[EV Fan]

"Henry Ford" the maker of Model-T with his electric Detroit in 1914, and his friend Edison alongside (Source: Hagerty Website)

Quite a few people know about the 1996 electric car EV1, by General Motors and might have even seen the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?". And yes quite a lot remember the Nissan Leaf a decade ago, but then TESLA. I mean with Tesla, the EV’s just became main-stream.

EV's over the years(Source Wikipedia)

Have seen nowadays, people contemplating (in retrospect) how the EV1 could have revolutionized transportation sector back in 2000 - 20 years ago or atleast 10years ago with Leaf. After all 10-20 years is quite a huge time for a technology to develop and enter mainstream especially if you look at the "Turbo Charged Economy" running on steroids of "Investors Money".

So when this debate is the group’s topic of the day and out of the blue I chip in about how back in 1900 the Electric and the ICE car were competing at the beginning of the industrial age. How Ford could have produced the First Mass Market EV just after his success with Model-T. The blistering developments and tussles to gain market share (I mean atleast for the times when 25km/hr was FAST), how a company called Detroit.... Quite a few unanimously interrupt - "WHAT!!! , WAIT! HOLD ON A SECOND!!!, WHAT DO YOU MEAN - 1900'S??? ELECTRIC CARS??? BEFORE PETROL CARS???
AND FORD HAD AN ELECTRIC CAR??? SAME TIME AS MODEL-T???”

Interesting, I thought people were aware of this or were they not...???
Well anyways, cutting the story short, just wanted to throw this info out in Team BHP to - for one, put the word out but mainly, to know how many of our Team BHP members knew about this (atleast among the folks who have their eyes on the EV space)?

Please note while I have created this thread, these were all from the articles and studies which had explored these stories and concepts quite long back.
I am just summarizing the info with bits & pieces but my suggestion would rather be to read some of these nicely put together articles (at the end of the thread) for a better understanding.

So, here it goes.

Now everyone knows about how the Ford's mass production just shot the ICE cars to the mass market through the industrialized assembly line. How the fossil fuel industry rose to the occasion to expand of the fuel bunk/pump network and help propel the ICE vehicles as "The Standard" mode of transportation over long distances.

But little is known about Ford's plan for a mass market EV. Something that would have been born out of the collaboration of the 2 genius "friends" - Henry Ford and Thomas Edison.

Back in 1900's while Edison was aggressively pushing for DC Grid and establish it as the Distribution Standard, he was also working on batteries. Yes, batteries at that time powered some of the well known electric cars from companies like "Detroit" or "Baker Electric" and they were already providing these "Edison's revolutionary Nickel batteries" at an extra premium over Lead-Acid's.
For those who have not heard of these companies, you should really read about them and their innovations, especially Baker Electric and its "Torpedo's". I mean you are talking about cars that could go more than 50miles, some even recorded 100miles, speeds upto 100Mph (you can do the kmph conversion, in 1900's).

The Famed Model T(Source Wikipedia)

So all this while, Ford who had already revolutionized the mass market with his Model-T starts looking at the electric cars. Well they seem to have their advantages, are an effective piece of machinery but are expensive. He already had friend – Edison who is in this field making progress in battery as well as the electricity distribution. People have already started looking at electricity over kerosene for interior lighting, so market is quite receptive. Electric cars were already running around, so not an experimental product and now he has the means to bring down the costs through the famed industrial assembly line proved the Model-T.
So, why could the mass market genius not bring down the cost of electric car's and make it en-masse?

Ford EV Prototype?(Source: Hagerty Website)

Now here is where the history becomes dodgy with a bit of rumors and somehow forgotten. Apparently two prototypes were designed, tested and plans were already on full scale for the proposed assembly line/unit. With information leaks from both Ford & Edison camps about site selection, battery procurements to, so much so, as giving out estimated car cost. It did not seem to be a mere publicity stunt.

But, apparently inside the Ford camp, there were already differences regarding the battery selection. While Ford was adamant on Edison's Nickel batteries, his team realizing the limitation of these newly developed batteries, decided to make a switch. The demo car, was being prepared, but with Lead Acid batteries which was against Henry Ford's instructions.
Now, this is where all comes to a grinding halt for the Ford EV, be it one specific event or accumulation of multiple - the EV just completely disappears off into history.

Opinions / hints range from Ford found out about the swap - lost his temper and cancelled the project as a spur of moment decision. Or he did not find it lucrative as per market environment which showed EV's are for WOMEN, while ICE was for THE MAN. Or rumor mills stating concerns with Edison's electric experiments causing fire in his lab(reports indicated fire not related to experiments but suspicious circumstances. Or even the oil businessmen lobbying against EV to capture the rapidly evolving transport sector (they were already getting starting to face decline of kerosene demand in face of electric interior lighting).

So, as history has it, the ICE cars got the disruptive revolution it the form of assembly line brought about by Ford and the market competitively moved up to assembly lines. But the EV - manufacturers never graduated from niche to mass market and it sputtered (ironically happens to ICE cars), then died out.
In retrospect who knows, if the Mass Market EV would have been a success back then? Or how quickly the electricity grid would have been able to get electricity to the nook and corner of the world for not just the homes but for the cars as well - I mean the electric grid was a revolution in itself without the EV. But could the EV, fastened or enhanced it further? And let’s not even start contemplating about the transportation sector (Family cars faster than sports car - blasphemy).

All said & done, people are still surprised when it comes to electric cars in 1900's.

Credits & Reference(Most of the credit goes to the following):
1.) Wikipedia (as always)

2.)Article" Ford, Edison and the Cheap EV That Almost Was" - This story was originally published by "Hemmings Blog", where Daniel Strohl is an associate editor. and now can be found on "WIRED".
https://www.wired.com/2010/06/henry-...mas-edison-ev/

3.)Article "116 years before the Mach-E, Henry Ford built this bare-bones, battery-powered Model T" by "Ronnie Schreiber" on HAGERTY Website
https://www.hagerty.com/media/automo...wered-model-t/

4.) Photos: The Collections of Henry Ford / Flickr
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fordmo...ny/3178405780/

A few excerpts from the literatures for the not so "Reader" types:

"That Henry Ford and Thomas Edison were good friends late in their lives is well-known. They camped together, presented each other with lavish gifts, even owned homes adjacent to each other."
"What is far less known is Edison and Ford worked together on an affordable electric vehicle."

"At about the time Ford Motor Co. was founded in 1903, Edison had made inroads with battery technology and started offering nickel-iron batteries for several uses, including automobiles."
"The two leading makers of electric cars, Baker and Detroit Electric, began to offer Edison batteries as an extra-cost option. Edison promoted endurance runs using his batteries, and he was photographed with a number of contemporary EVs as part of the marketing effort."

"In late 1913, Ford, working with Ernest G. Liebold, his personal secretary and go-to-guy for getting things done, started a publicity campaign that today we’d say “went viral.” Reports and rumors started to appear in automotive trade publications and business newspapers like the Wall Street Journal that Ford was developing an inexpensive electric car to be sold alongside to the Model T. In what was undoubtedly a shopped interview with The New York Times in early 1914, Henry Ford personally confirmed the rumors."

"Ford demanded that Allison, Churchward, and Wilson use Edison’s nickel-iron batteries to power the Model T-based electric car. The problem was that nickel-iron batteries have a high internal electrical impedance, which makes them impractical in a number of ways. While they can withstand a high number of charge cycles, they are very slow to charge. When in use, nickel-iron batteries can only discharge a limited amount of current in a short period of time. They also didn’t have the kind of energy density needed to power a vehicle.
Perhaps if Edison and his engineers had been more deeply involved, solutions to those problems might have been found, but all the development work took place at the Ford lab in Dearborn. The team working on the Model T-derived EV thus did something that probably wouldn’t have been done in Menlo Park: For demonstration purposes, they swapped out the Edison nickel-iron cells with conventional lead-acid ones. Somehow, Henry Ford got wind of the switch, had one of his infamous tantrums, and killed the project forever."

"Henry Ford ended up spending $1.5 million on electric-car prototypes—almost $40 million in today’s dollars. While it’s a tiny fraction of the billions that major automakers are now plunging into EV research and development, Henry had also invested his ego in the project, and his subsequent loss of interest proved the true death blow. Ford Motor Company wouldn’t try to make another electric vehicle for almost a century."

"We've so far seen no evidence that the press of the day ever got its hands on photos or other solid evidence of the experimental EVs. Eventually, the media seemed to forget about the Edison-Ford altogether. Some conspiracy theorists believe the oil cartels got to Ford and Edison and prompted them to abandon it. These theorists offer as evidence the "mysterious" fire that nearly destroyed Edison's workshops in West Orange, New Jersey, in December, 1914. Besides the fact all work on the EV took place in Dearborn, Michigan, (and Edison had the entire place rebuilt by the next spring), The New York Times noted on December 10, 1914, that the fire skirted the two buildings in which any work on the electric car would have taken place:"
"Conspiracy theorists like to believe that Ford and Edison were pressured by John Rockefeller and other oil interests to abandon the project. They also suspect that Rockefeller was behind Prohibition, seeking to suppress the use of alcohol as a fuel and protect his monopoly on oil after watching his earlier monopoly on kerosene for interior lighting disintegrate thanks to Edison and Westinghouse. Naturally, the now-vanished Edison-Ford EV isn’t immune to a few creative hypotheses, one of which holds that there was a suspicious fire at Edison’s Menlo Park lab."

"Henry did end up buying Clara her own Detroit Electric, however, and Thomas Edison bought one too. Both were equipped with Edison nickel-iron batteries."
"And now we come full circle. Ford says it will invest $135 million in electric-car development and 10 to 25 percent of its fleet will be electrified in some way by 2020."