9 Electric Cars 100 Years Old or More
1891 Morrison
Made by William Morrison in 1891, some say the Morrison was the first electric vehicle in America. It had a four horsepower engine , and could carry 6-12 passengers. Top speed was about 20 mph. The batteries needed to be recharged every 50 miles.
It has been said the car was actually completed in 1887 and was driven in a Des Moines parade in 1888. If that is true, the Morrison was first built 122 years ago, and it was built in America, where today they are almost no electric cars on the roads.
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Electrobat 1894-1899
Electrobats were made for several years in Philadelphia. The first ones were very heavy and used steel tires to support a large lead battery. They employed twin 1.5 hp motors and had a top speed of 20 mph. They could go 25 miles on one charge.
1900 Riker
A bulky enclosed cabin four passenger sedan that was made about the turn of the century, the Riker featured electric sidelamps, wooden-spoked wheels, and a voice tube so passengers could communicate with the driver. Cabin windows could be raised and lowered. 48 battery cells were onboard, with an electric engine near each rear wheel. The driver’s seat was about 6-7 feet in the air.
It is amazing to me how so many of the lifestyle changes we need to make are simply stepping back in time to a more sustainable era. Its sort of like personal health…if something goes wrong , so much of the solution is simply revisiting the lifestyle that you had before you started to get sick.
The electric cars were great and the piece informative. I will be writing about the modern electric car in the coming month and this will give me prospective.
It’s amazing that we all think electric vehicles are a futuristic development. So often great ideas are ignored due to profit motives and a lack of visionary insight. While it’s taken more than a century, the world will look much different a century from now.
Was there not also an electric Porsche from around this time period? Or was that a little later?
i agree with you about lack of visionary insight due to profit motives. With the availability of different technologies today, It seems like a slap in the face that other modes of transportation are not available to the mass society.
We could save a lot of money with electric cars, electricity is everywhere and we dont have to depend from other countries to have it, is here! is even in us humans, if in USA in 2 or 3 years 70% are electric cars, gas prices we drop to 25 cents a gallon again
All good technology is bought up and is in safe’s being kept from the world. Nobody wants to work any more, or pony up money to make things better, they just want to party. Not thinking we all live on the same boat Mother’s Earth. Mother’s love can go very far…..but you can only push her so far.
I find it amazing that we have been able to have electric cars for 100 years let alone the last 20 or 30 years where weve been able to equal almost what a petrol car would do in terms of performance and yet were all killing ourselves with petrol fumes,I reckon theres a crime in there somewhere
Its true, the reason why electric cars seem so futuristic is that oil companies have been making so much money, SOOOO much money they have paid off the government to keep using gas/oil powered companies for as long as I have been alive and longer.
Its just sad, not only crushing our environment, but now affecting America’s economy as the ignorant likes of GM are just now trying to make hybrids when Japanese companies have been selling them for much time. GM wants our tax money too to develop a hybrid car, I say too bad GM, you run an ignorant buisness you don’t get bailed out so easy.
Ignorance and greed from oil companies is what has left us in this mess. Why are we in Iraq? Cause oil makes so much money it causes war, WAR, WAR! You think iraq needed our help more than other countries, well America doesn’t help countries where it can’t make a profit, atleast in the Bush Era.
Prove me wrong Obama, and do right, I voted for you for Christ Sake.
Sorely missing is the Pope electric automobile. Most notable about the Electric Automobile: President Teddy Roosevelt rode in it upon his visit to Hartford, CT in 1903, making him the first US President to ride in an automobile.
http://media.photobucket.com/image/pope%20electric%20car/route66rambler/Rambler%20Timeline%20Galleries/Automobiles/1903/1903PopeElectric.jpg