For some reason, VW is just now rolling out a dune buggy, like the Meyers Manx, only electric. I guess Martha's Vineyard must have run out of new and interesting cars to impress each other with

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/pictures/volkswagen-i-d-buggy-electric-dune-geneva-2019/3/
via http://www.joesherlock.com/blog.html

Ohio Electric advertising by Leyendecker

http://www.atticpaper.com/proddetail.php?prod=1912-ohio-electric-car-ad

they think they'll be selling this in 2 years... an electric truck. Ummm, where is the demand for a startup company that hasn't made a vehicle yet, to make electric trucks?

https://www.foxnews.com/auto/the-rivian-rt1-may-be-the-american-made-electric-pickup-of-the-near-future

thanks Gary!

this Electric 1908 Studebaker was called a “To and Fro” carry all, and was built for the US Government, to convey politicians via a tunnel between the Capitol building and the Senate Office Building.

https://revsinstitute.org/news/the-amelia-island-concours-car-enthusiasts-spring-break/
http://www.earlyamericanautomobiles.com/1908.htm

there was also a yellow painted one, in use from 1909-1912

http://www.remarkablecars.com/main/studebaker/1909-studebaker-1.html

electric ambulance 1910-15

https://onceuponatown.tumblr.com/post/68116180335/new-york-various-images-from-bellevue-hospital

how much can smug electric car owners crow about being green? Not much, and even less where the electricity they draw is made by coal electric plants

A recent study by some economists determined that EVs, rather than getting tax breaks, should be taxed at higher rates in the coal-dependent East and Midwest for the indirect air pollution they cause. In California our grid is more diversified with wind, solar, hydroelectric, and natural-gas generation.

The Union of Concerned Scientists produced a study in 2012 saying that the i-MiEV on California electricity produces the same greenhouse-gas emissions as a car with an 88-mpg combined fuel-economy rating. In coal-heavy Michigan, however, the i-MiEV is only a 43-mpg car.

Still, 43 mpg is not bad, it's only as good as a Chevy Cruze eco though. And then, what's the point of having an electric car when it's no better than a gas engine for mpg, with regards to pollution, and worse than a gas car when driving long distance, and cost.

So, pay more, for the same pollution, can't drive across a state, and so.... what's the point and the upside to an electric car? If it gets in a wreck and catches on fire, shorting through the battery pack, nothing a fire dept showing up can do to put it out and save the occupants

https://www.caranddriver.com/columns/i-bought-a-used-electric-vehicle-got-a-plug-we-can-use-column

The LAPD made a big deal about going green with a fleet of 300 electric BMWs. They probably had to, but no one actually made them use the cars they disliked, and never asked for, but had foisted on them. Possibly

BMW won the 10 million dollar contract to provide 300 electric cars for the LAPD. One hundred delivered each year for three years, to be used right now for administrative purposes. Non-emergencies. The department is leasing them.

Probably reluctant to use the electric cars because they can only go 80-100 miles on a charge, and have to be returned to BMW at the end of the lease.

Most of the electric cars have only been used for a few thousand miles. And a handful are sitting in the garage with only a few hundred on them.

Like one in service since may 27, 2016, with just 400 miles on it! Evidently, these were too many cars, with no useful purpose, except to make the mayor look "green", progressive, and forward thinking. Just a 10 million dollar narcissistic play for publicity he doesn't need? Likely.

For that 10 million, don't you think they could have patched a lot of pot holes around LA?!

The commanding officer of LAPD fiscal operations, Annemarie Sauer, used the department’s electric BMW and stopped at an elementary school in long beach, which is outside the city of LA. She stayed there for almost an hour. Then she parked the car a few blocks away outside this nail salon.

I bet if forced to explain what official law enforcement business brought her to her nail salon, and he kids school, she'd have nothing to offer that would honestly provide a reason.

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2018/01/16/goldstein-investigation-10-million-lapd-electric-bmws-appear-unused-misused/

Thanks to Dick and Jenni Froemming for reminding me about this! If you're as fed up with bad cop stories as I am, let Dick and Jenni know! Tell them to quit interfering with the guy who makes the blog who isn't going to be fucked with. dickandjen@hbci.com is their email.

Did you know electric cars cost their manufacturers money, on every car sold?

Fiat takes a 20,000 dollar loss on every electric 500 (500e)

Chevy loses 9000 on each Volt

Tesla had a goal of 1500 model 3s, but only made 260. How much did they lose? Don't know. But, 1/6 of your production won't cover the intended profit from losing 5/6s of what you intended to sell.

http://www.thedrive.com/sheetmetal/14759/fiat-chrysler-loses-20000-for-every-fiat-500e-it-sells

and as I recently posted http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2017/09/this-seems-ridiculous-electric-car.html they sell a Fiat 500 electric for about 12 to 15 thou on the used car lots because they are lemons. Soooooo... it's a 40 thousand dollar loss to Fiat for every lemon electric 500

this seems ridiculous... an electric car costing twice what the gas powered model of the same car costs. Fiat 500. It's going to take a long time to break even if you go electric

https://www.fiatusa.com/build#/models/zipcode/92101/vehicle/CUX201701/ccode/CUX201701FFFS24A/llp/2DC/options/EAB,APA,DDF,CX7,WCC,N7,T1A,RA2,X9,PW3,21C

FYI, you can buy a 2016 electric Fiat 500 for 14 to 15 thou with under 5 thou miles... they are the most common lemons on the road. I haven't heard yet what the problem is with all 2011-2017 Fiat 500s, but they are the worst made car I've ever heard of. Simply put, no one makes more lemons

Wind Explorer. This wind-powered electric automobile ran 3,107 miles for 18 days in Australia. It has a battery-powered motor and a giant kite.

https://drivetribe.com/p/wind-explorer-kite-car-c4y1FWbeTO-s5uKHtiK0ng?iid=fF7kAMMvSRWi1OT4NbEkDA

Margot Robbie: new Nissan Electric Vehicle ambassador, on the Monaco circuit with the Nissan Blade Glider

1912 electric truck, damn, it's big! It's a CT electric, the Commercial Truck Company of Philadelphia from approximately 1908 to 1927. That double steering wheel is the unique identifying visual aid. This one was saved by a publishing company for silent early morning delivery up to 1962

https://www.flickr.com/photos/punktoad/albums/72157626691244205/page9


The Commercial Truck Company operated in Philadelphia Pennsylvania and produced large electric trucks from approximately 1908 to 1927.

They sold twenty-two electric powered vehicles to Curtis Publishing, two of which were used to haul coal to fire boilers for plant operations.

The other twenty were randomly used daily to haul paper and to distribute magazines such as Jack and Jill, Ladies Home Journal, and The Saturday Evening Post. These vehicles slipped silently into the streets each day in the early morning hours never awakening their customers. These trucks received the best of care being serviced in the Curtis warehouse after each use and were charged approximately six hours per day.

This truck was Old Number 8 and one of the first delivered to the publishing company.

 The Model F-5 flatbed was rated at five tons but regularly carried in excess of ten tons, well beyond its stated capacity. Each wood spoke wheel has its own motor and used a solid-rubber tire that lasted for an extremely long time. Unloaded, the truck could travel at 12 miles per hour, which was two miles over the speed limit at that time.

There are less than 15 of these electric trucks left in the world and very few have been restored because of the complexity of the electrical system.

Steve remembered that he'd posted a photo of one of these on Shorpy years ago

http://www.shorpy.com/node/5061


COMMERCIAL TRUCK ELECTRIC (1912) from Dark Burn Media LLC on Vimeo.

http://americanmovietrucks.com/portfolio/commercial-truck-electric-1912/

those 2 groove wide solid tires reminded me of this beast of a gas electric:

from last year http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2016/06/1918-15-ton-couple-gear-gas-electric.html

Thanks Steve!

1900 Wood Electric Truck, it weighed 7500 pounds

A gift from UPS to the Henry Ford museum, B. Altman and Company, a New York City department store, purchased this electric truck from F. R. Wood and Son around 1900. Altman employed horse-drawn delivery wagons but began to experiment with electric trucks in 1898 as a cost cutting measure. Electric trucks dispensed with the care and maintenance costs of horses. This truck made twice-daily trips from a warehouse to a distribution center.

https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/artifact/221781/

in 1912 a lot of electric vehicles were being HEAVILY advertised to women, in the woman's section of the newspaper.

I've mentioned before that electric were marketed to women because a normal car back then (1912) needed a crank start, and that means they needed upper arm strength to fire up a cold engine... in the era before starters would roll the engine over, and precision carbs would make the induction efficient, and the choke was made obsolete, and the cylinders no longer had to be primed, and the oil had to be changed every 3 or 4 hundred miles. Brass era cars were not user friendly, except the electric cars.

 All 4 of these, are electric, and in the Chicago Tribune, Dec 15th, 1912 issue
http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1912/12/15/page/58/article/paper-toys-for-jack-kneiffs-boys

Look at a Chevy Volt hybrid a different way, mathmatically. It's a loser.

Eric test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors... and he writes... For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine.

Eric calculated the car got 30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery. So, the range including the 9 gallon gas tank and the 16 kWh battery is approximately 270 miles.

It will take you 4 1/2 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. In a typical road trip your average speed (including charging time) would be 20 mph.

According to General Motors, the Volt battery holds 16 kWh of electricity. It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery on a 120V system, less on a 240V system.

 The cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never mentioned so I looked up what I pay for electricity. I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kWh. 16 kWh x $1.16 per kWh = $18.56 to charge the battery.

If electricity cost 1/2 as much, it would cost $9.28 to charge, and still cost nearly 4 times as much as gas. $9.28 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.37 per mile to operate the Volt using the battery.

$18.56 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the Volt using the battery. Compare this to a similar size car with a gasoline engine that gets only 32 mpg. $3.19 per gallon divided by 32 mpg = $0.10 per mile.

The gasoline powered car costs about $15,000 while the Volt costs $46,000.........So the American Government wants proud and loyal Americans not to do the math, but simply pay 3 times as much for a car, that costs more than 7 times as much to run, and takes 3 times longer to drive across the country..."



In February 2012, Eric Bolling did test drive a Chevy Volt and report on his experience for Fox News, noting (among other factors) that the Volt took 12 hours to charge and ran for only about 25 miles before discharging the battery and switching over to the gasoline engine, aspects he found particularly disappointing for an automobile that cost $46,500 and was heavily subsidized with taxpayer money

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/2011-chevrolet-volt-test-review
http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/chevyvolt.asp

For petes sake read all the comments and my responses before leaving another, I'm up to here with the response on this article from Mr Woolery (who the hell takes themselves so damn serious as to call themselves a name in the 3rd person?) 

1924 Electric Vehicle Expo

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10212445681246013&set=a.4705775571281.184479.1501025670&type=3

the Aaglander, a horseless carriage of this centuries creation

In the middle of Germany, on the slopes of the Steigerwald lies the medieval town of Prichsenstadt, the home of the Aaglander fleet and the 4-star hotel “Hotel Freihof”.

and steering it is pretty cool

http://www.escuderia.com/aaglander-el-lujo-de-la-lentitud/
http://www.aaglander.de/en/
https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2006/12/22/gotta-have-it/

Advertising directed at women, because they didn't seem to be buying cars that had to be crank started

http://www.blackdiamondnow.net/black-diamond-now/2011/01/electric-automobiles-a-return-to-our-past.html

way back in 1902-03, racing was pretty dangerous and wacky... they didn't have a lot of power, or advancements, but they could drive through walls unscathed

Back in 1902-03, Walter C. Baker built three streamlined electric racing cars. Called “Torpedoes,” these all-but-forgotten electrics should be remembered for four good reasons: 
  1) They allowed Walter Baker to become the first man in history to break the 100-mph barrier in a motorcar; 
  2) the Torpedoes’ bodies were remarkably streamlined, decades ahead of anything similar;
  3) because Walter Baker regularly crashed his cars, none of his speed marks went into the record books. Even in his own day, he became known as “Bad Luck Baker;” and
  4) what probably saved his life in all those crashes were plain, simple shoulder harnesses, an idea again much too modern for the times.

 

Baker mounted 11 batteries plus a 14-horsepower electric motor behind the seats and ran double chains to the rear axle.

 On Memorial Day 1902, May 31, the Automobile Club of America held speed trials on the streets of Staten Island, N.Y. Baker intended the Torpedo to set records that would overwhelm the makers of steam- and piston-powered machines. Rumor had it that the Torpedo was good for 120 mph, which at that time was roughly double the World Land Speed Record.

Baker chose to drive the Torpedo himself. His passenger and brakeman was the company’s chief mechanic and electrician, E.E. Denzer. Baker and Denzer covered the flying kilometer in 16 seconds, running exactly 100 mph, and they were still accelerating when Baker lost control crossing a set of trolley tracks.

 His steering went limp and, as Denzer yanked the brake lever, the car left the road and smashed sideways into the crowd. Two spectators were knocked flat but not injured. A third died instantly. The Torpedo spun 180 degrees, then stopped.

Baker and Denzer stepped out unscathed and were immediately arrested for manslaughter. But the police released them just as quickly, because the crowd had crossed protective barricades. Despite the accident, Baker had set a new record for the flying kilometer, albeit unofficially.

Then, in Aug. 1903, Baker entered both Torpedo in a special event for electric cars near Cleveland. A man named Chisholm drove one, started on the pole and was doing fine, until he got sideswiped by a Waverly Electric. Chisholm crashed and knocked down four spectators. No one was badly hurt, but Walter Baker, who’d been driving the second Kid, decided to hang up his goggles and stop running into people.

http://www.torpedokid.com/?page_id=41
https://www.facebook.com/thetorpedokid
http://www.rokemneedlearts.com/carsindepth/wordpressblog/?p=1028

Looks like Tim has the makings of a book, as he's spent 7 years researching to compile 75 pages of information on the topic of the Baker Electric Torpedo.

He hasn't printed it yet, but you can read it on a Kindle. Yes, I've pointed out to him that people who like old cars like other old fashioned things like hardcopy books. I don't think he's going to actually have any of thousands of book makers actually print some copies of his material into a book though.

I would. Once you've done that, you've created a lasting monument to your efforts of research and will forever after be known as an author. 

Chevy beat Tesla to the punch, you can now buy a Chevy Bolt, and for 30% less than Telsa Model S

Chevy intends to keep its promise of cars on the road before the end of 2016, and starts with selling the Bolt in California1st, the largest sales market in the country.

The Bolt has a 238-mile range, which gives it an edge over mass-market electrics that have been around for a while; the Leaf can go 107 miles on a single charge, the Fiat 500e just 85. GM will also have a jump on Tesla Motors Inc.’s first and hotly anticipated mass-market offering, the Model 3, due late next year.

But will it cost them? Chevy may be losing money on each car delivered. Not the first car model to do that.

Why do it though? So soon after a bankruptcy? Just to do business in some states that have legislated zero emissions cars (1st I've heard of this) from the big car makers in order to sell ANY cars in those states:
California crafted the doctrine, with tough clean-air rules and a mandate that automakers sell some non-polluting vehicles if they want to do business in the Golden State. Nine others have adopted it, New York and New Jersey among them, and all told they make up close to 30 percent of the U.S. market. 

That goes a long way to explaining why zero-emissions models from more than 10 brands are on the roads, with more on the way. 

Just consider how many gas guzzler trucks and sports cars Chevy wants to sell in those same markets, and those gas guzzlers are all the most expensive, and most profitable, vehicles that Chevy makes

Two California cities, Los Angeles and Bakersfield, are the most smog- and particulate-laden in the U.S. Brown has called climate change “the existential threat of our time.” And California is where ZEVs are being dumped. More than half of all electrics were sold there in the first six months of 2016, according to IHS Markit Ltd.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV’s battery-powered Fiat 500e is made for California alone, and Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne said in 2014 that it was losing $14,000 per sale. The company’s pretty much giving it away, at a monthly lease-rate of as little as $69.

http://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/12/chevrolets-bolt-configurator-goes-live-deliveries-before-years-end/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-30/gm-s-ready-to-lose-9-000-a-pop-and-chase-the-electric-car-boom