EV Re-Volt

When Clara Ford, wife of auto magnate Henry Ford, needed to get someplace, she got there in her quiet, nonpolluting electric vehicle.

“She never drove a Model T,” said David Lewis, professor of business history at the University of Michigan. “She drove an Anderson Electric.”

She was not alone. At the turn of the century, about 30% of the horseless carriages on the road were battery-powered. The remainder were propelled by steam or internal combustion engines.

Electric power was the most promising propulsion system to take the automobile into the 20th century. The performance of electric cars was appealing--quick and easy-starting, silent and reliable. The lead-acid and nickel-iron batteries showed promise for rapid advancement.

Steam engines were unwieldy and hard to maintain. Internal combustion engines were noisy, emitted noxious fumes, were hard to start and occasionally ran over owners who cranked the engine with the vehicle in gear.

At one point, there were nearly 30 electric vehicle manufacturers. One of the first was founded in 1895 by Col. Albert Pope, a bicycle magnate. He experimented with gasoline-powered vehicles but determined that electrics were safer and had more promise.

“You can’t get people to sit on an explosion,” Pope said of vehicles with internal combustion engines.

But three events led to the demise of electric vehicles: the discovery of Texas crude oil, the invention of the electric self-starter and the emergence of mass production.

The availability of Texas crude made gasoline affordable. The electric starter eliminated the need for a hand crank. And Henry Ford’s mass-production techniques drove prices as low as $500. Electrics typically sold for $3,000.

Gas-powered cars provided greater range than electric vehicles, whose bulky batteries could power a car or truck no more than 50 miles before needing to be recharged. The charging took eight hours or more.

Thomas Edison, who had invented the rechargeable lead-acid battery, and his friend Ford spent a lot of time and money trying to develop better batteries, but without much luck.

Though their modern-day counterparts have made some big improvements, when General Motors introduces the EV1 today, its energy will come from the same basic lead-acid technology--without dramatically improved range.