History of Electric Car
Designs of electric motors by individuals such as Benjamin Franklin led to ideas for electric
vehicles.The invention of the first model electric vehicle is attributed to
various people. In 1828, the Hungarian priest and physicist Anyos Jedlik invented an early type of electric
motor, and created a small model car powered by his own new motor. Between 1832
and 1839, Scottish inventor Robert Anderson also invented
a crude electric carriage. In 1835, Professor Sibrandus
Stratingh of Groningen, the Netherlands and his assistant Christopher
Becker from Germany also created a small-scale electric car, powered by
non-rechargeable primary cells.In 1834, Vermont blacksmith Thomas
Davenport built a similar contraption that operated on a short,
circular, electrified track. The first known electric locomotive was built
in 1837, in Scotland by chemist Robert Davidson of Aberdeen.It
was powered by galvanic cells(batteries). Davidson later built a larger
locomotive named Galvani, exhibited at the Royal Scottish Society of
Arts Exhibition in 1841. The 7,100 kg (7-long-ton) vehicle had
two direct-drive reluctance motors, with fixed electromagnets acting
on iron bars attached to a wooden cylinder on each axle, and
simple commutators. It hauled a load of 6,100 kg (6 long tons) at
6.4 km/h (4 mph) for a distance of 2.4 km (1.5 mi). It was
tested on the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway in September of the
following year, but the limited power from batteries prevented its general
use. It was destroyed by railway workers, who saw it as a threat to their
security of employment.
A patent for the use of rails
as conductors of electric current was granted in England in 1840, and similar
patents were issued to Lilley and Colten in the United States in 1847. The
first battery rail car was used in 1887 on the Royal Bavarian
State Railways.