walterbays
Well-known member
Here's a bit of history of the last time we were considering electric versus gasoline cars, courtesy of the New York Times archives and Google news search. 100 years ago we also faced the necessity to build a transportation infrastructure - charging stations, filling stations, paved roads - to make the new machines practically useful. Some of the parallels are striking.
Excerpts.
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AUTOMOBILE TOPICS OF INTEREST
The New York Times - July 20, 1902
[Accounts of two failed attempts to travel long distances by automobile.] More satisfactory was the experience of an Asbury Park automobilist, who recently made a run from that place to the Delaware Water Gap, a distance of 131 miles, in 10 hours and 10 minutes, and an actual running time of 8 hours and 10 minutes. Asbury Park was left at 7:03 A. M., and Redbank, sixteen miles distant, was reached at 7:50. A stop of six minutes was made near Middletown for water, and Old Bridge was reached at 9:05. New Brunswick, fifty-two miles, was reached at 9:30, and a stop of sixteen minutes was made to take in 3 1/2 gallons of gasoline. The next stop was made at White House, twenty miles further, where eight minutes were spent in taking water. Clinton was reached at 12:15, and a stop of an hour and fifteen minutes was made, leaving at 1:30 P. M. A stop of twelve minutes was made at Bloomsburg, 100 miles from Asbury Park, and another one of fifteen minutes to cross a ferry, East Stroudsburg, 130 miles from Asbury Park, being reached at 5:15. ... The total mileage for the trip, including the tours about the Water Gap, was 505 miles, and the total consumption of gasoline was 34 1/2 gallons, or about one gallon to every thirteen miles, and expense of $4.14, considerably less than a cent a mile. ... The tires were puntured four times and the rubber blew out of the water glass twice, but otherwise there were no accidents.
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AUTOMOBILE TOPICS OF INTEREST
The New York Times - September 28, 1902
Entries for the 500-mile reliability contest of the Automobile Club of America from this city to Boston and return... Of the 72 entrants 54, or 75 per cent., are gasoline, 17 are steam motors, and only 1 has electricity as a motive power... As the maximum legal speed in the towns and cities is eight miles an hour in New York, twelve in Connecticut, and ten in Massachusetts, and upon the country roads the limit is fifteen miles, the latter speed could not be maintained as an average rate without exceeding it on the roads to made up for speed lost in the towns. Accordingly an average of twelve to fourteen miles an hour has been made the requisite for a first-class certificate...
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AUTOMOBILE TOPICS OF INTEREST
The New York Times - September 28, 1902
"Good roads are just as important as good canals," said the Vice President of the New York and Chicago Road Association. "We spend money for canals, why not for good roads? ..." "Road building, viewed financially, is a purely local matter, and automobilism is not strong enough to make it otherwise. To connect the local roads and thereby create first a State road system, and eventually a National wagon road system, is a matter of luxury and convenience, highly commendable, no doubt, but in no wise an economical necessity. So long as bad roads constitute the only efficacious protection against high-speed automobiles, and also a pretty fair guarantee of well-built automobiles, there is not likely to be any wide-spread enthusiasm for a cross-continental system of billiard-table roads."
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AUTOMOBILE TOPICS OF INTEREST
The New York Times - March 10, 1907
The man who runs out of gasoline, if he is driving an Elmoro car, will never be stuck on the road. Mr. Ranney, General Manager of the company, is in receipt of a letter from Mr. Merriam of Rochester, who stated that last week, while within a few miles of town, he found his gasoline tank empty. No method of renewing the fuel supply was at hand, so a member of Mr. Merriam's party suggested trying the engine on whisky. This they found to work almost as well in the Elmore engine as gasoline. Mr. Merriam arrived in Rochester highly elated with the performance of the run. It was demonstrated at a Young Men's Christian Association class a short time ago that the Elmore engine will run with almost any explosive fuel. Alcohol, whisky, kerosene, and gasoline were used separately, and all gave satisfactory results.
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AN AUTOIST'S WINTER TRIP OVER THE ROCKIES
The New York Times - January 19, 1908
...the adventures of Percy Megargel and his machinist, David Fassett, in crossing the American Continent in midwinter in an automobile... In the opinion of Megargel a good searchlight and two good Winchesters should keep a pack of Russian wolves at a respectful distance. Megargel reached San Francisco in the latter part of November, expecting to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains by the route followed by his friend Whitman in the Summer of 1905. Finding the passes of the mountains blocked with thirty feet of snow he was obliged to make a detour of 500 miles to the south to Los Angeles and then tackle a country the nature of which was unknown to any motorist, including himself. ... they became lost in the mountains between Williams and Flagstaff. A fierce blizzard was blowing at the time, and the railroad had not been sighted for days. The gasoline supply became practically exhausted, and the men realized that they were in for it. ... Then a rescuing party that had been searching for some lumbermen hove in sight in a sleigh, the corpses of two unfortunates occupying the bottom of the box. Megargel and Fassett were taken to the nearest station of the Santa Fe, Bellmont, about fourteen miles west of Flagstaff. Two weeks were consumed in getting the car to Flagstaff from where it had been abandoned. ... Megargel has paid as high as $1.75 a gallon for gasoline, and from his experience he has learned that it took four times as much gasoline to drive a car in cold weather through snow as when spinning along smooth roads in the Summertime. On one occasion he had the gasoline carted fourteen miles to the car on a wagon drawn by two cow ponies.
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SAYS ELECTRIC TOURS ARE CLOSE AT HAND
Good Speed Average Shown and the Need Now is for More Charging Stations
The New York Times - June 14, 1914
Already the electric has ceased to be merely a town car. Within the last few years it has been so developed that actual road runs of 70 to 100 miles have been made at a speed considerably greater than the usual road speed of the gas car... All of these runs were made with stock cars and each one was on a single charge of battery... "If, then, the electric automobile is not lacking in speed, and is fully capable of meeting all road conditions, what then is the obstacle to its use for touring? As is evident everywhere, it is the difficulty in getting charged on the road. This difficulty, however, is not to any great extent a difficulty inherent in the car itself. It is true that a battery cannot be filled as quickly as a gasoline tank, but on the other hand, the delay is not great if proper facilities can be obtained. ... Public charging stations are few and far between, and when found are as a rule equipped with a hopelessly inadequate thirty or forty ampere rectifier.
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NEWS AND NOTES OF THE AUTOMOBILE TRADE
The New York Times - May 9, 1915
As a measure of efficiency of an automoble, the May "how far on one gallon" demonstration by Franklin dealers... show the grand average to be 32.1 miles per gallon of gasoline. A few years ago such a record for six-cylinder cars was undreamed of... The high record of the demonstration... was fifty-five miles on one gallon. ... "Just why," said Frank Carrie, manager of the Marmon branch in this city, yesterday, "our New York car should have nearly doubled the record of the Chicago car in the recent mileage test under crowded traffic conditions, making more frequent stops, is puzzling the mechanical experts. The two most plausible reasons I can think of are, first, a better carburetor adjustment on the New York car, and, secondly, that traffic conditions are probably handled better in this city. While the stops of the New York car were more frequent, the stops were of shorter duration than in Chicago, thanks to the more efficient handling of traffic on New York City's streets."
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THINGS THAT CONCERN MOTORISTS NOWADAYS
The New York Times - November 28, 1915
Never before in the history of automobile shows has the demand for exhibition space been so great as for the National Show... eighty-seven different makes of cars will be shown. Practically every make of car of the gasoline and electric type made in America will be shown. Seven manufacturers of electrically propelled vehicles have secured space.
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ELECTRIC VEHICLE FACES 1916 WITH BRIGHT PROSPECT
By A. Jackson Marshall, Secretary Electric Vehicle Association of America.
The New York Times - January 2, 1916
...it has invariably been admitted in the larger cities, where there are opportunities of testing the various forms of trucks, that while the gasoline motor truck is especially adapted for long, uninterrupted hauls, the electric vehicle is the desirable and economical vehicle for city and suburban work... Of 10,000,000 horses that are in use in the cities and towns of this country probably all could be successfully displaced by electric vehicles... That the horse and wagon is gradually being displaced by the light electric delivery wagon has been demonstrated... Within its capacity rating the small 750-pound electric delivery wagon costs less to operate than a single horse wagon, and can perform a far greater amount of work... The aim of the Battery Rental System is to widen the scope of the electric truck, increase its mileage, and reduce the initial cost. The truck user buys a truck with chassis and body adapted to his particular requirements without the battery. The electricity supply companies or charging stations of the various cities where this system is used keep him supplied with charged batteries to run his truck. In other words, he buys frm the electricity supply company, not energy at so much per kilowatt hour, but transportation service... he pays so much per mile for the total mileage traveled as indicated by the odometer on the truck. When one set of batteries are nearly exhausted he receives a freshly charged set from the nearest charging station, taking from two to four minutes for the exchange, less time than it takes to refill a gasoline tank. This system is already in practical use in Hartford Conn., Boston, Worcester, Baltimore, Salt Lake City, Fall River, Spokane, and San Francisco... The past year has been marked by a number of successful long runs organized by several of the leading manufacturers. Fifteen hundred miles in fourteen days, using but a single charge of the batteries per day, was the record made at Los Angeles, Cal. Recently an electric made a run of 180 miles in less than ten hours... less than 1 1/2 cents per mile. One hundred and forty and even 160 miles on a single charge of the batteries has been accomplished by several different makes of electrics, showing that batteries are constantly being improved and their mileage capacity increased.
Excerpts.
-----
AUTOMOBILE TOPICS OF INTEREST
The New York Times - July 20, 1902
[Accounts of two failed attempts to travel long distances by automobile.] More satisfactory was the experience of an Asbury Park automobilist, who recently made a run from that place to the Delaware Water Gap, a distance of 131 miles, in 10 hours and 10 minutes, and an actual running time of 8 hours and 10 minutes. Asbury Park was left at 7:03 A. M., and Redbank, sixteen miles distant, was reached at 7:50. A stop of six minutes was made near Middletown for water, and Old Bridge was reached at 9:05. New Brunswick, fifty-two miles, was reached at 9:30, and a stop of sixteen minutes was made to take in 3 1/2 gallons of gasoline. The next stop was made at White House, twenty miles further, where eight minutes were spent in taking water. Clinton was reached at 12:15, and a stop of an hour and fifteen minutes was made, leaving at 1:30 P. M. A stop of twelve minutes was made at Bloomsburg, 100 miles from Asbury Park, and another one of fifteen minutes to cross a ferry, East Stroudsburg, 130 miles from Asbury Park, being reached at 5:15. ... The total mileage for the trip, including the tours about the Water Gap, was 505 miles, and the total consumption of gasoline was 34 1/2 gallons, or about one gallon to every thirteen miles, and expense of $4.14, considerably less than a cent a mile. ... The tires were puntured four times and the rubber blew out of the water glass twice, but otherwise there were no accidents.
-----
AUTOMOBILE TOPICS OF INTEREST
The New York Times - September 28, 1902
Entries for the 500-mile reliability contest of the Automobile Club of America from this city to Boston and return... Of the 72 entrants 54, or 75 per cent., are gasoline, 17 are steam motors, and only 1 has electricity as a motive power... As the maximum legal speed in the towns and cities is eight miles an hour in New York, twelve in Connecticut, and ten in Massachusetts, and upon the country roads the limit is fifteen miles, the latter speed could not be maintained as an average rate without exceeding it on the roads to made up for speed lost in the towns. Accordingly an average of twelve to fourteen miles an hour has been made the requisite for a first-class certificate...
-----
AUTOMOBILE TOPICS OF INTEREST
The New York Times - September 28, 1902
"Good roads are just as important as good canals," said the Vice President of the New York and Chicago Road Association. "We spend money for canals, why not for good roads? ..." "Road building, viewed financially, is a purely local matter, and automobilism is not strong enough to make it otherwise. To connect the local roads and thereby create first a State road system, and eventually a National wagon road system, is a matter of luxury and convenience, highly commendable, no doubt, but in no wise an economical necessity. So long as bad roads constitute the only efficacious protection against high-speed automobiles, and also a pretty fair guarantee of well-built automobiles, there is not likely to be any wide-spread enthusiasm for a cross-continental system of billiard-table roads."
-----
AUTOMOBILE TOPICS OF INTEREST
The New York Times - March 10, 1907
The man who runs out of gasoline, if he is driving an Elmoro car, will never be stuck on the road. Mr. Ranney, General Manager of the company, is in receipt of a letter from Mr. Merriam of Rochester, who stated that last week, while within a few miles of town, he found his gasoline tank empty. No method of renewing the fuel supply was at hand, so a member of Mr. Merriam's party suggested trying the engine on whisky. This they found to work almost as well in the Elmore engine as gasoline. Mr. Merriam arrived in Rochester highly elated with the performance of the run. It was demonstrated at a Young Men's Christian Association class a short time ago that the Elmore engine will run with almost any explosive fuel. Alcohol, whisky, kerosene, and gasoline were used separately, and all gave satisfactory results.
-----
AN AUTOIST'S WINTER TRIP OVER THE ROCKIES
The New York Times - January 19, 1908
...the adventures of Percy Megargel and his machinist, David Fassett, in crossing the American Continent in midwinter in an automobile... In the opinion of Megargel a good searchlight and two good Winchesters should keep a pack of Russian wolves at a respectful distance. Megargel reached San Francisco in the latter part of November, expecting to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains by the route followed by his friend Whitman in the Summer of 1905. Finding the passes of the mountains blocked with thirty feet of snow he was obliged to make a detour of 500 miles to the south to Los Angeles and then tackle a country the nature of which was unknown to any motorist, including himself. ... they became lost in the mountains between Williams and Flagstaff. A fierce blizzard was blowing at the time, and the railroad had not been sighted for days. The gasoline supply became practically exhausted, and the men realized that they were in for it. ... Then a rescuing party that had been searching for some lumbermen hove in sight in a sleigh, the corpses of two unfortunates occupying the bottom of the box. Megargel and Fassett were taken to the nearest station of the Santa Fe, Bellmont, about fourteen miles west of Flagstaff. Two weeks were consumed in getting the car to Flagstaff from where it had been abandoned. ... Megargel has paid as high as $1.75 a gallon for gasoline, and from his experience he has learned that it took four times as much gasoline to drive a car in cold weather through snow as when spinning along smooth roads in the Summertime. On one occasion he had the gasoline carted fourteen miles to the car on a wagon drawn by two cow ponies.
-----
SAYS ELECTRIC TOURS ARE CLOSE AT HAND
Good Speed Average Shown and the Need Now is for More Charging Stations
The New York Times - June 14, 1914
Already the electric has ceased to be merely a town car. Within the last few years it has been so developed that actual road runs of 70 to 100 miles have been made at a speed considerably greater than the usual road speed of the gas car... All of these runs were made with stock cars and each one was on a single charge of battery... "If, then, the electric automobile is not lacking in speed, and is fully capable of meeting all road conditions, what then is the obstacle to its use for touring? As is evident everywhere, it is the difficulty in getting charged on the road. This difficulty, however, is not to any great extent a difficulty inherent in the car itself. It is true that a battery cannot be filled as quickly as a gasoline tank, but on the other hand, the delay is not great if proper facilities can be obtained. ... Public charging stations are few and far between, and when found are as a rule equipped with a hopelessly inadequate thirty or forty ampere rectifier.
-----
NEWS AND NOTES OF THE AUTOMOBILE TRADE
The New York Times - May 9, 1915
As a measure of efficiency of an automoble, the May "how far on one gallon" demonstration by Franklin dealers... show the grand average to be 32.1 miles per gallon of gasoline. A few years ago such a record for six-cylinder cars was undreamed of... The high record of the demonstration... was fifty-five miles on one gallon. ... "Just why," said Frank Carrie, manager of the Marmon branch in this city, yesterday, "our New York car should have nearly doubled the record of the Chicago car in the recent mileage test under crowded traffic conditions, making more frequent stops, is puzzling the mechanical experts. The two most plausible reasons I can think of are, first, a better carburetor adjustment on the New York car, and, secondly, that traffic conditions are probably handled better in this city. While the stops of the New York car were more frequent, the stops were of shorter duration than in Chicago, thanks to the more efficient handling of traffic on New York City's streets."
-----
THINGS THAT CONCERN MOTORISTS NOWADAYS
The New York Times - November 28, 1915
Never before in the history of automobile shows has the demand for exhibition space been so great as for the National Show... eighty-seven different makes of cars will be shown. Practically every make of car of the gasoline and electric type made in America will be shown. Seven manufacturers of electrically propelled vehicles have secured space.
-----
ELECTRIC VEHICLE FACES 1916 WITH BRIGHT PROSPECT
By A. Jackson Marshall, Secretary Electric Vehicle Association of America.
The New York Times - January 2, 1916
...it has invariably been admitted in the larger cities, where there are opportunities of testing the various forms of trucks, that while the gasoline motor truck is especially adapted for long, uninterrupted hauls, the electric vehicle is the desirable and economical vehicle for city and suburban work... Of 10,000,000 horses that are in use in the cities and towns of this country probably all could be successfully displaced by electric vehicles... That the horse and wagon is gradually being displaced by the light electric delivery wagon has been demonstrated... Within its capacity rating the small 750-pound electric delivery wagon costs less to operate than a single horse wagon, and can perform a far greater amount of work... The aim of the Battery Rental System is to widen the scope of the electric truck, increase its mileage, and reduce the initial cost. The truck user buys a truck with chassis and body adapted to his particular requirements without the battery. The electricity supply companies or charging stations of the various cities where this system is used keep him supplied with charged batteries to run his truck. In other words, he buys frm the electricity supply company, not energy at so much per kilowatt hour, but transportation service... he pays so much per mile for the total mileage traveled as indicated by the odometer on the truck. When one set of batteries are nearly exhausted he receives a freshly charged set from the nearest charging station, taking from two to four minutes for the exchange, less time than it takes to refill a gasoline tank. This system is already in practical use in Hartford Conn., Boston, Worcester, Baltimore, Salt Lake City, Fall River, Spokane, and San Francisco... The past year has been marked by a number of successful long runs organized by several of the leading manufacturers. Fifteen hundred miles in fourteen days, using but a single charge of the batteries per day, was the record made at Los Angeles, Cal. Recently an electric made a run of 180 miles in less than ten hours... less than 1 1/2 cents per mile. One hundred and forty and even 160 miles on a single charge of the batteries has been accomplished by several different makes of electrics, showing that batteries are constantly being improved and their mileage capacity increased.
