Electric Vehicle History By: Prashant Kumar Dey History

● Mid-19th Century: First Existence ● 1828: Ányos Jedlik invented an early type of electric motor, and created a small model powered by his new motor.

Img. Src.: News ● 1834: Vermont blacksmith Thomas Davenport built a similar contraption which operated on a short, circular, electrified track. ● With his wife Emily, and a colleague Orange Smalley, Davenport received the first American patent on an electric machine (motor) in 1837, U. S. Patent No. 132. Their motors ran at up to 600 revolutions per minute, and powered machine tools and a printing press.

Img. Src.: Wikipedia ● In 1835, Professor Sibrandus Stratingh of Groningen, the Netherlands and his assistant Christopher Becker created a small-scale electric car, powered by non-rechargeable primary cells.

Img. Src.: Google Images ● 1859: The invention of the lead–acid rechargeable battery by French physicist Gaston Planté.

Img. Src.: Electric Vehicle News ● 1881: The capacity of lead–acid rechargeable battery was increased significantly by Camille Alphonse Faure, another French scientist. ● Camille Alphonse Faure patented a method of coating lead plates with a paste of lead oxides, sulphuric acid and water, which was then cured by being gently warmed in a humid atmosphere. ● The curing process caused the paste to change to a mixture of lead sulphates which adhered to the lead plate. ● During charging the cured paste was converted into electrochemically active material (the "active mass") and gave a substantial increase in capacity compared with Planté's battery. ● August 1, 1881: French inventor Gustave Trouve made his benchmark report to the French Academy of Sciences. Trouve could not only lay claim to the world’s first marine outboard engine but, in taking the same motor and adapting it as the drive mechanism of a Coventry-Rotary pedal tricycle or velocipede ● November 1881: Gustave Trouvé demonstrated a working three-wheeled automobile at the International Exhibition of Electricity in Paris.

Fig.: Trouve and three friends cruised the Seine in silence aboard a 17-foot launch with an electric motor powered by two bichromate of potassium batteries. By 1890, Trouve motors powered 100 boats in Europe.

Img. Src.: Electric Vehicle News ● 1888: Philip W. Pratt demonstrates the very first American electric tricycle. ● Philip Pratt’s e-trike was built for him by Fred M. Kimball of the Fred M. Kimball Company. ● The vehicle’s 10 lead-acid cells created 20 volts to a 0.5 horsepower DC motor. The driver sat above the battery assemblage. The whole setup weighed about 300 pounds and had a top speed of eight miles-per-hour.

Img. Src.: Wikipedia ● Baker Motor Vehicle Company was an American manufacturer of Brass Era electric automobiles in , Ohio, from 1899 to 1914. ● 1902: (a two seater car built for racing) Idea was to cover a mile in a minute in public trial. But it lost control and slid sideways. 2 people were killed and several injured. ● The first Baker vehicle was a two seater with a selling price of US$850. One was sold to Thomas Edison as his first car. Edison also designed the nickel-iron batteries used in some Baker electrics. These batteries have extremely long lives. Img. Src.: Wikipedia ● 1908: Henry Ford’s Model T first appeared on the roads and sold over ten thousand in that model year alone. ● Problem during the century w.r.t gas-powered vehicle: Electricity was expensive deal to crack in. Only rich people had it in their homes. ● By turn of the century: 40 percent of American automobiles were powered by steam, 38 percent by electricity, and 22 percent by gasoline ● The expense of running an EV vs a gas-powered car became a decisive blow to the EV. The cost of filling a gallon was 5 cent than comparing with charging 1kwh at 20 cent. ● 1911: Anderson Carriage Co. became Anderson Electric Car Co. Car model designations go from letters to numbers. This was a year of great transition for the company. A staggering 23 models were offered, as most of the body types were available with any of the three chain drive systems, or the new shaft drive system. ● 1912: Charles Franklin Kettering invented the electric starter at his Dayton Electric Co. (DELCO) reducing the advantage of electric over gas. ● 1917: the first gasoline-electric hybrid car was released by the Woods Motor Vehicle Company of . The hybrid was a commercial failure, proving to be too slow for its price, and too difficult to service ● Electric vehicles had all but disappeared by 1935. The years following until the 1960s were dead years for electric vehicle development and for use as personal transportation. ● During the 1960s, interest in EVs increased due to environmental awareness and a concern about America's international oil dependency. The 1960s and 1970s saw a need for alternative fueled vehicles to reduce the problems of exhaust emissions from internal combustion engines and to reduce the dependency on imported foreign crude oil. Many attempts to produce practical electric vehicles occurred during the years from 1960 to the present. ● In 1975 the Postal Service purchased 350 electric delivery jeeps from the American Motor Company to be used in a test program. These jeeps had a top speed of 50 mph and a range of 40 miles at a speed of 40 mph. Heating and defrosting were accomplished with a gas heater and the recharge time was 10 hours. ● ● The General Motors EV1, one of the cars introduced as a result of the California Air Resources Board (CARB) mandate, had a range of 160 mi (260 km) with NiMH batteries in 1999. ● In June 2009 BMW began field testing in the U.S. of its all-electric Mini E, through the leasing of 500 cars to private users in Los Angeles and the New York/New Jersey Img. Src.: General motors area. A similar field test was launched in the U.K. in December 2009 with a fleet of more than forty Mini E cars. References

● A movie made on the subject in 2005-2006 was titled Who Killed the Electric Car? and released theatrically by Sony Pictures Classics in 2006. ● Wikipedia ● EarlyElectric.com ● Electric Vehicle News ● Google ● Electric Vehicle Technology Explained by James Larminie ● The Car That Could: The Inside Story of GM's Revolutionary Electric Vehicle by Michael Shnayerson