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Was it due to a lack of tech in battery before today? I never quite got my head around why combustion engines with seemingly a much more complex, difficult and clumsy technology (look at the maintenance and moving parts) was developed before EVs.
EVs I am told are much simpler in design, have fewer moving parts so less stuff ups can happen. So much so, backward countries like China who struggled to get into combustion engines/cars may have a chance of dominating EVs?
"By 1900, electric cars were so popular that New York City had a fleet of electric taxis, and electric cars accounted for a third of all vehicles on the road."
Was it due to a lack of tech in battery before today? I never quite got my head around why combustion engines with seemingly a much more complex, difficult and clumsy technology (look at the maintenance and moving parts) was developed before EVs.
EVs I am told are much simpler in design, have fewer moving parts so less stuff ups can happen. So much so, backward countries like China who struggled to get into combustion engines/cars may have a chance of dominating EVs?
false premise.
electric cars were developed early in the automotive industry and had many advantages for local transport use over the gasoline powered cars of the time.
for example, starting a gasoline engine by hand crank wasn't an easy task given the crude carburetors and ignition systems of the era. It was a very big deal when the "self-starter" was introduced and supplied on cars. OTOH, an electric vehicle (cars as well as delivery trucks) just needed to throw the switch for the various speeds forward/reverse.
in those turn-of-the-century days, there was no highway/road system between cities for cars to travel, so the travel distances for an automobile were limited to local use. Inter-state transport was still a horse & buggy proposition, waterways/rivers, or the numerous railroads which had been built over the decades prior.
there are numerous historical photos of those early days of auto transport. Essentially, the autos had to travel horse paths and crude trails which meant the wheel track width of the early cars had to be the same as the buggies. Few gasoline cars set out on those pioneering cross country trips without a 2nd driver/mechanic, many spare parts, and a spirit of adventure ... including reliance upon being "towed" by horse power when the self-propelled vehicle broke down to the next town/city for repairs.
Among many other factors of emerging engineering technology and consumer economics were but two significant developments: 1) the ready availability of petroleum products as that industry developed to provide kerosene, it's main product ... gasoline was a by-product of that refining process and was "dumped" for years. The oil companies and refiners sought a way to put that gasoline to use/profit and encouraged the internal combustion engine designers to develop ways to use that otherwise wasted product; 2) Henry Ford's development of the auto manufacturing process to where the price of an automobile lowered to a point where a mass market could develop ... up until then, an auto was limited to the truly affluent, hence a relatively limited market and sales volume. By making a car available to the mass market, the entire paradigm for transport and travel was changed along with the economy of the country.
Early electric cars were similarly styled to gasoline vehicles. The front hood area was where the batteries were located. There were as many brands of electric cars as gasoline makes. Storage battery capacity was regulated by the number of battery cells ... larger vehicles and delivery trucks had as many as 50 cells and operated at well over 100 volts. Charging stations in city garages were huge affairs that used an electric motor powered from city mains to turn a charging generator that was set to the appropriate charging voltage for the vehicle's battery set. Keep in mind that the electrical components (transformers and rectifiers) to have a battery charger as we know it from more recent times did not exist ... DC supply had to come from a generator.
The development of the transport system/industry is a huge story of many facets. Internal combustion was a major part of it, but electric vehicles certainly had their prominence in the early days. In time, as the transport industry developed, the storage battery technology could not provide the energy density and convenience of the internal combustion engine, so electric vehicles died out in the marketplace.
IN the early days of the automobile there were just as many electric cars as gasoline powered and even a few that used steam engines.
They were all trying to come up with a winner that combined economy with reliability. It was an amazing time of innovation where a guy working in his garage could come up with something amazing.
and dont forget that in addition to gasoline and electric powered vehicles around in the early 1900s, there were also steam powered vehicles.it wasnt until the electric starter was created that the gasoline powered vehicles really started taking over the automobile industry. steam powered cars held on until around the early thirties, but they couldnt compete with the easy starting of gas engines, and they had a tendency for the boilers to blow up when they overheated.
IN the early days of the automobile there were just as many electric cars as gasoline powered and even a few that used steam engines.
They were all trying to come up with a winner that combined economy with reliability. It was an amazing time of innovation where a guy working in his garage could come up with something amazing.
Now we demonize innovation.
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