Evening star., 1914-11-22

The early European development OF
the electric vehicle is more or less
shrouded in uncertainty says P. d.
Wagner. a foreign electrical engineer.
by that statement 1 mean it is difh-
cult without lengthy and arduous re-
search, and this upon the ground.
positively TO determine when or where
the more important development took
place. II is still harder to determine
to what extent Improvements in chassis
design, motors, batteries, etc, should
be credited to Europe or America
IF we are to believe the somewhat
obscure records now available, the
electric vehicle in Europe really dates
from 1881. 1t was preceded, however,
by the usual preliminary progress in
allied fields. AS early as 1885 an
American called Davenport of Brandon,
VI, built a model electric locomotive.
which was exhibited in London in 1887.
In 1899 Robert Davidson of Aber-
deem, Scotland, constructed crude
road machine that would move
two persons along rough moor. In
lS4O Uriah Clark built at Leicester.
England. a small storage battery
Weighing sixty pounds. Sir William
Grove constructed his celebrated gas
battery in 1872, and Castor Plate be-
gan his researches in 1853, perfecting
ais battery about fifteen years later
Camille Faure took out his patent for
material for the pasted plate in 1881.
and in the same year Rafford of France
brought out what Hasluck calls the
first electrically driven road vehicle.
followed by one G. Trouve six months
later. The Ayrton (English) electric
tricycle. appeared in 1852. The first
practical American electric was prob
ably the one built by Fred NJ. kimball
IL, rI,a ffrrt
iul commercial electric, usually cred
ted to Riker, materialized, as We all
know, in 1897.
Tricycle. Driven by Motor.
''Rafford's electric GsSD was a tri-
cycle driven by an electric motor of
less than one-eighth horsepower, fed
by twelve small Faure accumulate or
cells. The whole vehicle weighed 176
pounds. Passing over similar inven-
tons, we find that Ponchain's six-pas-
senger phaeton appeared in 1893 with
Dujardin battery weighing 1.lO0
pounds. over one-third as much as the
entire vehicle. In 1896 Darracq ex-
hibited at the Paris Salon du Cycle a
very inter resting electric coupe.
There We're developments in England
and Germany about 1886, and the
lenatzy car and delivery car are men
toned in an English engineering paper
in 1897. In 1899 JenatZy won the kilo-
meter record (rnleage ContesO in
France with his torpedo-shaped cleo
trio, called 'Jamais Contente' The De
Dion Bouton people brought out a light
electric in 1901, the accumulator con-
sisting of forty-four cells of twenty
one plates and giving 200 ampere hours
capacity.
The British Electromobile Company
developed an electric in 1902 and the
Waverley Company and the Vehicle
Equipment Company invaded England
the following year with electric pas
senger cars. The Compagnie Fran
caise des Noitures Automobiles brought
out a car early in 1900 which had forty
four cells of Faure-King accumulation,
with a maximum speed of Ill miles
per hour
THE petrol-electric automobile car
rage appeared in France as early as
1893, and in 1902 an alcohol-electric
run by Krieger was entered in French
tests. The car weighed 2,910 pounds.
the forty-four cell battery ss2 pounds,
and the car had a speed of 9.32 miles
per hour.
Relative Success in Contests.
In 1898 there were contests between
electrically propelled hackney car
riages in France. and electric cabs
were relatively successful there from