Your Great-Grandfather May Have Owned One: The Electric Car

Wed, 08/20/2008 - 04:00

#2

nasukaren

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Re: Your Great-Grandfather May Have Owned One: The Electric Car

Great find! I would have loved the Porsche EV!

K

Working on a Piaggio Boxer (mo-ped) EV conversion: http://gpsy.com/ev

Wed, 08/20/2008 - 04:07

(Reply to #2) #3

ArcticFox

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Re: Your Great-Grandfather May Have Owned One: The Electric Car

What would it take to build one of these today as a personal project?:

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I don't suppose there are design drawings for these anywhere...?

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Wed, 08/20/2008 - 07:40

(Reply to #3) #4

jdh2550_1

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Re: Your Great-Grandfather May Have Owned One: The Electric Car

Great find! I would have loved the Porsche EV!

K

Yeah, not only was Porsche's first car electric his second was a hybrid with hub mounted motors! A plug in hybrid at that, with a range of 40 miles on batteries alone (that should sound familiar to those watching the Chevy Volt) All back in 1898.

Wow, it's amazing to think that back then they were proceeding along the same thought processes that we're "rediscovering" today. There's no doubt in my mind that gasoline was important for widespread adoption and use (especially when oil was trading at far less than $1 per BARREL and environmental concerns weren't fully understood). However, it's sad to see the later part of that time-line with the false starts towards electric being thwarted by big business favoring profit over progress.

John H. Founder of Current Motor Company - opinions on this site belong to me; not to my employer
Remember: " 'lectric for local. diesel for distance" - JTH, Amp Bros || "No Gas.

Wed, 08/20/2008 - 08:10

(Reply to #4) #5

reikiman

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Re: Your Great-Grandfather May Have Owned One: The Electric Car

I urge you all who are interested in this to get and read this book:-

Internal Combustion: How Corporations and Governments Addicted the World to Oil and Derailed Alternatives

Anyway.. could we build one of those horseless carriages today? Where's the air bags, safety restraints, etc? Mebbe you could build one as an NEV and thereby avoid a lot of the safety requirements. That might be cool as a novelty.

- David Herron, The Long Tail Pipe, davidherron.com, 7gen.com, What is Reiki

Sat, 08/23/2008 - 18:33

(Reply to #5) #6

surplus

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Re: Your Great-Grandfather May Have Owned One: The Electric Car

What would it take to build one of these today as a personal project?:

I don't suppose there are design drawings for these anywhere...?

Yep. There are plans for replica horseless carriages. In fact, there is quit a strong group of hobbyists building them. Here is a link to one of the groups selling plans:

www.horselesscarriagereplicas.com/

All that is needed is to add an electric drive to the replica. Check this out...really nice work!:

www.szott.com/carriage/ec.htm

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=21148956

I urge you all who are interested in this to get and read this book:-

Internal Combustion: How Corporations and Governments Addicted the World to Oil and Derailed Alternatives

Thanks for the recommendation! I just ordered it. Should make for an interesting read.

Sat, 08/23/2008 - 20:11

(Reply to #6) #7

spinningmagnets

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Re: Your Great-Grandfather May Have Owned One: The Electric Car

Germany has never had a lot of oil. Thats why in WWII the oil fields of Romania were so fiercely defended. Rudolf Diesels new factory engine was shown at the 1900 Paris Worlds fair using peanut oil (bio-diesel?). Henry Fords Model-T could run on Ethanol (home-made by the farmers).

Also in WWII, the Japanese used rice-ethanol to fuel their aircraft during the last months of the war. Germany had a list of fuels and oxidizers to use in their rockets (depending on what was available that week) but the majority of V2 missiles used ethanol from...Bavarian potatoes.

Fri, 08/29/2008 - 13:06

#8

spinningmagnets

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Re: Your Great-Grandfather May Have Owned One: The Electric Car

Just found this, Studebaker made EV's, who'd a thunk it?:

http://patentpending.blogs.com/patent_pending_blog/2005/10/the_studebaker_.html

Studebaker started out making horse wagons in the 1800's, then for a short while they made EV's before moving on to gasoline cars.

Fri, 08/29/2008 - 14:00

(Reply to #8) #9

spinningmagnets

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Re: Your Great-Grandfather May Have Owned One: The Electric Car

The 1896 "Riker Electric" EV:

http://patentpending.blogs.com/patent_pending_blog/2006/04/the_first_ameri.html

Fri, 08/29/2008 - 16:48

(Reply to #9) #10

reikiman

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Re: Your Great-Grandfather May Have Owned One: The Electric Car

I've got some EV history links on 7gen.com:-

http://www.7gen.com/website-categories/electric-vehicle-history

http://www.7gen.com/product/electric-vehicle-books/24362-electric-and-hybrid-cars-history

http://www.7gen.com/website/electric-vehicle-history/24346-history-and-directory-electric-cars-1834-1987

http://www.7gen.com/website/electric-vehicle-history/24345-ev-archive-stanford-univ

http://www.7gen.com/website/electric-vehicle-history/24343-history-early-electric-cars

http://www.7gen.com/website/electric-vehicle-history/24342-early-electric

http://www.7gen.com/product/electric-vehicles/23626-horseless-vehicles-automobiles-motor-cycles-operated-steam-hydrocarbon-elect...

http://www.7gen.com/website/electric-vehicle-history/some-ev-history/1483

And again, the book I mentioned above (Internal Combustion) goes into a lot of details about the early struggle between EV and gas driven vehicles.

- David Herron, The Long Tail Pipe, davidherron.com, 7gen.com, What is Reiki

Wed, 09/17/2008 - 20:54

(Reply to #10) #11

surplus

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Re: Your Great-Grandfather May Have Owned One: The Electric Car

Just found this, Studebaker made EV's, who'd a thunk it?:

http://patentpending.blogs.com/patent_pending_blog/2005/10/the_studebaker_.html

Studebaker started out making horse wagons in the 1800's, then for a short while they made EV's before moving on to gasoline cars.

And they actually continued experimenting with electric vehicles all the way until they stopped full scale production. In fact, the last time I was at the Studebaker museum in South Bend, IN they had different electric vehicles in the collection from children size toy cars to full size, late model prototypes.

Wouldn't be cool if someone resurrected Avanti and used their facilities to produce an electric car? The facilities have been mothballed since earlier this year.

Wed, 09/17/2008 - 21:46

(Reply to #11) #12

deronmoped

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Re: Your Great-Grandfather May Have Owned One: The Electric Car

I'm betting this time around EV's will make a dent in the auto market.

I think the Tesla is on the right track, build a car that outperforms other sports cars and you will have auto enthuses beating your door down trying to buy them. It only makes sense, who can afford to pay for what it costs to build a first rate EV, other then guys spending big bucks on super high performance cars. Then it's only time till the technology comes to a wider market.

If I only could afford a 100 KWh lithium battery :)

Deron.