The electric vehicle, a journey of almost 200 years of history

Did you know that the first electric car arrived before the first vehicle powered by a four-stroke engine?

That the electric car gives off an image of a futuristic and modern vehicle is something we agree on. But is this 100% true? The reality is that the electric vehicle is not an invention of the 21st century, but of the 19th century. And it arrived just 30 years after the main invention of that century: the steam locomotive.

To place ourselves at the germ of the electric vehicle, and despite the difficulties of establishing a date for this phenomenon, we must travel to the British Empire.

We are in Scotland, between the years 1832 and 1839. At that time, thanks to the arrival of the Industrial Revolution, the cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh were a cultural and scientific hotbed in Europe. And the Scots were unaware that ten years later they would suffer the so-called “Great Scottish Famine”.

Electric vehicles with non-rechargeable batteries

It was this breeding ground that led Robert Anderson, a Scottish businessman, to invent the first electric vehicle in history, as historians confirm.

Although it is true that it was very different from what we know today as an electric car since, among other curiosities, its 6 km/h top speed was powered by non-rechargeable batteries. A very different model from the current network of electric charging stations for this type of vehicle.

In those years, the British Empire, the Netherlands, the United States and the then Austro-Hungarian Empire were the cradle of successive electric propulsion vehicles, increasingly sophisticated and complete. Which emerged as an alternative to the already obsolete horse-drawn carriages that had been rolling through the history of humanity for hundreds of years.

The red devil

Image of Edison, in 1913, with an electric car compared to a current electric car

With the arrival of the first rechargeable battery, back in 1890, and the increasing reliability of this type of vehicle, horses and carriages began to be gradually replaced by a less dirty, more robust substitute that could reach speeds never seen before.

This was demonstrated by Camille Jenatzy, a fearless Belgian pilot. At the dawn of the 20th century, he claimed to be the first man to break the 100 km/h barrier.

“Le Diableu Rouge“, nicknamed for the colour of his beard, managed to reach 105.88 km/h at the controls of his brand new “Jamais Contente“. An electric racing car, also of Belgian origin, that marked a before and after in the history of the automotive industry.

The LE JAMAIS CONTENTE electric vehicle.

Edison’s rechargeable batteries

The 20th century then arrived and the electric car, far from being left behind, experienced its most glorious era to date. It was Thomas Alba Edison and his new models of rechargeable batteries, based on an alloy composed of nickel and iron, that made the electric vehicle represent 90% of vehicle sales in the first years of the century, banishing the combustion engine to a marginal 10%.

Such was the supremacy of this type of vehicle, that the noisy and rudimentary gasoline vehicles could not match the performance of the electric ones, which, in some cases, reached speeds of 130 km/h. The technological vanguard of the time.

The question is: What happened to change this situation? It’s all due to a series of reasons that, thanks to the inventor of mass production, Henry Ford, turned the automobile industry upside down.

The decline of the electric car: Henry Ford and mass production

As with the emergence of the electric car, putting an exact date on its decline is a difficult task, but if there is a date on which experts say they agree, it is 1912.

It was the second decade of the 20th century when Henry Ford, a relevant figure in the automobile industry, but who until then had not achieved commercial success that would elevate him, managed to dynamite the unstoppable dominance of electric motors.

Who was to blame?: the engine of electric starter, introduced by Cadillac in 1913. And combined with the mass production methods implemented by the Ford Motor Company in its Detroit factories back in 1908.

This cocktail was fortunate enough to give birth to the most complete vehicle model in known history, the Ford T, of which more than 15,000,000 units were produced. Until production ceased in 1927. The result was that the electric car became a thing of the past cruelly quickly.

Already in the 1930s, the electric vehicle industry was anecdotal, and became a mere technological remnant of a forgotten era.

Factors in the decline of the electric car

But was this the only reason for the death of the electric car? As expected, the answer is no. To the starter motor and mass production, we must add other factors such as:

• The drop in the price of crude oil thanks to anti-monopoly laws (in 1880 a barrel cost $60 compared to $15 in 1915).
• The deficient electricity generation and distribution infrastructure. Unable to supply energy to a thriving market.
• The perception of the autonomy of the car as one of the most important points when purchasing it, a feeling that lasts to this day.

Evolution of the price of a barrel of crude oil between 1860 and 1970 (Source: Diario Público)

An electric vehicle for the upper classes

In short, Henry Ford did a lot to end the dominance of electric vehicles. But the lack of infrastructure that would allow for its prolonged evolution, in addition to the lack of long-term vision in terms of autonomy, were the reasons that made the combustion vehicle the main protagonist of the last century and continue to be so today.

To this we must add that the electric vehicle emerged for a wealthy class. The only one that could afford its high costs. But, with the decrease in production costs implemented in Ford factories, vehicles began to intrude, little by little, into the homes of the rest of the upper classes in America and the rest of the world.

The electric vehicle and Spain, a brief but passionate romance

The binomial between the electric vehicle and Spain, despite being less prolific, is equally interesting. If there is a prominent figure in this automotive chronicle of Spain, it is Emilio de la Cuadra, who tried to introduce this type of vehicle in the country after a visit to the International Exhibition in Paris in 1889.

De la Cuadra then decided that the technology that amazed him, especially after being a spectator at one of the famous electric racing cars that covered 1,200km between Paris and Bordeaux, should be introduced in his native country, which is why he decided to sell the electrical company he owned to found, in 1898, the Compañía General de Coches-Automóviles Emilio de la Cuadra. After a year of building prototypes of electric vehicles, based on a truck, a car and a bus, Don Emilio’s adventure came to an end due to a lack of technological, material and economic resources, and he turned his venture to the internal combustion engine. In 1901 the company closed its doors and with it came an end to the short but intense romance between electric vehicles and the Iberian country.