Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1899-11-02
EDISON'S AUTOMOBILE.
An Electric Motor That a Child Can
Manage.

Manage.
Thomas A. Edison is at work on an
automobile which, he says, will trans
cend IN utility any machine of the sort
that has yet been produced.
Of course, being an Edison produc-
ton, the new marvel will be run bv
electricity.
Though the wizard will not now
make public the full plans of his
latest creation, he gave some of the
details of it to Journal reporter, who
found him in his workshop.
My experiments are practically
completed said Mr.. Edison. and
within few weeks we will have motor
bicycles and tricycles on the roads
hereabOuts. l have been working on
the motor for six months, and it now
fulflls all my expectations.
The French naphtha machines will
not be in the same class with mine
and the inventors will hang their
heads with disgust when the one
which is now being completed is
Elared beside those of French make.
The mechanism of my machine is
far more practical; it is greatly con-
densed, the clumsy appearance will be
done away with and the whole affair
will be lighter.
Will it take a person experienced
III electricity to run your machine?''
asked the Journal man.
''Nnf of
Yentor. "Anybody can run it with
out the slightest danger. A child
will be just as safe on the seat as he
is on the common bicycle or tricycle.. -
The controversy in regard to the
speed of the French and American
automobiles and the proposed inter-
national race had directed the atten-
ton OF the great inventor to the pro-
blem OF long distance travelling, and
he positively asserts that when COM
pleted his machine will have a running
capacity of from twelve to fourteen
miles an hour, and that the motive
power would last to travel $50 miles
without re-charging.
AS the demand increases" he con-
tlnued, land should my vehicles prove
the success l anticipate, l will either
| build factory for their manufacture
or sell out my right to some bicycle
concern"
The very fact that Thomas A. Edi-
son is getting out horseless vehicle
will attract attention to the new
mode of progression and will lay the
spooks of danger and difficulty that
people who have not looked into the
new vehicle worry so much about
When Edison says an automobile is
a. nOn-explOsive as a church and sc
easy to handle that a 10-year-old chile
can manage it as well as an engineer
there is no longer any reason to doubt
that the roads of the future belong tc
the horseless vehicle.
He promises an electric runabout
such as a country doctor would use
for from $500 to S4OO-hardly more
than a good single buggy and fail
horse cost at present. He has cut
the weight of the machine down to g
figure the reverse of alarming, and has
carried the automatic principle so fal
that the process of running the vehicle
is less difficult than driving a gentle
horse.
To use his own words:
THE automobile will displace
horses in a few years in every class OF
work. Our roads are now suitable fo1
their usage. Horses for families are
only for the rich, and when a demand
comes for the automobile they will
be cheaper, and the expense of keeping
them in order will be about one-ffth
that Of keeping a horse"
AS to the cost, Mr.. Edison said that
when the general demand came, the
| price Of a tWO-seated vehicle would be
brought down to the cost of a good
team of horses, and that a one-seat
buggy, complete, he said, would be
bought for from $500 to $500.
Edison, in discussing the proposed
international race, said to the Jour
nal that Charron could not bring his
FTench-built machine over the road
from Chicago to New York.
w uJ, MI. EuISOH, the
French machine would go to pieces on
our roads, or at least on the roads
which would have to be Travelled over
on the course, and the Frenchman
would find that his machine, which is
practicable on the nice, smooth roads
in France, would get stuck in the mud
before reaching its destination, or
would be shaken to pieces by coming
in contact with the powders in the
roads.
What | know Of our automobiles is
that they are built in accordance with
the roads over which they are made to
run
1t is true, up to few months ago.
said Edison, that the French vehicles
were far ahead of any manufactured
in America, but we are and have been
making wide strides in the advance
ment of the automobiles during the
past six months, and today are putting
out a more practicable machine than
the Frenchmen ever thought of, or
ever can put out, and in the next six
months America will be ahead of the
world in the manufacture of the ma
chimes, as American engineers are ex-
ercising their brains experimenting,
and from present indications 80 per
cent. of the horses now in use will be
replaced by this late invention in the
next year and a half
From what 1 read OF Mr.. Winton'a
machine, he has a good one, and before
the race is finished the Frenchman