Move over Tesla this was around 100 years ago

[Mark Gregory]

Interesting concept using batteries way back then . Here in Toronto the country's biggest grocery store has ordered 25 Tesla Electric Trucks . 

 

https://philadelphia.craigslist.org/cto/d/1912-t-electric-truck-5-ton/6392906608.html

[TerryB]

Electric delivery trucks in big cities was common in the early part of the 20th century. The torque the DC electric motors produced was their key to success.  Speed of travel was not a requirement so these trucks fit the bill quite well.  Today speed of travel is important as is the availability of quick charging stations that can get the large battery packs these trucks require back to full charge rapidly.  Not a small fete but Elon Musk says he has the plan to do it.  I sure hope he is right.

Terry

[Owen_Dyneto]

Railway Express Agency (REA) was using electric delivery trucks in New York City as late as the early 1960s.  Big, solid rubber tire beasts perhaps dating back several decades.  I'm hopeful someone will turn up a photo.

Edited November 21, 2017 by Owen_Dyneto (see edit history)

[captndan]

And to this day batteries are about the same.

[60FlatTop]

I was a bit surprised by the price: https://www.amazon.com/Horseless-Carriage-Hiram-Percy-Maxim/dp/B000TBM742

But Maxim's book is one of the best accounts of the gasoline and electric competition early car days. I have owned my copy for about 40 years and read it a few times. Look at AddAll Books or Ebay, you might get a deal.

Years ago I used an electric crane of that vintage and I got a 1912-13 Rambler dynamo operating for Mike Rothschild, also years ago. Lucky I had worked on some turn of the century elevators and synchronous motors as a kid. I think the Tesla people are going to look at their solid state switches and speed control, then at the oil submerged wood dowels with copper contacts screwed to them and say "You don't mind if we just move over a little"

 

Oh, the crane had tiller steering, an adventure in itself!

Bernie

[JV Puleo]

Amazon is about the worst place to look for an old book.

Try bookfinder.com... I just did a search on author "Maxim" and the title, Horsless Carriage Days. Prices started under $20 and the 1937 first edition was exactly $20. It is always preferable, and often cheaper to buy books like this that are new NOT "print on demand" products as the technology of copying books is still a long way from being good.

 

Maxim died in 1935 or 36. His book on the early days of the motorcar was published posthumously.

[Spinneyhill]

Studebaker made electric vehicles from c. 1902 to 1912. These were their first horseless carriages, before they started on vehicles with ICEs.

[bobg1951chevy]

On ‎11‎/‎21‎/‎2017 at 6:50 AM, Mark Gregory said:

Interesting concept using batteries way back then . Here in Toronto the country's biggest grocery store has ordered 25 Tesla Electric Trucks . 

 

https://philadelphia.craigslist.org/cto/d/1912-t-electric-truck-5-ton/6392906608.html

The longest Craigslist ad I've ever read.

[Rusty_OToole]

Today's batteries are miles ahead of anything made 100 years ago. It was cell phones, laptop computers and similar uses that brought about the research. After all if the only portable electric device you have is a $2 flashlight or a $10 transistor radio who will pay $50 for a battery that will last twice as long? But for a $500 cell phone or $1500 laptop lots of customers will pay the price. Tesla's first battery pack was a wheelbarrow full of laptop batteries all wired together.

 

It would be interesting to see what a 1915 electric car would do, if it was equipped with the latest and best batteries.

 

Even more intriguing - there are experiments going on right now with batteries made of carbon that promise to be as far ahead of the present batteries in power and longevity, as today's batteries are ahead of the old lead box. And at a fraction of the cost. They are really a cross between a battery and a capacitor.

 

 

Edited November 23, 2017 by Rusty_OToole (see edit history)

[wayne sheldon]

Electric powered trucks predate gasoline powered trucks. Gasoline/electric hybrid cars date back to 1899 at least. Several marques manufactured under the Entz patents as early as 1905 through the '10s. In the 1920s, it was found that gasoline/electric hybrid trucks outran and out-pulled gasoline trucks with similar loads. It was further discovered, that gasoline/electric hybrid trucks of the '20s got about twenty percent better fuel economy per ton-mile. These trucks were built and sold by several companies during the '20s and very common on the streets of cities and developing suburbia where they slowly edged out the horse drawn local delivery service in a time when many people got bread and milk delivered by a weekly route schedule. Few exist today largely because they were run to death throughout the depression when the old fleet was still good, and companies using them couldn't afford to buy new ones. By the end of WWII, the fleets  were pretty well done in, the outsider manufacturing companies had largely failed or moved on with wartime production. Detroit didn't want to compete with itself selling any technologies other than their gas guzzlers. 

During the 1970s oil and energy "crisis", numerous articles were published touting the gasoline /hybrid technology. These in magazines of many types, collector, scientific, and political. I recall a very good article on the trucks in one of the many antique automobile oriented magazines I was taking at the time. I wish I knew where that issue was now.

But politics got in the way. The "greenies" fought hard for "all or none" full electric. So hybrid technology soon became a forbidden subject, not to return for about twenty years. All electric technology failed miserably then, for the same reasons gasoline beat out electric in 1910. Guess a few more people should have studied their history (and laws of physics). Imagine how many trillions of barrels of oil could have been saved if hybrid technology had been seriously explored early in the '70s?

 

Battery technology is a subject I detest. Because for much of my working career I worked with cutting edge technologies. Although batteries were not a significant part of that work? They were something I had to deal with a lot in our testing equipment. I got sick and tired of dealing with the lies and marketing in our "industry", The lack of honest information from people that were supposed to know was beyond infuriating. Being an "engineer" used to be about a mindset of doing the job right, making things WORK, and making them safe. As time went on, I saw that philosophy disintegrate. So, please, pardon me if I don't believe much of what is said about recent advances in "battery technologies". I am sorely jaded by what I had to deal with then. I have actively avoided following advances in battery technologies for over ten years now.

 

And, to be clear. I never had an engineering degree. But I was trained by some of the best engineers in the communications industry, and worked for many years with many architects and engineers.

[8E45E]

4 hours ago, wayne sheldon said:

Electric powered trucks predate gasoline powered trucks.  Several marques manufactured under the Entz patents as early as 1905 through the '10s. In the 1920s, it was found that gasoline/electric hybrid trucks outran and out-pulled gasoline trucks with similar loads.

That is the major reason I was NOT in favor of the trolley buses being discontinued in most major cities.  Their efficiency and performance far exceeded their diesel or gasoline engined counterparts.  Even fully loaded, they could accelerate uphill without any difficulty where a diesel was limited to first or second gear with a maximum speed of 15-20 mph in city transit applications.  And now with temporary-use battery packs mounted on the roof of the newer trolley buses, there is no inconvenience of a power failure, or going around road construction where the overhead wires run. 

 

Craig

[Restorer32]

We are about to begin restoration of a 1918 Rauch and Lang. There is a registration decal on the windshield showing it was in use an NJ as late as 1935.

[60FlatTop]

1 hour ago, 8E45E said:

That is the major reason I was NOT in favor of the trolley buses being discontinued in most major cities.

 

Now they have painted bicycle lanes on the streets and tax money buys racks to put them in. While the diesel truck rumbles to the grocery stores providing fuel to the highly inefficient bodies of the bike riders.

 

[Rusty_OToole]

Can you imagine trying to run a cell phone tablet or laptop on Eveready D batteries or lead acid batteries? There have been advances in battery technology in the last 100 years mostly in the last 40 years. There will be more to come.

 

My father was an electrician and a believer in electric streetcars, and the potential of electric cars. The only drawback was the batteries. The electric car itself is far superior to a gas car but the power supply is the size and weight of a waterbed with the power of a couple of gallons of gas. Now we have batteries with 3 or 4 times the power in a fraction of the size and weight.

[8E45E]

21 hours ago, Rusty_OToole said:

Can you imagine trying to run a cell phone tablet or laptop on Eveready D batteries or lead acid batteries? There have been advances in battery technology in the last 100 years mostly in the last 40 years. There will be more to come.

 

The wristwatch industry was probably the first with Hamilton in 1957 who offered an electric model that required miniature batteries, and followed by several other wristwatch manufacturers. 

 

If anyone left a legacy for battery technology, it was no doubt Polaroid with their SX-70 folding 'pocket' camera.  Arguably, they were the first to see a need that required a very thin battery located within the film pack.

 

Craig

[1937hd45]

I remember Henry Austin Clark saying the bootleg booze was delivered in NYC in slow moving electric trucks during Probation, far cry from fast moving Southern moonshiners.

 

Bob