The Earliest Electric Cars

Porsche P1, the first car designed by Ferdinand Porsche.

Not all of us realized that the electric cars were among the earliest cars invented before petrol cars became popular in the early of 20^th century. For various reasons the electric cars had been abandoned (perhaps suppressed) to allow petrol engine cars to take over.

The electric cars were pricier, with lower speed limits and shorter range, while petrol cars become more available to the public. Perhaps its demand by the market that make electric cars became less popular in the early 40’s until late 50’s. Still the production of electric cars only in the small quantities – the must be many other factors that caused the situation.

Anyway here we are just want to look at the earliest electric cars produced back then for us to have better understanding why they should become popular again. Some in the list here were the cars produced in large quantities and many others produced in small numbers.

Baker Electric

Was the earliest electric cars produced in large quantities. The first card was a two seater and sold to Thomas Edison as his first car. The nickel-iron batteries used in this car also was invented by Thomas Edison and some of them still can be use until today. By 1907, Baker had seventeen models and the price was getting higher. Baker’s cars also became part of the White House fleet of cars. Anyway by 1913 the company was overtaken in sale by Detroit Electric and, in 1914, merged with fellow Cleveland automaker Rauch and Lang to become Baker, Rauch & Lang.

Studebaker Electric

Studebaker Omnibus one of the electric vehicle produced by Studebaker Brothers.

Studebaker Electric was produced by Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company of South Bend, Indiana. This company produced electric vehicles from 1902 to 1912. Studebaker Electrics was produced in wide variety of body styles included the Stanhope, Victoria, and Surrey. A four-passenger model was introduced in 1904. The production of Studebakers was ended by 1912 as the demand on gasoline engines had increased.

Detroit Electric

An electric car produced by the Anderson Electric Car Company in Detroit, Michigan. The cars were produced from 1907 – 1939 and revived in 2008 to produce modern electric cars by Detroit Electric Holding Ltd. of the Netherlands. There were 13,000 electric cars were produced within 1907 – 1939 by the Anderson Electric Car Company. The sales were increased by increasing price of gasoline during the World War 1. Detroit Electrics were owned by few notable people included Thomas Edison, Lizzie Borden, Charles Proteus Steinmetz, Mamie Eisenhower, and John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Henry Ford bought Model C coupe for her wife Clara Ford.

Porsche P1

Porsche P1 on restoration after 112 years.

The series of gears for Porsche P1.

Porsche P1 was the first car designed by Ferdinand Porsche before he and his son created the company, Porsche. The car was produced in 1898 and resembles a wooden crate or an old horse-drawn carriage even though it is actually an electric powered vehicle. It was equipped with 3 hp electric motors and 5 hp by overcharging it. The car could be driven for three to five hours with the range up to approximately 49 miles. What make Porsche P1 so different was the series of gears with 12-speed controller: six for forward gears, two for reverse and four to brake the car. It was found after 112 years in warehouse in Austria and now on display at the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, Germany.

The Earliest Cars

The earliest steam car know as Cugnot Steam Car.

This will be a very simple post just to have a glance of earliest cars produce before the modern cars were invented. Surprisingly, the earliest cars after the usage of animals such as horse, cow, buffalo, donkey and camel – or if there were many other animals that I missed, was start with power of water; that is steam engine.

Few other surprising things that we never thought are the hydrogen engine that was invented earlier and also the electric cars emerged in the early stage when the modern gasoline engine was invented. So here today, we are more on looking on some of those cars before we are able to come out with full article about it.

If you have something in mind to share so we can focus on it in the next articles.

There are still few working Baker's Electric cars in the world.

The advertising.

Basic steam car.

The bigger size steam car.

The steam car that still survive until today.

Steam car can be flashy too. 1903 White Model C steam car Demi-limousine.

10 Inventions With Greatest Impact To The World

The blueprint of Wright Flyer.

All inventions are important but some of them lead to bigger changes in human lives than the other. In this article we are going to see for the 10 most important inventions that give biggest impact to how we living in this world today.

Printing Press (1950)

Print was invented earlier with slower and complicated process. Anyway printing press machine invented by Johannes Gutenberg 1440 not just allowed the printing works to be faster but also make books available at cheaper price. This is what contributes to any other knowledge to be spread exponentially.

Before printing machine was invented, the knowledge texts only available to few selected people. These materials prepared by selective people consist of monks and few learned individuals. With this invention however changed the whole Western Europe by 16^th century by mass produced texts with diversity of topics.

Telescope (1609)

Human always fascinated with stars in the sky but only with the invention of telescope that allow us to understand more about them. Even though invented earlier by Greek mathematician Giovanni Demisiani in 1611 the good quality telescope only produced later by Sir Isaac Newton in 1668 with his reflecting telescope.

Besides telescope another same optical apparatus that look at smaller objects also considered one of the most important inventions is microscope. Before microscope was invented no one knows that we living in the world with full of microscopic organisms that also have bigger impact in our lives.

Steam Engine (1712)

Even though steam engine no longer used today as how it’s been used before, most electricity generated by huge steam turbines to rotating it’s giant magnets. The steam machines evolve from the first machine produced in Egypt by Hero of Alexandria in the first century AD.

Steam engines were incredibly inefficient until few popular figures in steam engines come with better improvements such as Thomas Newcomen, James Watt and Matthew Boulton. Steam engines are the first machines that allow industrial practices to be implemented and created mass production of materials.

Plastic (1856)

Plastic is another invention have bigger impact to the world until today. Even though today we think the usage of plastics give negative impact to the nature, yet the invention of plastics creates many products at cheaper price. On the negative sides today we struggle to clean up all the plastics that float in the ocean and endanger their creatures.

Plastic was first invented by Alexander Parkes in 1862. A few years later American inventor John Wesley Hyatt came out with first synthetic man-made plastic. Today there are many types of plastics with different characteristics to allow many other materials to be produced with most of our household products contained plastics.

Telephone (1876)

Telephone was invented by two men separately and only one of them known as the inventor since he arrived at the patent office earlier. They are Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray in producing device that can transmit voice electronically.

Bell keeps on upgrading his invention that allows his invention to be more successful from any other inventor work on similar device. On March 10, 1876 he uttered the first word to his assistant Thomas A Watson: “Mr Watson, come here, I want you.”

If we look on how our phone works today, it will be far different than the first phone invented by Graham Bell, where today we have computer instead of phone on our hand.

Airplane (1903)

Airplane was another great invention in human history, while human already can fly with glider in short distance but not truly flying - without engine that provide enough force to keep on flying.

Orville and Wilber Wright also known as Wright Brothers were businessman with bicycle shop. It took them few years to develop Wright Flyer the first plane that flies on 17 December 1903 for 36.6 meters with its own engine. One year later Wilber flew and improved Flyer II for five minutes.

With advancement in aviation technology today the air travel not just become easier but also cheaper. Keep on travelling.

Television (1926)

Television is more complicated device with more electronics parts in it. Start with visionaries of the invention of such product to the invention of the product itself was not produced by single man. Television requires different discoveries by different inventors to further develop the fully functional television set.

First thought to be nothing good will comes out of it until to be one of the devices we can find in every home. The television becomes the most popular electronics in 21^st century that also used to spread ideas, commercials, news and entertainment.

Touch Screens (1965)

Touch screens was invented earlier by English engineer EA Johnson in 1965 that simplify the input device to computer. Anyway it took very long until touch screens technology to become cheaper to be able to use with smaller device such as smart phone.

There area to types of touch screen: resistive and capacitive. In the early introduction resistive touch screen was more popular, while today capacitive touch screen usage is wider. With touch screen the control of devices become easier, faster and more accessible by everyone.

GPS (1973)

GPS was technology developed for military usage to allow them to firing missiles accurately. It was developed by American Ivan Getting and Professor Bradford Parkinson on military request. Then the GPS network was proposed with network of radio transmitters with each having an in-built clock. That’s requires an atomic clock for high precision measuring of time.

GPS satellites were launched by the US military in 1978 and were used for military purposes only, public usage of this technology only available in early nineties. Originally there were 18 satellites in 1979 and 24 by 1988, that number is now closer to 30.

Internet (1960 & 1989)

The best invention that allows the acceleration of information to be transfer, share and to make it more accessible is the invention of internet. Anyway the invention of internet itself requires the platform of network system.

The invention of the network start as early as 1960’s when Advance Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of US Department of Defence created ARPANET. This network allows the communication between computers across the network.

While the internet as we know it today start with the invention of websites (the World Wide Web) that was invented in late-Eighties. It all start when the researcher at CERN called Tim Berners-Lee and his colleagues develop a system that will allow user of the internet to access text-based ‘pages’. This is possible by the usage of HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), allowing communication between network servers and computers. They released the early web browser to the public in 1992 and the advancement of internet begun.

Those are among 10 best inventions that shape out our world today. There are many other best inventions, but these ten are inventions that allow the other inventions possible or inspiring it to happened. Well, we know it can’t be just 10, as we all have our own criteria of what best inventions is. Anyway, it is better to keep on inventing than just rather to talk about which one is the best than the other.