FIG. 187.—WINTON AUTOMOBILE. HYDROCARBON TYPE.
Probably the most popular type of the automobile in the United States is the “electric.” The application of the electric motor to the propulsion of vehicles dates back to quite an early period. It is said that as far back as 1835 Stratingh and Becker, of Groeningen, and in 1836 Botto, of Turin, constructed crude electric carriages. Davenport, in 1835, Davidson, in 1838, and Dr. Page, in 1851, built electric locomotives which ran on rails. The prototype of the electric automobile, however, is best represented in the French patent to M. Grounelle, No. 7,728, Feb. 7, 1852 (2 Ser., Vol. 25, p. 220, pl. 46.) This shows a perfectly equipped electric automobile. It did not have a practical electric generator, however, for the storage battery was not then known. A large sulphate of copper battery was employed, which could through the agency of a train of gears give only a very slow speed. This road carriage, however, only needed a storage battery to make it a well organized and efficient electric automobile. It is believed by many that electricity fulfills more of the necessary conditions of a successful motive power for motor carriages than any other power. It is clean, compact, noiseless, free from vibration, heat, dirt and gases, and is under perfect control. Its chief objection is that it is only possible to recharge it where electric power is available, and in this respect it is inferior to the gasoline motor, whose supply may be conveniently obtained at every city, village, and country store. The Columbia two-seated Dos-a-Dos ([Fig. 188]), Woods’ Victoria Hansom Cab, and the Riker Electric Delivery Wagon are representative types of the modern electric automobile.
FIG. 188.—THE COLUMBIA “DOS-A-DOS.”
All of the motor carriages illustrated are of American make, and for lightness, grace, and efficiency they have no superiors. A peculiar and recent type which attracted much attention and took the gold medal at the Motor Carriage Exposition at Berlin, held in September, 1899, is the Pieper double motor carriage. It has both a benzine motor and an electric motor, which can be worked separately or together, and yet is said to be lighter than most electric carriages. On a long journey, remote from electrical supply, the benzine motor is used not only to propel the carriage, but by running the electric motor as a dynamo or generator, recharges the storage battery. On level, easy roads, where the power required falls below the maximum power exerted by the benzine motor, the electric motor changes automatically to a dynamo and the surplus force of the benzine motor is converted into current and stored. In running down hill or stopping the carriage, the momentum of the vehicle is also received by the electric motor acting as a dynamo and brake, and is stored as electricity in the battery, which is thus in an ordinary journey kept constantly charged.
It is not probable that man will ever be able to get along without the horse, but the release of the noble animal from the bondage of city traffic, which was begun only a few years ago with mechanical street car propulsion, promises now to be extensively advanced by the substitution of the motor carriage and the auto-truck for team-drawn vehicles. The rapidity with which this industry has grown, and its promise for the future may be realized when it is remembered that so far as practical results are concerned it has all grown up in the last decade of the Nineteenth Century, and yet to-day it is said that there are already in the United States about 200 incorporated concerns with an aggregate capitalization of some $500,000,000, organized to build automobiles, to say nothing of the vast number of individuals who are experimenting in this field. The greatest activity, however, is to be found in France, which claims over 600 manufacturers and has in use 6,000 automobiles out of a total of 11,000 in all of Europe.
The most significant suggestion for the future of the automobile is that the cost of maintenance and all things considered, it is in some applications cheaper than the horse-drawn vehicles of the same efficiency. In a consular report of Oct. 16, 1899, forwarded to the State Department by Mr. Marshal Halsted, consul at Birmingham, Mr. E. H. Bayley, an English authority, is quoted as saying that in operating heavy motor vehicles for hauling, the cost is three half-pence (three cents) per net ton per mile, as compared with 18 to 24 cents per net ton per mile by horse-drawn vehicles. In England much attention is being given to this subject.
As before stated, the modern automobile cannot be considered as a new invention so far as fundamental principles are concerned. Its success, in late years, is to be credited to the perfection of the arts in general, and as essential factors contributing to this may be named the refinement of steel, giving increased strength with lightness, the increased efficiency of motive power, the vulcanization of rubber, the mathematical nicety of mechanical adjustment, the reduction of friction by ball bearings, the wonderful developments in electricity and improvement in roads.