Ford, Edison and the Cheap EV That Almost Was

[n2doc]

By Dan Strohl June 18, 2010 | 12:56 pm | Categories: EVs and Hybrids


That Henry Ford and Thomas Edison were good friends late in their lives is well-known. They camped together, presented each other with lavish gifts, even owned homes adjacent to each other.

Many Ford enthusiasts also know Ford, when he first drove his Quadricycle on the streets of Detroit in 1896, worked for Edison at Detroit Edison Illuminating Company. And historians know Edison, when introduced to Ford some months later and shown Ford’s plans for a gasoline automobile, encouraged the budding industrialist to pursue those plans.

What is far less known is Edison and Ford worked together on an affordable electric vehicle.

This is the story of what happened and why the car never came to be.




Read More http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/06/henry-ford-thomas-edison-ev/

[Theobald]

1. Very interesting article

The only problem with it is the headline. The contents of the article make clear that the cheap electric vehicle did not occur because Ford and Edison could not overcome the hurdles of storing enough electrical power to make the vehicle feasible. Therefor they tried to create a cheap electrical vehicle, but they failed, how that constitutes 'almost was' is beyond me.

[FBI_Un_Sub]

2. Definitely feasible

Definitely feasible in urban environment. BUT remember - this was well before FDR's New Deal with its Rural Electrification Administration and Tennessee Valley Authority --- and most farms lacked electricity. Ford perceived his target market as the farmer. A good idea 30 years too early. :(

[Theobald]

4. How was it feasible in an urban enviromnent

Remember we are talking about batter technology from 90 years ago. They just couldn't overcome the hurdles to make cheap battery powered cars. We have the technology now but, I still have yet to see a cheap electric vehicle other than a golf cart.

[FBI_Un_Sub]

5. Some problems have been solved

Some problems have been solved

1. Urban Environment - The cities had local electric power grids at the time Ford was thinking about the Model T. Certainly not optimum, but they did deliver the power. It took the REA and the TVA to bring the grid to rural America.
   
2. Batteries. Until fairly recently, you could have any kind of rechargeable battery you wanted -- as long it was lead-acid or nickel-cadmium. :( The GM EV1 had a lead acid battery system. The prototype generation of digital cameras and the first generation of lap top computers had nickel-cadmium. The progress was driven by the end use - electric cars, lap tops, digital cameras, etc and by the manufacturers of the end use "toys".

It is my own bias that if a major manufacturer had hit the market with an electric car, urban delivery truck, motor scooter, or motor cycle in 1900 --- today's "modern" "high tech" batteries would have hit in the early 1900's.

[hunter]

7. Edison batteries were nickel-iron.

These are very, very rugged batteries, although they are not especially efficient. Fifty year old batteries are not unheard of. I saw somewhere that Jay Leno has some older than fifty years that are still working, although he runs his antique electrics on lead-acid cells.

Here's a U.S. source:

http://www.beutilityfree.com/Electric/Ni-Fe

[happyslug]

6. And lets us NOT forget who was buying cars in that time period.

The US Automobile market had two main centers from its start till after WWII, first was what we call "Upper Middle Class" people making the equivalent of over $100,000 a year today. These tended to the high price cars not the Model Ts, but were a big part of the market.

The LARGEST single market were rural residents. Other transportation system were either inconvenient or non-existent. Thus the cars replaced the horse on most farms, small towns etc. In Urban areas people stayed with Streetcars (For example Los Angles peak year for Streetcar passenger was 1944, for the City of Pittsburgh it was 1927, but even the City of Pittsburgh stayed close to the 1927 number till after WWII, just never matched it). AS late as the 1930s only 1 out of 15 Americans owned a car. The "Okies" from the 1930s had been rural farmers who took the cars they purchased during the boom of the 1920s and headed west (Or bought the cars used from farmers who stayed on the farm and bought a replacement automobile).

I bring this up, for we are talking of the 1905-1920 period. Upper Middle Class Americans were buying Model Ts, but preferred and could afford more expensive cars (This GM was able to replace Ford as the #1 US car maker by 1930, GM's car division took clear aim at the many sub-segments of the Upper Middle Class and still had Chevrolet for the Rural residents). Thus Ford's main market had been Rural America and until the electrification programs of the 1930s, most rural residents did NOT have access to electricity.

Once you see HOW the Automobile Market was developing in the pre-WWII era, it quickly become clear that the Electric car was a non-starter if made by FORD. The largest area of Automobile growth, rural America could NOT recharge electric cars (And this preferred Gasoline cars), and Ford had basic ly decided to opt for Rural America over Upper Middle Class Urban dwellers and thus that market was also beyond the reach of Ford's electric car.

Comments like the one that said if this would have worked out we could have solved the problems with batteries decades ago, reminds me of the old saying "The Dog would have caught the Rabbit if he had not stopped to take a shit". The phase comes into play here. The reason electric cars failed in the first quarter of the 20th Century was market driven more the anything else. The largest group of people who were buying cars did NOT have access to electricity, and thus recharging such cars were out of the question. Yes, it is nice to say that maybe if Ford had stayed with this idea. it would have "solved" some of the problems with electric cars decades ago, but to have work the automobile market of the pre-depression time period would have had to be different then what it was. The Urban Upper Middle Class Market (Generally given as only 10% of the US households) were NOT large enough (and to divided when it comes to what they wanted in a Car) to determine what would be the typical car of the time period. The Upper Middle Class could decide what was fashionable and flashy (Both could be provided by custom made cars) but NOT what the vast majority of Americans could buy (i.e. could afford). Thus Rural America opted for the Gasoline Engine do to the fact Rural America had been using petroleum for decades (in the form of Kerosene for heating and lighting) even if that means opting for a new fuel (Gasoline as opposed to Kerosene). Urban working class Americans continue to use Streetcars till after WWII (Streetcar passengers peaked in 1918, but that included both urban and rural riders, with the widespread adoption of Automobiles in Rural Areas after 1920, most Rural Interurbans streetcars failed in the 1920s forcing even more rural residents into cars, but as I pointed out earlier, URBAN streetcar use held its own till after WWII when you see a market shift from Rural America to Urban Working Class America and the clear victory of Chevrolet over its sister divisions of GM, Ford over its sister division of Mercury and Lincoln and Dodge with its clear victory over Chrysler and Imperial, Chevrolet, Ford and Dodge is what most American brought, the other divisions of the Big Three were geared for higher income people).

[TlalocW]

3. I remember when the Insight came out

A conservative friend of mine made the observation that electric cars were not part of Henry Ford's "insight."

I took great pleasure in correcting him.

TlalocW