9 ms·
Woman with rectifier and electric car (1912)
- Liebnitz 3y agoWow, is that a J1772? From 1912?
- jjays66u 3y agoLet's not forget the propensity for humans to take the path of least resistance. Heat-energy engines and electric were all being invested in at the same time. Petrochemical based fuel density along with availability and viability to produce was key. Still running into this today. Battery technology is advancing. But gas is there, it works, we know how to make it, and we know how to distribute it. We have a long way to go if we think we will convert the world to electric and eliminate oil based fuels anytime soon.
- nikbos 3y agoNikola Tesla had an electric car without batteries. A wireless transmission powered it.
- genman 3y agoIf you look at the picture carefully then you can notice that there is no steering wheel.
- antiframe 3y agoBefore steering wheels were commonplace many horseless carriages used levers.
- actionfromafar 3y agoRight. There’s a steering tiller to the left side.
- yial 3y agoThe silver bar on the left of the vehicle controls the steering by pushing or pulling it towards or away from the driver. The linkage is exposed as well.
- repsak 3y agoObviously self driving!
- junon 3y agoRelated: - https://www.driving.co.uk/features/charging-electric-car-looked-like-1912/ https://www.driving.co.uk/features/charging-electric-car-loo... - https://artsandculture.google.com/story/ge-and-the-electric-car-100-years-of-invention-and-innovation-museum-of-innovation-and-science/OwXBW0hRZDluIQ?hl=en https://artsandculture.google.com/story/ge-and-the-electric-... More photos of women and the GE Electric Car ca. 1912: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gereports/4993857638/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/gereports/4993857638/
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- ytdytvhxgydvhh 3y agoIt’d really be ahead of its time if the next photo in the series was: “Woman curses at phone when charging app requires update to function”
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- blackaspen 3y agoI still hate that I can't just use a credit card + pre-auth (or even cash!) at an EV charging station like I can at every single gas station. The data! It's! Important! To! Investors!
- jandrese 3y agoIsn't the vehicle itself the authorization for Tesla?
- blackaspen 3y agoThere's an SAE standard for this, but I _also_ don't want that. I rented an EV, and had to download an app, use 2fa, and store my credit card, to be able to charge at the hotel I was staying at. This was pretty crummy. Vehicle-based auth, at least w/ rental cars, sounds like a great way to make lots of money with fees.
- ytdytvhxgydvhh 3y agoIdeally we’d follow in Norways’s footsteps and mandate that new charging stations accept credit cards but that’s probably a lost hope with electric cars being a culture war issue in the US these days.
- throwawaaarrgh 3y agoAmericans prefer to just take whatever crap corporations give them, and our public chargers definitely are crap.
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- gauravphoenix 3y agothat's all good but does it have FSD? Jokes aside, it is enlightening to see how far we have come. Just 10 years ago, seeing a Tesla in SF bay area would be a topic of conversation. Today, I have two Teslas parked in my garage and yesterday when we went for a NYE party, 80% of the attendees drove Tesla (or Tesla drove them ;)
- ronnier 3y agoSame, I also have two Teslas. 21 Y and a 23 S Plaid. What an experience to drive every day, absolutely love both of them.
- tirant 3y agoWhat’s special about driving a Tesla that makes the experience remarkable ? I’ve test driven recent Model 3 and Model Ys and found the experience subpar compared to other EVs: noisy, uncomfortable suspension, lack of parking assistant systems, lack of reliable speed limit recognition and lane keeping assistant system, no matrix headlights or even HUD. Basically every new technology you can have in new mid/high range cars compares to my old 2008 VW Golf is missing on modern Model 3/Ys. I loved the spacious interior, but felt also cheap. The UI of the screen is also very nice and smooth, but I still prefer using Apple CarPlay. People compliment Tesla supercharger network, and I have to admit I’ve never used it, but I also have to say I never had an issue with other HPC networks like Ionity or Fastned in Europe.
- speedgoose 3y agoThe value.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoNot OP. Have driven over 110k miles in a 2018 Model S, bury me in it, I almost love it more than my family. Value is subjective, of course, but few material possessions bring me as much joy as driving fully electric across the country while the vehicle is on Autopilot (have driven across the US the last 6 years almost exclusively on Supercharger fast charging [1]). I paid for the future and got it, that is value (to me). (own an S, an X, and two Ys; also have a Cybertruck reservation) [1] https://supercharge.info/map https://supercharge.info/map
- Stratoscope 3y agoA recent test drive: https://youtu.be/Xzk6acQO-KQ https://youtu.be/Xzk6acQO-KQ
- willtheperson 3y agoFully charged show did an episode on this car (or maybe just this era.) either way, I found it interesting to see the similarities in design to todays evs considering how early so many of these concepts were. https://youtu.be/Xzk6acQO-KQ?si=zNIOA70iBS2_upWf https://youtu.be/Xzk6acQO-KQ?si=zNIOA70iBS2_upWf
- nikodunk 3y agoReally loved this video, thank you very much for sharing.
- fs_tab 3y agoInterestingly, these were capable of 30-40 miles of range on a single charge (essentially the same range you get with modern Plug-in Electric Hybrids on battery power)
- tsunamifury 3y agoAt 20 or so mph. A lot different than 65mph
- cldellow 3y agoA quick Google suggests that early cars were also lighter--probably easier to hoick about a 1,200 lb Model T than a 3,000 lb Camry.
- bee_rider 3y agoThat’s a smaller difference than I’d have expected, tbh. I guess it makes sense though, lots of work has gone into making cars safe and light.
- Gibbon1 3y agoI rode in a Model T. It has a serious golf cart nature. This article from 1936 captures it well. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1936/05/16/farewell-my-lovely https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1936/05/16/farewell-my-lo...
- mardifoufs 3y agoThis is such a great article. Truly a window into another world, that still seems very similar to ours (especially the references to the Sears catalogue!). I never thought I'd feel nostalgic about a model T! Thank you
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- everybodyknows 3y ago
- bluejekyll 3y agoIt’s hard not to look at this and think that battery technology would have progressed far more had the electric car been chosen rather than gas and how that would have meant all the investment into efficiency that the gasoline engine got, batteries and electric motors would have gotten all of that investment instead. I was trying to find the range of gas cars vs electric in 1912, and it looks like gas cars at that period tended to be a little over 100 miles and the best electrics were 80, with most at 50. It’s too bad the Model T wasn’t electric. “ While the prototypes seemed to work well enough, in Ford’s view they had a fatal flaw. His development crew had been unable to get the Edison batteries to perform as required. While nickel-iron batteries have a long service life, they are slow to charge, produce less voltage per cell, and as we’ve already seen, are considerably more expensive. To move the project along, the team substituted ordinary lead-acid batteries, and at that point Ford’s patience reached its limit. Without the Edison batteries, the electric flivver no longer had any reason to exist, in Ford’s mind anyway. After a reported expenditure of $1.5 million, mainly in Edison batteries, Henry pulled the plug.” https://www.macsmotorcitygarage.com/henry-fords-electric-model-t/ https://www.macsmotorcitygarage.com/henry-fords-electric-mod...
- raxxorraxor 3y agoIt should be noted that the environmental impact wasn't really known and the energy potential of fuels still is unmatched. From an engineering perspective with the information available at that time, the decision was probably "correct". Batteries were something like a necessary evil. For example to propel uboats because of the lack of oxygen. Otherwise the energy density and triviality of re-fuel-ing easily wins out.
- KolmogorovComp 3y agoThis raise an interesting question. Is improving the battery tech an inherently more difficult problem than the efficiency of a thermic motor? I'd intuitively think so, as it's mostly chemical compared to mechanical work, and that would explain why thermic engine were favoured at the time. (On top of economic reasons)
- usrusr 3y ago
- layer8 3y agoAnd they drove 1000 miles with it in 1910: https://sweetbeacon.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/edison-electric-car-jan2011wpa.pdf https://sweetbeacon.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/edison-elect...
- SushiHippie 3y agoFor others that also don't know what a rectifier is: > A rectifier is an electrical device that converts alternating current (AC), which periodically reverses direction, to direct current (DC), which flows in only one direction. The reverse operation (converting DC to AC) is performed by an inverter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectifier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectifier
- anovikov 3y agoOnly reason why electric cars existed back then is because gas engine had to be hand-cranked before electric starter was invented in 1911. People hated doing it because it was dangerous and dirty. Especially women. As soon as electric starter became a thing, electric cars were dead. Their usage continued only with delivery vans for some time as gas engines were still unreliable and for delivery fleets, dispatch reliability was very important.
- pugworthy 3y ago...it was dangerous and dirty. Especially women. To be clear, women were not dangerous and dirty back then. Also, I'm sure there were women who could turn the crank - and men who could not.
- anovikov 3y agoWell, it was before gender equity and women certainly didn't want to look unlady-like having to crank up their cars in the street. Also, as another commenter said, backfiring engine could traumatise a person holding a crank. Horror stories like death from a broken jaw were an extreme rarity, but broken fingers were pretty much normal, and could ruin young woman's marriage prospects given how badly disfigured could fingers become given medical tech of the time.
- cf1241290841 3y ago> People hated doing it because it was dangerous Properly dangerous in case people dont realize this. This wasnt people being squeamish. >In the winter of 1908, a woman stalled her Cadillac in Belle Island, Michigan, and didn't have the strength to crank the car over. So she sat there. Another driver by the name of Byron Carter happened along and offered to start the stalled Cadillac. Carter was the founder of CarterCar, which was acquired by GM in 1909, largely due to the company's development work with friction transmissions. Carter was also a friend of Cadillac founder Henry Leland. >When Carter turned the stalled Cadillac's crank, the engine reportedly backfired, the crank hit him in the face and broke his jaw. Tragically, gangrene set in, and, medicine being what it was at the turn of the last century, Carter died later that year.
- notatoad 3y agopre-emptive mirror, because the site seems like maybe it's not going to handle much more of HN's traffic: https://imgur.com/c7uQbFr https://imgur.com/c7uQbFr
- bunabhucan 3y agoThis is part of a whole series: https://artsandculture.google.com/story/ge-and-the-electric-car-100-years-of-invention-and-innovation-museum-of-innovation-and-science/OwXBW0hRZDluIQ?hl=en https://artsandculture.google.com/story/ge-and-the-electric-...
- paulsutter 3y agoWhat are we overlooking today that will be obviously a bad decision 100 years from now?
- musiciangames 3y agoI hope I’m wrong, but fear it will be that democracies protect themselves poorly from populists/demagogues. Watching a documentary on the fall of the Roman republic, it was hard to think it couldn’t happen here. Or as wrongly attributed to Edmund Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”.
- pugworthy 3y agoWell, it was sort of obvious 2000 years ago - another 100 won't matter much!
- bee_rider 3y agoThe obvious answers are things like plastics, but we can already kind of tell those are bad. I dunno, actually, it is hard to say because we tend to be a little pessimistic nowadays, I don’t think we overlook much, it is just that there’s an all encompassing feeling that every choice has negative outcomes and we have to pick one. Maybe that’s the thing we’re overlooking, cynicism disguised as skepticism resulting in total paralysis.
- berkes 3y agoI'd say we are overlooking the willingness of humans to change, have less, or reduce their impact. I'm pessimistic, but I doubt the human race can bring up the sacrifices needed to save itself from slow (or fast) annihilation. We have the tech, the knowledge, the urgency and the funds to change. I'm convinced all that's holding us back from actually fixing stuff is social.
- Ekaros 3y agoMy guess will be under investment in nuclear energy... I just don't believe in global grids and scaling of storage.
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- dreamcompiler 3y agoOne thing about these early electric cars that gets overlooked is how primitive their motors were. Yes, induction motors existed then because Nikola Tesla had invented them, but they couldn't be used in a car because they required AC. So cars were stuck with brushed DC motors. Those work but they're not maximally efficient and the brushes eventually wear out and need to be replaced. Today we use efficient induction and brushless DC motors in cars, and those are only possible because we have cheap power electronics that can chop up a DC voltage into an AC waveform of arbitrary complexity with fine precision. Power electronics didn't exist until the 1960s, and they only got cheap in the 1990s.
- brcmthrowaway 3y agoWho invented the field of power electronics?
- sbierwagen 3y agoJulius Edgar Lilienfeld, the guy who invented the electrolytic capacitor, also patented the field-effect transistor in 1930. But he never made one, material science just wasn't there yet. (This is why the Nobel for "inventing the transistor" went to a completely different team who were using a different method 17 years later) Power electronics requires the whole suite of semiconductor technology: atomically pure silicon crystals, dopants, vacuum coating, lithography, etc. First VFD motor controller wasn't until 1982. The technology wasn't even remotely ready yet in 1912. Remember, the GM EV1 of 1996, with VFD drive and NiMH batteries that didn't exist and couldn't exist in 1912, still only managed a hundred miles of range. Despite the conspiracy theories, the EV1 wasn't a very compelling car. It required better batteries and motors to get something like a Tesla a decade later.
- GuB-42 3y agoI don't know how efficient brushed DC motors were. Nowadays, I see 80% efficiency, it was probably lower back then, plus, you probably had to have some kind of transmission, maybe it couldn't run at the optimal regime, etc... So let's say 50%. Pretty terrible compared to modern engines that are >90% but that's just about twice more "fuel". Not negligible, but fairly small compared to everything else. As for the brushes, they are cheap carbon rods. I guess that on a car, it would be like changing the brake pads. Not much, especially compared to the amount of maintenance cars needed at the time. Compare to early internal combustion engines that were about 5% efficiency in the early 1900s and have steadily increased to almost 40% today. That's 8 times! So yeah, their electric engines were primitive, but their gas engines were even more so, the that would have been in favor of electric.
- freetonik 3y agoThere is an interesting documentary about the stalled evolution of electric vehicles: Who Killed the Electric Car? [1] AFAIK, there is nowhere to stream it (at least in Europe), but you can rent or buy it online. It's tempting to blame the industry, and endeavor into conspiracy theories, but even without doing so, it is baffling how modern charging infrastructure and policies (again, at least in Europe) are not progressing very well. Apart from the Tesla supercharger network, all other charger networks still require you to have a dozen accounts, different payment methods, sometimes mandatory "balance" accounts, RFID tags, etc. 1. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489037/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489037/
- bhickey 3y ago> This digital image may be used for educational uses. Please cite as miSci - Museum of Innovation and Science. Prior written permission is required for any other use of the images from miSci. Glad to see copyfraud alive and well on Public Domain Day.
- Gravityloss 3y agoThere were solar panels in 1800s already https://www.smithsonianmag.com/sponsored/brief-history-solar-panels-180972006/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/sponsored/brief-history-solar.... Apparently the inventor had tried to make a solar thermal generator but noticed a direct voltage being produced.
- legitster 3y agoI've had the pleasure of riding in a Baker Electric Car. Very cool - one of my favorite antiques I've ever ridden in. It's worth pointing out that the early electric cars were almost exclusively sold to women. Early cars were messy and dangerous, and a safe easy-to-operate car was often bought by the wealthy to give to their wives. It ended up being the advent of the electric starter that killed the early electric cars more than anything. (Breaking your thumb hand cranking a car was a very common occurrence previously).
- robertkeizer 3y agohttps://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/tags/electric-cars/ https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/tags/electric-cars/
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