I didn't know GE made cars

[Billy Kingsley]

Until I saw this one on Thursday at the Saratoga Automobile Museum. It's in the back parking lot, not actually in the museum. 

 

 

I found an article about it but it does not mention production. I can't imagine there were many. I believe the car in the main image is the same one I saw, as it's the same colors and carries the same license plate. Also, it mentions that it was built in Schenectady, about 40 minutes away from Saratoga. 

General Electric Centennial Electric (GE-100) - All Car Index

 

Unfortunately my photo of the dashboard came out blurry.

[Guest]

Probably has a good air conditioner.

[rocketraider]

Schenectady was their large steam turbine/generator factory. As many times as I was in contact with Schenectady engineering I never heard them mention an EV. Any idea when this thing was produced?

[3macboys]

19 minutes ago, rocketraider said:

Schenectady was their large steam turbine/generator factory. As many times as I was in contact with Schenectady engineering I never heard them mention an EV. Any idea when this thing was produced?

From the link Billy included looks like around 1979

[3macboys]

Billy you sent me down the rabbit hole looking for more info and I stumbled across this web page:

 

https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/ge-and-the-electric-car-100-years-of-invention-and-innovation-museum-of-innovation-and-science/AwLCW0hRZDluIQ?hl=en

[8E45E]

Looks to have Chevette taillights.

 

Otis, the elevator company also made electic vehicles.

 

Craig

 

[tcslr]

The R&D center and KAPL are near Schenectady. 

[Frank DuVal]

2 hours ago, 8E45E said:

Looks to have Chevette taillights.

Yes, looks just like the ones on my 79 Scooter. 1980 began the larger tail lamp assemblies.

[Billy Kingsley]

That link was cool. Love seeing the pioneer era cars!

[Don Jr.]

Hi I worked at The G.E. R&D Lab in Niskayuna. Yes that car was stationed at CRD.There was a team of scientists and staff working on the concept cars.  It was constantly being tested and upgraded and taken to shows. There were a few "mules" built over a period of time proving concepts in motive power. Remember the car well as it was sometimes was sent to our Bldg. next door MET. Bldg. to be loaded on a truck for shows back then as we had a high bay for tractor trailers to pull into for loading. Hope this helps!

[jdome]

Ge also developed an electric lawn & garden tractor around the same time called "Elec-Trak". It did go into production in the 70's with reasonable sales success. They made several models from E8 to E25. The model number designated the HP rating. In 1995 I used a well worn out model E15 Elec-Trac as a donor to power a 4 seat kiddy car I made for my son. They were 36 volt using six - 6v golf cart batteries. I didn't have the room for 6 batteries so I used three - 12v batteries. About 1976, GE sold the manufacturing rites to Wheel Horse, a tractor & mower manufactor that was a division of American Motors.  Wheel Horse only continued the line under their brand name for a couple years.

 

American Motors also developed an Electric prototype in the late 60's called "Amitron." It was a small commuter car for 3 with 1 row seating. AM claimed it could go 150 miles with an advanced chemistry battery pack made of Ni-Cad and lithium-fluoride that only weighed 200 lbs. The car did not go beyond the prototype stage.

[JamesR]

Good find! You stumped most of us. Thanks to Don Jr. and jdome for filling in some of the blanks.  Not fancy, but it looks better than I would imagine an experimental electric vehicle made by GE in the late '70's would look. They at least made the effort to round off some of the harsh sharp corners that many production vehicles from that era had. The rear side glass even looks slightly arched.

 

 

[Don Jr.]

Yes the Electrac was quite a machine. I owned a pre production model and 2 production ones. I worked with a few engineers that developed it. They were great tractors!! There was a mule that was built at the lab before the EV-1. It was tested for several ideas that went into future mules. It was about the size of a large golf cart with 2 doors in an enclosure. It was a fiberglass shell painted black and white. It had very simple relays and controls at the time with a bunch of standard lead acid batteries to power it. Re genitive braking systems was in its infancy back then. When they were thru with it I tried to purchase it for scrap  knowing some day it would be appreciated by auto enthusiasts. I was told NO! and our grounds crew loaded it up on a trailer and brought it to a local landfill where they had to destroy it then bury it. I tried my best to save it but failed!!. We also had a hybrid bus that was tested on the streets of New York City too. It would be trucked down to the city tested and returned to the lab for evaluation. After our contract was up on the project with it, it disappeared to who knows where . Probably was cut up also. Thought you would appreciate this tid bit from my time at the Lab.

[TerryB]

I think it was carbking who posted these photos of an electric John Deere riding mower.  I remember the electric GE lawn mower tractors as a college friend’s family was a dealer for them. They also sold Polaris snow machines.  This was in the 1970-72 timeframe.