Electric car: Timeline
Designed by a man who invented a computer sometime in the 1980s
Author: Chris Barker
Published: 04 September 2008
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With US Presidential candidate for the Republicans John McCain throwing down the gauntlet – and the ludicrous prize fund of some $300 million – to any American citizen who can come up with a viable car battery that will mean we can wave goodbye to our dependence on crude oil, the worldwide spotlight again falls on the electric car.Universally seen as the most likely savior from our own incompetency’s and hapless blundering over alternate fuel sources to see us through the next stage of supposed evolution, electrically powered cars now have the stage they attempted to demand many moons back.As is the case for so many of the great unanswered questions in the world, the exact time, place and moreover, person definitively responsible for inventing the world’s first electric car is as fiercely contested as ever.Somewhere, estimated to be between 1832 and 1839 a Scottish bloke called Robert Anderson showed the world – or at least a Scottish Glen – his vision of the future, and his electric carriage that recruited its power courtesy of none rechargeable primary electric cells.England and France were the pioneers of the electric car movement as was during the late 1800s, with a number of independently motivated inventors laying claim to the origination accolade, whilst the American car industry were conspicuous for its absence, displaying not a jot of interest to the turn of the last century. See the pattern forming already?Gear changes hampered the early success’ of the petroleum-powered car of the day, which required advanced tutoring in before drivers had the foggiest of what was going on, whereas the alternative electric cars didn’t require this functionality to set them on their way. Although steam-powered cars also shared the electric car’s negation of transmission histrionics, they suffered the inconvenient burden of delayed start up times, sometimes taking up to 45 minutes to fire up.So it’s fair to say that electric cars almost had the road to themselves back then.
1902 – Wood’s Phaeton
Hard to describe as other than being an electrified horseless carriage, the Phaeton could muster speeds of 14mph and was good to cover 18 miles of ground, and would cost those keen on this new-fangled science of motion the princely sum of $2,000 for the honour of upsetting the neighbours. Latterly in 1916 Woods was the brains behind what stands as the world’s inaugural electric hybrid car, that possessed a relatively crude combustion engine and an electric motor that worked independently of one another.1903 – Columbia Mark LX Electric Runabout
At the last century was ushered in it’s a little known fact that electric-powered cars were actually more sought after than their noisy, smelly and sometimes dangerous gasoline-induced contemporaries.With page after page of any history book worth its dusty cover given over to Henry Ford’s iconic Model T, and before that Daimler Benz’ exaggeration of a horse and trap, mention of any other fuel than gasoline used to propel them in a forward trajectory was in scant supply. Yet back in 1903 a vehicle going by the name of the Columbia Mark LX Electric Runabout was at the cutting edge of what arguably was a halcyon, if not pivotal time in electric car development.With traditional ‘cars’ of the time dependant solely on a hand crank shaft to spring them to life – and at cost to the user’s general wellbeing in some more stubborn cases, a risk only bettered by the odds of being caught in the car’s backfiring – electrically-operated vehicles didn’t need to come with a health warning.Boasting a hair-restyling – although MT thinks everyone looked like Abraham Lincoln back in the day and dressed in appropriately vintage top hats - top speed of 15mph, the Columbia Mark LX Electric Runabout had a range of about 40 miles between charges. The exact same distance the mooted Chevrolet Volt can cover before re-charging.1915 – Detroit Electric
Faced with an impending automotive crisis that saw electric cars losing ground to their petroleum-powered nemesis, the marketing men of 1915 decided in their wisdom that ‘girls dig electric’. And that’s because statistics at the time relinquished that city-dwelling gals indeed took a shine to their clean looking, clean cut, clean living electric cars, and were also privy to be taken in by their reliability levels.And the fact they didn’t explode in their faces, which some petrol cars had a nasty habit of doing. Plus they were straight forward and easy to use, requiring no encyclopediac knowledge of the workings of an internal combustion engine.The most vivid picture to support this claim came from the most unlikely quarter. Clara Ford – wife of a certain Henry – herself drove a 1914 Detroit Electric, a vehicle that could travel a massive 80 miles on but a single electric charge and could hit the heady heights of 20mph full tilt.Prior to the Model T, the interiors of standard-running cars were drab and deeply unfashionable; yet costing under $1,000 was at least in reach of a demographic. Sadly the time and attention to interior detailing lavished on the electric cars in contrast – essentially fettled for the hoi polloi – averaged $3,000 to accommodate the expensive materials used.Not one single excuse can be brandished for the premature demise of the electric car, as collectively there were a number of influences that contributed.The development of a better system of road networks serving growing major US conurbations necessitated the provision of vehicles geared up for the longer hauls, whilst the discovery of crude oil in Texas needs no explanation.Elsewhere, the electric starter motor had come about, thus eliminating the hand crank. Yet that insurgence alone wasn’t wholly accountable for the electric cars first flush of youth coming to an abrupt end, as inevitably one massive groundswell in the public’s conscience put paid to the notion that electric cars were going to last the automotive distance, and that was the onslaught of the fabled Ford Model T, and on the back of it the mass production of the internal combustion engine in a package that retailed for almost a third less than the equivalent electric car.That’s not to say that in the intervening years electric cell technologies lay totally dormant, as its fundamental principles gave rise to trams, buses and other passenger transport vehicles coming into the public arena, yet its application to the car was somewhat derelict until some 60 years later.1974 - Vanguard-Sebring CitiCar
1974 was a year that did nothing to dispel the theory - shared by legions of electric car detractors, keen to shoot down what they saw as automotive farce in flames- that such vehicles were nothing more than a glorified golf buggy, as the Vanguard-Sebring CitiCar met the public’s less than favourable gaze.Introduced in response to the Suez oil crisis – and possibly a wager turned sour – the CitiCar could notch up speeds of 30mph and could circumnavigate up to 40 miles in warmer climes. Pitched to do battle with no lesser tour de force than the Volkswagen Beetle, the CitiCar was priced accordingly. Which resulted in Vanguard-Sebring becoming America’s sixth biggest car manufacturer by the end of 1975.Inevitably the CitiCar folded on its safety features, and the fact that it didn’t really have any to draw on when it was put on the spot. Demonstrating all the crumple resistant complexities of a tin of beans, the miniature car went the same way as flares, and free love.January 1985 – Sinclair C5
Other than the class idiots spontaneously shouting out the words ‘a milk float’ and ‘golf buggy’, who could have put their hands up twenty three years ago when asked to name an electric car? Exactly. And those that did pipe up with the ‘Sinclair C5’ suddenly found themselves exposed to the class bullies after school.The Sinclair C5 if you do recall was an electrically motorized slipper capable of speeds of 15mph that had pedals for when you were feeling more athletic. Yet the popularity of which dwindled from the moment in was launched by Sir Clive Sinclair as the solution to just about everything, as increasing reports of owners being caught off guard by buses grabbed the headlines instead of this triumph of electricity over man’s reliance of fossil fuels at a time when the world wasn’t listening.It’s not as though its inventor didn’t have a half decent track record in the ‘wow, what a fantastic idea I’ve just had’ stakes, as he singlehandedly built the first home computer at a time when Siralan(sic) Sugar was still wheeling his barrow around London’s innermost and practicing beard growing. OK, he was well on his way to becoming rich and belligerent, but we like the artsily-versed comparison.Noted as everything from a visionary to a lunatic, Sinclair had previously dreamed up the world’s first slim line pocket calculator, but it was the advent of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum that changed home computing and gaming beyond comprehension that made him a household name. Literally.The Sinclair C5 however was besieged by design nuances that would be its ultimate downfall; none more so than the fact that the notoriously inclement British weather would play havoc with the battery’s intended lifespan.That and the fact that being so low to the ground it was hard for drivers of larger commercial vehicles to distinguish it. Or for that matter see it at all.Quickly dismissed as an endangerment to life – thanks in no small part to the fact that your head was on the same latitudinal path as a car’s bumper – the beleaguered Sinclair C5 was consigned to the annals of history a little later, again bringing about another lapse in electric car history.1996 - Solectria Sunrise
Fast forward to 1996 and the Solectria Sunrise welcomed a brave new dawn for the symbolic electric car - that to date had been shunned by the masses - and with it the new belief that to capture buyers imagination perhaps peddlers’ of a more sustainable power source should look to the future in more ways than one.Hitherto shapes and styles had been lacking the aesthetics and dynamics consistent with the present, let alone a direction that was to carry us through the next generation in automobilia. A concern that must have been taken on board and explored by Solectria when toiling away on its Sunrise project.Its youthful inventor had hit on the fact that it was no good shoe-horning its technologies into corporate none starters like the Geo Metro and other existing yet faceless motoring hulks, so instead he built his own space-age frame around the electric assemblage. A ground-up project as such. What he created was something you find peering from the covers of a 1950s sci-fi annual in terms of how its publishers viewed 1996.Sleek, stylish and overtly ‘one for the future’ the Sunrise was the strongest hint yet that designers should be applying themselves as much as engineers in selling the electric car concept to an unconvinced public. More than that, the Sunrise delivered the good. 375 miles to a charge, setting a new world record in the process.1997 - GM EV1
1997 was a benchmark in electric car developments, with General Motors climbing aboard the bandwagon, only to leap off again a few stops down the line. The GM EV1 – an unassailable name in itself that suggests its Genesis-like presence – should have been the complete package. Bankrolled by the largest motor firm on the planet, expertly tuned engineering prowess and the type of battery technology that no other manufacturer could buy, the EV1 was borne out of compromise more than being a labour of love.In 1990 California has imposed a vehicle emissions white paper that informed the state that it intended to drastically cut tailpipe carbon dioxide emissions during successive years. Panic set in amongst leading car American car manufacturers, so much so that GM constructed what is still referred to as the benchmark electric car.Unfortunately the EV1 stalled on two insurmountable fronts. Extortionate build costs and its battery’s susceptibility to the temperature dipping. Which it does even in California on occasion. The EV plug was pulled in 2003, and with it the great white hope for mass electric car acceptance, only for it to briefly reprise its edited highlights three years later as the focus point of a documentary entitled ‘Who Killed the Electric Car?’2001 – Toyota RAV4 EV
Toyota was the next new kid on the electric battery block, and in 2001 produced an electric adaptation of its RAV4 SUV. A top whack of 78mph and a range of 120 miles to each charge, the RAV4 EV had vote winner written all over it.Unfortunately it didn’t have ease of use daubed anywhere on its bodywork, as it wasn’t long before people realized that they needed to purchase a separate, wall-mounted 6,000 watt ‘portable’ charging unit, which apart from lacking the required mobility factor, took envisaged expenditure over the $40,000 mark. Rendering it impractical and cumbersome on a number of levels.2005 - Commuter Cars Tango
Suffering the humiliation of a naff name is nothing compared to looking like a nautical character off Disney’s Finding Nemo, but that’s not enough to sway Hollywood A-listers like George Clooney swapping a small percentage – although still $100,000 - of his large fortune for a slice of Commuter Cars Tango T600 action.Measuring 69” in length and 29” ride, Clooney’s latest acquisition is perceived to be the ultimate city car, four examples of which you could squeeze into a regular parking spot. Super sizing might be the most popular pastime stateside, but the Tango bucks that trend by looking positively anorexic.But its shortcomings in the looks department pale into insignificance next to its giant leaps in the getting ‘to’ and ‘from’ stakes. From 0 – 60mph in 4 seconds and on to a top speed of 150mph, the Tango was easily immediately seen as the way electric cars could go. Right up to the point the Tesla put us back on the straight yet thankfully not as narrow.
See Also:
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