- Electrobat
The Electrobat was the first successful electric automobile. It was designed and built in 1894 by mechanical engineer
Henry G. Morris and chemistPedro G. Salom inPhiladelphia ,Pennsylvania . Both had backgrounds in battery streetcars and, as the battery streetcar business was fading, they teamed up to make battery road vehicles. Their effort was patented onAugust 31 ,1894 . Built like a small version of a battery streetcar, it was a slow, heavy, impractical vehicle with steel tires to support the immense weight of its large lead battery. It entered production in 1895. In 1896, Morris and Salom founded theMorris & Salom Electric Carriage and Wagon Company ,G.N. Georgano, "Cars: Early and Vintage, 1886-1930". (London: Grange-Universal, 1985).] evidently the first electric car company in America.Fact|date=October 2007Subsequent versions were lighter and had pneumatic tires, with bodies built at the
Caffery Carriage Company inCamden, New Jersey . These cars steered by their rear wheels and had two convert|1.5|hp|adj=on|lk=on motors that propelled them convert|25|mi|lk=on per charge at convert|20|mph|lk=on|abbr=on. Morris and Salom went on to build about a dozenHansom cab s based on this vehicle, to compete with the horse-drawn cabs then in service inNew York City ; they operated in New York,Boston , and elsewhere. They sold the cabs and their concept to Isaac L. Rice, who reincorporated the enterprise as theElectric Vehicle Company (Elizabethport, New Jersey ), in 1897, and later became part of Pope's empire.References
External links
* [http://www.printsandphotos.com/prints_photos/4228.html Print of 1895 Electrobat]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
