-produce internal combustion engine to stamp its authority on the automotive world.

Enter Henry Ford and his innovative production techniques that would, by 1908 and the introduction of the Model T, redefine the automobile. The first era of the electric car was over.

In the next part of this series, we look at the electric vehicle stalwarts who persisted with battery technology in the face of an internal combustion onslaught.

The post A brief history of electric cars: The Early Years appeared first on Drive.