Timeline of Vehicle History

vehicle’s popularity. The starter motor systems employed in all of today’s internal combustion engine vehicles are virtually unchanged from the original early 1920s concept.

Battery electric vehicles have also been extremely popular in some limited-range applications. Forklifts have been battery electric vehicles (BEVs) since the early 1900s and electric forklifts are still being produced. BEV golf carts have been available for years. Golf carts have led to the emergence of neighborhood electric vehicles (NEVs) or low-speed vehicles (LSVs), which are speed-limited at 25 mph, but are legal for use on public roads. NEVs were primarily offered by car companies during the end of the CA Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Mandate. As of July 2006, there are between 60,000 and 76,000 low-speed, battery-powered vehicles in use in the U.S., up from about 56,000 in 2004 according to Electric Drive Transportation Association estimates. In fact, at the end of my tenure at the New York Power Authority, I managed the LSV donation programs from Ford and Chrysler (GEM) of over 250 vehicles. I believe several thousand vehicles were donated by the car companies to receive ZEV credits for the amount of electric vehicles placed on road in 2003.

By the late 1930s, the electric automobile industry had completely disappeared, with battery-electric traction being limited to niche applications, such as certain industrial vehicles.

The 1947 invention of the point-contact transistor marked the beginning of a new era for BEV technology. Within a decade, Henney Coachworks had joined forces with National Union Electric Company, the makers of Exide batteries, to produce the first modern electric car based on transistor technology, the Henney Kilowatt, produced in 36-volt and 72-volt configurations. The 72-volt models had a top speed approaching 96 km/h (60 mph) and could travel nearly an hour on a single charge. Despite the improved practicality of the Henney Kilowatt over previous electric cars, it was too expensive and production was terminated in 1961. Even though the Henney Kilowatt never reached mass production volume, their transistor-based electric technology paved the way for modern EVs.

Studying vehicle history is similar to looking at any economic phenomenon. iPods are a good example. The first iPod was a novelty; the one hundredth created a strong desire to own one. By the ten thousandth, you own one; by the one millionth, the novelty has worn off; and after the hundred millionth, they’re considered ubiquitous. The same with vehicles—past events shift the background climate and affect current consumer wants and needs. The innovative Model T of the 1910s was an outdated clunker in the 1920s. The great finned wonders of the 1950s and muscle cars of the 1960s were an anachronism by the 1970s. Avehicle that was once in great demand is now only junkyard material because consumer wants and needs change.

Figure 3-1 is rather busy, but studying it gives you clues to the rise and fall of the three types of vehicles in one picture—steam, electric, internal combustion—plus the interrelationship between them during the three stages of vehicle history. Figure 3-1 shows that steam has been passed by as a vehicle power source but electric vehicles, dominant in urban areas at the turn of the century, are again returning to favor as the majority of the world’s industrial nations become “urbanized,” but petroleum-based fuels are becoming more expensive and availability more politically dependent. Nearly