[HN Gopher] Woman with rectifier and electric car (1912)
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Woman with rectifier and electric car (1912)
Author : 1970-01-01
Score : 258 points
Date : 2024-01-01 17:33 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nyheritage.contentdm.oclc.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (nyheritage.contentdm.oclc.org)
| genman wrote:
| If you look at the picture carefully then you can notice that
| there is no steering wheel.
| antiframe wrote:
| Before steering wheels were commonplace many horseless
| carriages used levers.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Right. There's a steering tiller to the left side.
| yial wrote:
| The silver bar on the left of the vehicle controls the steering
| by pushing or pulling it towards or away from the driver. The
| linkage is exposed as well.
| repsak wrote:
| Obviously self driving!
| junon wrote:
| Related:
|
| - https://www.driving.co.uk/features/charging-electric-car-loo...
|
| - https://artsandculture.google.com/story/ge-and-the-electric-...
|
| More photos of women and the GE Electric Car ca. 1912:
| https://www.flickr.com/photos/gereports/4993857638/
| ytdytvhxgydvhh wrote:
| It'd really be ahead of its time if the next photo in the series
| was: "Woman curses at phone when charging app requires update to
| function"
| blackaspen wrote:
| I still hate that I can't just use a credit card + pre-auth (or
| even cash!) at an EV charging station like I can at every
| single gas station. The data! It's! Important! To! Investors!
| ytdytvhxgydvhh wrote:
| Ideally we'd follow in Norways's footsteps and mandate that
| new charging stations accept credit cards but that's probably
| a lost hope with electric cars being a culture war issue in
| the US these days.
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| Americans prefer to just take whatever crap corporations
| give them, and our public chargers definitely are crap.
| thfuran wrote:
| Well, you see, imposing any limitations on the god-given
| rights of corporations gives the invisible hand
| arthritis.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| How is it a culture war? I thought that was pretty much
| over since the cybertruck convinced even hardline
| republican gas guzzler owners to buy one :P
|
| Elon is very intolerant but at least he is popular with the
| traditionally hardline climate change denier crowd. I'm
| really hoping that will make for bipartisan climate action
| support in the end.
| kbos87 wrote:
| Hasn't happened just yet, they still need more time to
| think up their excuses as to why they finally caved and
| bought the clearly superior technology ;)
| bluGill wrote:
| while the electric truck exists, it is in short supply
| and so you can't really get it. So they hake time.
| dubcanada wrote:
| This article seems to suggest there still is hold out
| amongst hardline republicans. Though it also suggests it
| could be gas costs related...
|
| https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/republican-strongholds-are-
| barel...
| ytdytvhxgydvhh wrote:
| True enough, the biggest Trump supporter I know bought a
| Tesla a few years back. But Trump has pivoted to
| something like "Democrats and globalists support electric
| cars so electric cars are bad": https://www.msn.com/en-
| us/news/politics/trump-wishes-electri...
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| A Cybertruck with a dedicated combustion engine for
| rolling coal, now that would be something.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| If you want to have some app-based loyalty programs or
| whatever, the way supermarkets do, that's fine.
|
| But this seems to be a perfect area for consumer
| regulation.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Not just Norway but also the EU (especially Germany).
| dangrossman wrote:
| The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 included
| $7.5 billion to establish the National Electric Vehicle
| Infrastructure program. This program aims to build
| substantial charging stations every 50 miles along every
| major travel corridor in the US. The first charging
| stations funded by it opened earlier this month. NEVI
| requires that all charging stations built with this funding
| not require any accounts or apps to initiate a charge, so
| they will likely all have credit card terminals.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Cash wouldn't work as most charging stations would be
| constantly broken due to attempts to rob them. It's why even
| parking meters no longer take cash.
|
| In Amsterdam a lot of the officials that collected the coins
| actually took a lot for themselves even. All those little
| coins add up to a lot.
|
| But it should NOT be necessary to give up your privacy.
| Privacy is a human right.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _In Amsterdam a lot of the officials that collected the
| coins actually took a lot for themselves even._
|
| Considering the fact that the machine counts the coins it
| receives, and a value of coins gets deposited in a bank,
| this seems like the easiest fraud in the world to catch.
|
| If that went on for a long time, that is some horrifically
| incompetent oversight.
|
| Edit: I'm suddenly realizing this was probably about the
| pre-digital coin-operated parking meters. Which makes me
| wonder how _could_ you prevent widespread skimming? Unless
| they had tamper-proof "odometers" inside that you had to
| record the value of each time you emptied them?
| dotancohen wrote:
| > Considering the fact that the machine counts the coins
| it receives
|
| It doesn't. The added hardware for that would be
| redundant if you could trust the coin collectors.
| Remember, these were completely mechanical devices.
| anticensor wrote:
| Yes, they had mechanical odometers in them.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| They did but the values were registered by the same
| people that emptied them.
|
| Eventually it was very hard to find who tampered with the
| books but eventually they were caught, which is how we
| know about it.
| tzs wrote:
| > Cash wouldn't work as most charging stations would be
| constantly broken due to attempts to rob them. It's why
| even parking meters no longer take cash.
|
| Most gas stations in the US take cash without having to
| fend off constant robbery attempts. I don't see why EV
| charging stations could not do the same.
| jandrese wrote:
| Isn't the vehicle itself the authorization for Tesla?
| blackaspen wrote:
| There's an SAE standard for this, but I _also_ don't want
| that.
|
| I rented an EV, and had to download an app, use 2fa, and
| store my credit card, to be able to charge at the hotel I
| was staying at. This was pretty crummy.
|
| Vehicle-based auth, at least w/ rental cars, sounds like a
| great way to make lots of money with fees.
| martin-adams wrote:
| In the UK it's going this way. You can tap your contactless
| payment card to pre-auth then charge
| fisherjeff wrote:
| You can with some charging stations. Well, that's assuming
| the card reader works, which is a much less safe assumption
| than it is with gas pumps.
| doubloon wrote:
| yeah there should be an old-timey telephone where she has to
| call the charging company and give them her name and password,
| then ask them to begin the charge cycle.
| orblivion wrote:
| "Autopilot Mode" is where you just put the horse back on.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| I don't have the link handy, but there was a really
| interesting EV charging station guide from like 1920 that
| actually had phone #s to call if you needed the electricity
| turned on at the listed address (along with context like
| "this is the mechanics home phone, please only call during
| these hours unless it's an emergency")
| gauravphoenix wrote:
| that's all good but does it have FSD?
|
| Jokes aside, it is enlightening to see how far we have come. Just
| 10 years ago, seeing a Tesla in SF bay area would be a topic of
| conversation. Today, I have two Teslas parked in my garage and
| yesterday when we went for a NYE party, 80% of the attendees
| drove Tesla (or Tesla drove them ;)
| ronnier wrote:
| Same, I also have two Teslas. 21 Y and a 23 S Plaid. What an
| experience to drive every day, absolutely love both of them.
| tirant wrote:
| What's special about driving a Tesla that makes the
| experience remarkable ? I've test driven recent Model 3 and
| Model Ys and found the experience subpar compared to other
| EVs: noisy, uncomfortable suspension, lack of parking
| assistant systems, lack of reliable speed limit recognition
| and lane keeping assistant system, no matrix headlights or
| even HUD. Basically every new technology you can have in new
| mid/high range cars compares to my old 2008 VW Golf is
| missing on modern Model 3/Ys. I loved the spacious interior,
| but felt also cheap. The UI of the screen is also very nice
| and smooth, but I still prefer using Apple CarPlay. People
| compliment Tesla supercharger network, and I have to admit
| I've never used it, but I also have to say I never had an
| issue with other HPC networks like Ionity or Fastned in
| Europe.
| speedgoose wrote:
| The value.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Not OP. Have driven over 110k miles in a 2018 Model S, bury
| me in it, I almost love it more than my family. Value is
| subjective, of course, but few material possessions bring
| me as much joy as driving fully electric across the country
| while the vehicle is on Autopilot (have driven across the
| US the last 6 years almost exclusively on Supercharger fast
| charging [1]). I paid for the future and got it, that is
| value (to me).
|
| (own an S, an X, and two Ys; also have a Cybertruck
| reservation)
|
| [1] https://supercharge.info/map
| ronnier wrote:
| The fsd is magic. Watching it make turns etc.
|
| And for my S plaid, it will beat anything on the road. Any
| super car or hyper car, it will take in 0-60 and the
| quarter mile.
|
| The sound system is extremely good.
|
| And the fact that my car has a gpu with steam and wireless
| controllers is a very cool feature. Playing street fighter
| in my car on an 18" screen is extremely neat.
| leovander wrote:
| > it will beat anything on the road. Any super car or
| hyper car, it will take in 0-60 and the quarter mile.
|
| What roads are you racing on and how often are you having
| to race a quarter mile?
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| If a Camry kicks up a rock and breaks your windshield,
| can you get it fixed easily?
|
| I'm not being sarcastic in that question: my cousin
| waited several months for a repair on his Model 3 in the
| Phoenix metro area with at least 2 dedicated Tesla
| corporate garage facilities.
| ronnier wrote:
| Yes. A bus broke my s plaid window with a rock. Had it
| fixed within a week. Dropped it off in the morning and
| had it back by 4pm
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Nice! I wonder if my cousin's repairs coincided with
| parts scarcity during the pandemic era confusion.
| nixass wrote:
| > The fsd is magic
|
| My car has adaptive cruise control too.
|
| > Any super car or hyper car, it will take in 0-60 and
| the quarter mile.
|
| Wow such a high schooler mentality. It's literally the
| only thing worth mentioning when describing Tesla to
| someone.
| badpun wrote:
| > The fsd is magic. Watching it make turns etc.
|
| Shouldn't you watch it at all times, since it's not
| reliable? Sounds more like a gimmick to me, just driving
| the car yourself seems less tiring than constantly
| hovering over an ai-driven car, being ready to take over
| in an instant.
| loceng wrote:
| Arguably the sole reason the industry has come so far is
| because of Elon Musk not toeing the industrial complex line, of
| which clearly has attempted to suppress EV - whether was the
| status quo administrators-operators who weren't competent or
| compelled to create good enough disruptive technology - or it
| was mostly the oil industry attempting to squash it.
|
| I don't predict EVs will completely takeover though, as there
| is major distrust now of most governments and the one world
| order that seems to be attempting to form, and the highly dense
| energy of easily transportation gasoline is an obvious way to
| not be dependant on an easily controlled-captured power grid.
| recursive wrote:
| It seems easier to get an EV charger off grid than a ICE
| refueling. Gasoline relies on refineries. You can charge your
| EV from solar panels at your secret hidden mountain lair.
| bluGill wrote:
| But you can but gas in a can as needed. Many remote
| locations don't have much solar potential because of
| lattitude.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Just have to check how much solar power solar panels
| produce during day now in areas beyond Artic Circle...
| Doesn't seem exactly great technology.
| cesarb wrote:
| > It seems easier to get an EV charger off grid than a ICE
| refueling. Gasoline relies on refineries.
|
| That's because you're restricting the ICE to gasoline. I
| believe you don't need a refinery to produce ethanol from
| sugarcane (ethanol-fueled ICE vehicles are common here in
| Brazil); I don't know much about diesel, but you might also
| not need a full refinery to produce biodiesel.
| jackjeff wrote:
| Considered how expensive EVs are and since they can't do
| simple things like airport return trips, I predict that gas
| guzzlers still have a long life ahead of them.
|
| I know EVs will get cheaper. But there's no chance they'll
| ever be as inexpensive as the cheap gasoline cars that some
| people can barely afford today. It's unavoidable for car
| ownership to go down on the long run.
|
| It may not be such a bad thing to have more public transport
| or car sharing schemes though... but in the mean time expect
| disenfranchised people to vote for populists candidates that
| go against EV policies, hence slowing down adoption.
|
| The tail end of EV adoption will be a lot longer than people
| think in opinion.
|
| My guess is 20 years for 2/3 cars to be EVs. 10 years for new
| cars and another 10 for the second hand market.
|
| It took about 10 years for SUVs to become the de facto car
| form factor. So I see a similar adoption here.
| quonn wrote:
| What do you mean by ,,can't do airport return trips"?
| RetroTechie wrote:
| You got that reversed: EVs match well with off-grid /
| decentralized power generation like solar.
|
| ICE vehicles otoh _depend_ on gas stations & all the
| infrastructure behind those. Yes they're still everywhere &
| you have range, but sooner or later you have to visit one.
| Only exeption are engines that take fuels like plant oils (
| _some_ diesel engines) or perhaps ethanol.
| oaththrowaway wrote:
| EVs have bigger capacity than my off-grid house. No way I
| could keep one charged while also trying to power my house.
| In the winter my standby generator has to kick on just to
| keep my house powered. It's not even a matter of adding
| more panels, just living in the mountains I only get so
| much sun in the shorter winter days... And that's if I have
| clear skies and without snow covering the panels
| phyzome wrote:
| No, but the horseful carriage did.
| Stratoscope wrote:
| A recent test drive:
|
| https://youtu.be/Xzk6acQO-KQ
| willtheperson wrote:
| Fully charged show did an episode on this car (or maybe just this
| era.) either way, I found it interesting to see the similarities
| in design to todays evs considering how early so many of these
| concepts were.
|
| https://youtu.be/Xzk6acQO-KQ?si=zNIOA70iBS2_upWf
| fs_tab wrote:
| Interestingly, these were capable of 30-40 miles of range on a
| single charge (essentially the same range you get with modern
| Plug-in Electric Hybrids on battery power)
| tsunamifury wrote:
| At 20 or so mph. A lot different than 65mph
| cldellow wrote:
| A quick Google suggests that early cars were also lighter--
| probably easier to hoick about a 1,200 lb Model T than a
| 3,000 lb Camry.
| bee_rider wrote:
| That's a smaller difference than I'd have expected, tbh. I
| guess it makes sense though, lots of work has gone into
| making cars safe and light.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| I rode in a Model T. It has a serious golf cart nature.
|
| This article from 1936 captures it well.
|
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1936/05/16/farewell-my-
| lo...
| everybodyknows wrote:
| Yes. Recall that wind resistance goes as the square of speed.
| bluejekyll wrote:
| It's hard not to look at this and think that battery technology
| would have progressed far more had the electric car been chosen
| rather than gas and how that would have meant all the investment
| into efficiency that the gasoline engine got, batteries and
| electric motors would have gotten all of that investment instead.
|
| I was trying to find the range of gas cars vs electric in 1912,
| and it looks like gas cars at that period tended to be a little
| over 100 miles and the best electrics were 80, with most at 50.
| It's too bad the Model T wasn't electric.
|
| " While the prototypes seemed to work well enough, in Ford's view
| they had a fatal flaw. His development crew had been unable to
| get the Edison batteries to perform as required. While nickel-
| iron batteries have a long service life, they are slow to charge,
| produce less voltage per cell, and as we've already seen, are
| considerably more expensive. To move the project along, the team
| substituted ordinary lead-acid batteries, and at that point
| Ford's patience reached its limit. Without the Edison batteries,
| the electric flivver no longer had any reason to exist, in Ford's
| mind anyway. After a reported expenditure of $1.5 million, mainly
| in Edison batteries, Henry pulled the plug."
|
| https://www.macsmotorcitygarage.com/henry-fords-electric-mod...
| KolmogorovComp wrote:
| This raise an interesting question. Is improving the battery
| tech an inherently more difficult problem than the efficiency
| of a thermic motor?
|
| I'd intuitively think so, as it's mostly chemical compared to
| mechanical work, and that would explain why thermic engine were
| favoured at the time. (On top of economic reasons)
| usrusr wrote:
| If battery tech was easy and it only failed to progress
| faster due to lack of a well-funded use case, then submarine
| warfare should have brought us to Tesla-grade batteries in no
| time.
| nick222226 wrote:
| Fission batteries, baby!
| Gare wrote:
| Currently there are two land vehicles that drive with
| them :)
| fragmede wrote:
| That did bring them nuclear reactors though. Hasn't helped
| my electricity come from nuclear.
| Philip-J-Fry wrote:
| That's the next step though. SMRs, Small Modular
| Reactors. Basically the same sort of thing that's in a
| submarine but dotted around our neighbourhoods and
| cities.
| __m wrote:
| Panasonic-grade
| avianlyric wrote:
| I don't think it so much that battery chemistry is so hard to
| improve, but rather the energy density of oil is so high, you
| don't simply don't need an efficient thermic motor to do
| useful work.
|
| If you completely ignore the externalities of oil (which we
| did for a very long time). Then it's very hard for an
| electric battery to compete with diesel or gasoline. Gasoline
| has an energy density of about 46MJ/Kg, compared to a lithium
| ion battery at just 0.9MJ/Kg and that's a modern battery. A
| lead acid battery is just 0.15MJ/Kg.
|
| So right out of the gate, your thermic motor can be _two
| orders of magnitude_ less efficient than your electric motor,
| and still achieve the same range with an equivalent mass of
| stored energy. And that's ignoring the fact the thermic
| engine burns its fuel, so does more useful work as the mass
| of stored energy drops.
|
| To be quite honest, it's astounding to me that electric
| traction was even remotely competitive with thermic traction
| back in Henry Fords era. The head start thermic engines get
| from such high density fuel is kind of obscene.
| MBCook wrote:
| I had heard that Edison's batteries were subpar compared to
| other contemporaries. Which makes me wonder if things would've
| been different if Ford and Edison weren't friends.
|
| But gasoline is so energy dense and at the time was so
| incredibly cheap I think it would've been a fight even if the
| batteries were better.
| asdfsadfklj wrote:
| I don't think it would have been popular. Oil is very cheap
| $/potential energy and not range-limited in the same way EVs
| are. And even if you dumped trillions of $s in battery tech 100
| years ago it's not clear it would be enough to really improve
| the situation.
| emodendroket wrote:
| Given how central gasoline was to developments leading up to
| and during the Pacific War (like the role of the Dutch East
| Indies), history would change in all sorts of difficult-to-
| imagine ways.
| hef19898 wrote:
| The reason ICE cars won, is that electro motors got good enough
| to serve as starter motors for ICEs. Which is kind of ironic.
| olyjohn wrote:
| Also if you wanted to travel a longer distance, you just
| threw a couple cans of fuel in the back. Neither electricity
| nor fuel stations were abundant, but extending the range
| using gas was dead nuts simple.
| berkes wrote:
| It makes the assumption that in early 1900 people wanted or
| needed to travel far.
|
| Did they? Even today, most travels are under 100km, often
| averaging around <60km a day for commutes and less for non
| commutes. Would that have been different then? I wouldn't
| be surprised to learn that back then, when the car was
| replacing horse drawn carriers, on a very rudimentary
| infrastructure (no tarmac, no paved roads outside of City
| centers) it was even less.
| toast0 wrote:
| It's not only about traveling long distances. It's about
| traveling short distances many times without refueling.
|
| And about recovering from using your fuel. It's easier to
| walk (or hitchhike) to a fueling station and carry a
| gallon or 5 of fuel back to your vehicle than it is to
| carry back a similar amount of electric charge. So you've
| got to move the vehicle somewhere it can charge --- not
| too hard today, electricity is near omnipresent and
| highly standardized in the developed world and mobile
| generators are common; but in the early 1900s, not so
| much.
|
| I imagine few people were regularly using personal
| vehicles for commuting at the dawn of cars, but cars and
| trucks are immensely useful to move goods. Rapid point to
| point transport of goods for routes beyond navagable
| waters and the rail network opens up a lot of opportunity
| for trade and doing business in more of the country.
|
| Note that cars can work with minimal infrastructure ---
| pavement is nice, but not required, although modern cars
| might not like it very much.
| datameta wrote:
| General agreement, but I must say the difficulty of
| travel without roads using thin solid rubber wheels and
| rudimentary suspension was rather rough, regardless of
| engine tech.
| drewcoo wrote:
| > It's easier to walk (or hitchhike) to a fueling station
| and carry a gallon or 5 of fuel back to your vehicle than
| it is to carry back a similar amount of electric charge.
|
| That seems more like post facto justification than an
| original design consideration.
|
| Early cars were meant to be easily fixed, though. And
| that was likely a design consideration. Before cars were
| fuel-injected and full of computers there were "shade
| tree mechanics" everywhere. Of course "easy to fix" is
| maybe just a proxy for "unreliable." Kind of like
| software . . .
|
| > cars and trucks are immensely useful to move goods
|
| So are wagons pulled by draft animals. In fact, those
| wagons are much more reliable before roads were built to
| enable the automobile. Probably why there was a reliance
| on them for several generations after the country was
| crisscrossed with rail.
|
| > pavement is nice, but not required
|
| Pavement as we think of it was designed for cars, not
| vice-versa. The Appian way has lasted for thousands of
| years, but that's not much like how our streets and
| highways are built.
|
| https://pavementinteractive.org/reference-desk/pavement-
| type...
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| > So are wagons pulled by draft animals. In fact, those
| wagons are much more reliable before roads were built to
| enable the automobile. Probably why there was a reliance
| on them for several generations after the country was
| crisscrossed with rail.
|
| define reliable? Of course there was reliance on them,
| rail doesn't go all the way to your back garden
| hugh-avherald wrote:
| Everyday commuters? Perhaps not. But a couple of years
| after this photo there was a major increase in demand for
| vehicles with extended range.
| notahacker wrote:
| Ford sold a couple of million Model Ts (and gave up on his
| electric car project with Edison) before offering an electric
| starter motor as an option. The advantage of ICEs at the time
| was massive even if you had to hand crank the engine.
| intrasight wrote:
| > ... battery technology would have progressed far more had the
| electric car been chosen rather than gas and how that would
| have meant all the investment into ...
|
| Replace gas/elecric with digital/analog. Is something I
| contemplated having studied neuroscience.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I think I somewhat disagree, having studied EE, although I
| did get out on purpose, so maybe I am biased. Analog circuits
| can be a real pain, though.
|
| When the voltage means something, you actually have to get it
| right. With digital circuits, just smash it in the right
| direction as fast as possible. Get anywhere near Vdd and you
| have a 1, perfect!
| sethev wrote:
| $1.5 million in 1912 is almost $50 million today, so he
| invested pretty heavily in electric before moving on. Without
| the benefit of hindsight, it's hard to imagine that going
| differently.
|
| I wonder if anyone at the time had an inkling of the long-term
| downsides of gasoline powered engines?
| wredue wrote:
| Climate change predictions look to have "began" around 10
| years after the first patent for gas vehicles, but predate
| mass production by a decade.
|
| There probably wasn't widespread knowledge at the time of
| mass production.
|
| Then ~70 years ago, vehicle and oil giants absolutely knew
| what was happening and got the wheels spinning on a massive
| propaganda machine that continues to thrive today.
| collias wrote:
| To be fair, I'm not sure choosing electric over gasoline
| cars at that time would have much effect on our current
| climate situation, assuming equal timelines for renewable
| tech.
|
| All those cars would have needed electricity from
| somewhere, and at the time, gasoline and coal were pretty
| cheap ways to generate it.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| It's not like they had solar, wind or nuclear back then.
| Power was produced by burning coal which isn't that much
| better than burning gasoline.
| toast0 wrote:
| > I was trying to find the range of gas cars vs electric in
| 1912, and it looks like gas cars at that period tended to be a
| little over 100 miles and the best electrics were 80, with most
| at 50. It's too bad the Model T wasn't electric.
|
| It's pretty trivial to range extend a gas vehicle within
| reasonable limits. Gas cans had a lot of development (the shape
| and features of a modern metal gas can came together in the
| 1930s), but any container sturdy enough and sealable will work.
| In a model T, fuel was fed by gravity, so tank capacity is
| strongly limited by where you can put the tank. On a vehicle
| with a fuel pump, there would be more flexibility (my first car
| had a 33 gallon tank... if you combined that with a fuel
| efficient powertrain, the range would be huge)
| jetbalsa wrote:
| and at the time of the Model T you could just about run them
| on anything with hydrocarbons in them with some adjustments.
| A electric car required infrastructure that just didn't exist
| at the time until after the Rural Electrification Act in 1936
| hunter2_ wrote:
| > infrastructure that just didn't exist at the time until
| after the Rural Electrification Act in 1936
|
| While not entirely critical I suppose, not getting stranded
| in an EV today also relies on much newer stuff as well,
| like the on board computer using cellular communications
| and GPS to help find a charging station within range of
| your destination. I imagine that in the absence of this
| assistance, the number of disabled EVs would be intolerably
| high, and delivering a can of gas is much simpler than
| delivering electricity or towing.
| jetbalsa wrote:
| also if the amount of EV charging stations was the same
| as the amount of gas stations we wouldn't have that issue
| as well. Early gas was bought at stores in cans most of
| the time, bulk pumping was just not very common.
| berkes wrote:
| Yes. Those are the reasons why gas was chosen.
|
| But it doesn't make the question "where would we be now, if
| the choice had been made different" less interesting.
| somerandomqaguy wrote:
| Kind of depends on broad the answer is.
|
| In isolation, sure, battery chemistry might've gone a
| little further. But I suspect it would've plateaued sooner
| without the sophisticated battery management systems that
| modern integrated circuits enabled.
|
| When taken in scope of events of the 20th century like the
| World Wars? Countries that had adopted electric would've
| found themselves at a decisive disadvantage against
| countries that chose oil. The gas piston engine enabled
| advances in aviation and blue water ships. I have my doubts
| electric adopting countries would've survived against those
| advantages.
| pmontra wrote:
| I doubt that electric armored vehicles will fare well
| against oil counterparts in the next century. Powering
| large batteries every day on a long frontline like
| Ukraine / Russia is not easy. Transporting and hiding oil
| is easier.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| what had a 33 gallon tank?
| toast0 wrote:
| Scout II, factory option.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| That's pretty awesome.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _It 's pretty trivial to range extend a gas vehicle within
| reasonable limits. Gas cans..._
|
| gas cans!? the way we generally range extend a gas vehicle is
| to pull into a gas station and a couple minutes later you're
| on your way again.
|
| For electrics, gas cans would be additional heavy batteries,
| while filling stations have the longer refill time, which can
| fit your schedule (recharge while at work) or not (stop to
| recharge every few hours on a long drive).
|
| (please don't all start telling me about quick charging and a
| list of neat things to do while you wait and how the
| mindfulness is overall better. I'm just making a comment
| about available means to extend the range of a car)
|
| in the transition phase (horse to car), a farmer with a model
| T could use a horse and buggy to bring a gas can to a stalled
| car. Would have to tow the battery car to where there is
| electricity and a rectifier. Look up "rural electrification
| program" to see how little electricity there was in the
| hinterlands at that time.
| tuatoru wrote:
| At the time rural domestic light was provided by kerosene
| lamps. The kerosene was sold in four-gallon(?) tins by
| general stores. Gasoline was initially sold in the same
| way, as another product just like kerosene at your local
| general store.
|
| Familiarity is another thing that would have pushed people
| towards gasoline rather than electric. As well as the easy
| replication of the distribution network, by the same
| suppliers.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerosene_lamp
| drewcoo wrote:
| Electricity was not just unfamiliar to people. It was not
| understood. It was magic, possibly not just good magic.
|
| That was a time before electrical engineering as mature
| field really existed. The situation parallels software
| today.
|
| It didn't help that Edison was electrocuting animals
| across the country to frighten people about AC in the
| late 19th and early 20th centuries.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topsy_(elephant)
|
| The mysterious workings of electrical gadgets were also
| the inspiration for Rube Goldberg's cartoons.
|
| https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/story-behind-rube-
| gol...
|
| That was the electrical zeitgest a little over a century
| ago.
| fmj wrote:
| Did you even read the article you linked to?
|
| > The story of Topsy fell into obscurity for the next 70
| years but has become more prominent in popular culture,
| partly because the film of the event still exists. In
| popular culture, Thompson and Dundy's killing of Topsy
| has switched attribution, with claims it was an anti-
| alternating current demonstration organized by Thomas A.
| Edison during the war of the currents. Edison was never
| at Luna Park and the electrocution of Topsy took place
| ten years after the war of currents.
| Teever wrote:
| I've had similar thoughts with regards to the development of
| solar panels.
|
| Imagine if America chose to respond to the 1973 oil embargo by
| investing tons of resources into the development of solar
| panels and made true energy independence a priority.
|
| We would be in a totally different position right now with
| regards to the climate and geopolitics.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| We would've spent a lot of time hanging around local maxima
| in both cases. The development of both modern batteries and
| solar cells required advanced material science. No one was
| going to build a Model Y in 1950, or a 25%-efficient solar
| cell in 1970.
|
| EVs lost because gasoline is fucking _awesome_ when
| considered solely as a means to transport energy and release
| it in a controlled manner. That 's really all there is to it.
| Teever wrote:
| Yeah, this is a thought I just had a few days ago and I've
| been meaning to look into what the bottle neck with regards
| to solar panels was.
|
| What sort of innovations in material science were needed to
| bring about the development of more efficient or affordable
| solar panels?
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| For solar cells, it was (according to Wikipedia) 1954
| before the first practical PV cell was built. So that's
| already a late start. From there it seems that a lot of
| technologies had to develop in parallel, from larger
| silicon wafers to advances in understanding how to work
| with thin-film materials.
|
| Meanwhile, in the 1950s and 1960s nuclear power was going
| to be the Next Big Thing, and it was understandable that
| low-efficiency PV tech was of interest only for things
| like satellites. IMHO, the top-down energy policy
| managers that couldn't fulfill the "too cheap to meter"
| promises of nuclear power wouldn't have been up to the
| task of accelerating PV technology either.
|
| Solar cells are not like gas lasers, which could have
| been built in a neon-sign shop in the 1930s if the
| science needed to steer the technology had been in place.
| They are more like practical neural nets. Sure, they
| could have been built in the 1960s... if only GPUs
| weren't so darned hard to come by.
|
| (And as someone else suggested, any nation that began the
| 20th century by pouring the resources into PV cells and
| EVs that we put into fossil fuels wouldn't have lived to
| see the 21st.)
|
| Similar story for lithium batteries.
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7215417/
| seems to be a decent survey of their evolutionary
| timeline. They consist of multiple discrete technologies.
| R&D that goes into a good cathode has to be done
| separately from work on anodes. Same for electrolytes and
| separators. Looking at the bibliography in that article,
| batteries don't seem like the sort of field where
| progress could have been accelerated just by throwing
| money at it, and I think that's true for PV tech as well.
| Teever wrote:
| The alternate timeline I was suggesting didn't start in
| 1900, but 1973, with the oil embargo.
|
| It seems to me that by the 1970s all the groundwork was
| there to start a solar panel revolution and that the
| major reasons it didn't happen were political and social,
| not technical.
|
| Keep in mind that I haven't done any research on this
| subject yet, I just thought of it a few days ago and I'd
| love to hear input from anyone who is much more informed
| on the subject than I am.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| I think when it comes to electric vehicles. The big issue was
| the batteries. It's a hard problem. Probably too hard for the
| science and technology 100 years ago. It's one hard problem
| after another. I worked with some lithium primary cells in
| the mid 80's. They were amazeballs and terrifying. They had
| an internal 4 amp fuse for safety.
|
| But solar, I think we really under invested. My semi-trollish
| comment is if we invested as much in solar as we did for
| nuclear we'd be 30 years ahead. Trollish because it upsets
| people with an emotional attachment to nuclear. But it's also
| flat out true. The technology was rapidly developed in the
| 50's and 60's but no one spent the money to mass manufacture
| them until early 2000's.
| aetherson wrote:
| This is really divorced from reality. There was just no way at
| all that electric cars would've been viable in the 20th
| Century. No, we wouldn't magically have developed modern
| computer-controlled battery packs of lithium ion batteries in
| 1920 if we just wanted it hard enough.
| resoluteteeth wrote:
| I'm sure the performance wouldn't have been comparable to
| modern electric cars, but what if car companies in 1920 had
| focused on producing electric cars that had a shorter range
| with a lower top speed?
|
| It's not like people were commuting 60 miles each way on
| highways in 1920, and I doubt model t's were actually
| normally hitting their theoretical top speed anyway.
| JesseObrien wrote:
| >No, we wouldn't magically have developed modern computer-
| controlled battery packs of lithium ion batteries in 1920 if
| we just wanted it hard enough.
|
| That's not what the commenter said. Don't put your
| interpretation of the words into theirs.
|
| It is very feasible that the investment of 100-some-odd years
| of battery research and a marked non-future invested as
| deeply into oil and gas as we have now would have rendered
| our entire world vastly different. This is not a claim that
| the future would have happened sooner, but rather the events
| that unfolded and the research would have been different.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| But it's not something that happened at random. ICE was
| just an objectively superior option back then.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I recall reading somewhere that the ICE took off because there
| were quite a lot of low hanging fruits and a path with less
| resistance, thus it let faster progress towards the desirable
| properties of a car.
|
| For example, it's way easier to move around a can of fuel
| rather than being limited to an electric grid in a time when
| electricity and proper roads were not ubiquitous yet. I imagine
| it would have been too limiting to need to bring the car
| somewhere specific to re-charge when you are still trying to
| figure out what this automobile thing is good for. Is it good
| at the farm for example? Can't tell with the electric car if
| you don't have electricity at the farm.
| theodric wrote:
| Furthermore, it's a lot easier to carry an equivalent amount
| of energy in petrochemical form vs the primitive lead-acid
| batteries of the day, long before hyper-optimized computer
| controlled motors were available to wring every last
| milliwatthour of efficiency out of them. And now increase
| distances and therefore desirable speeds corresponding with
| the growth of population, and it becomes more and more
| impractical to use electricity for personal transport in the
| years after 1912.
|
| I think viable electric cars landed about when they became
| practicable. Lead-acid absolutely shits the bed rapidly if
| discharged below _FIFTY_ percent SoC, so take your kWh rating
| and cut it in half straight away. And remember that you 're
| carrying around a ton of wet lead to achieve that. Not great.
| NiCd is crap, NiMH is better but not overwhelmingly so, and
| lead-acid can deliver a lot more current. Li-ion, then?
| Remember how rubbish laptop battery max charge cycle
| lifetimes were in 1999? The battery lasts maybe a year of
| regular use, and then it's shot and the laptop runs for 30
| seconds and powers off. And it costs $300 to replace. Now
| make it 200x the size and put it in a car you use for your
| daily commute and get ready to spend BMW money annually on
| new Li-ion. The improvements in battery tech in just the last
| 15 years are really something to behold, and not
| coincidentally that's when Tesla was able to start shipping
| compelling vehicles.
|
| Now somebody tell me why I'm wrong ;-)
| jacquesm wrote:
| > Now somebody tell me why I'm wrong ;-)
|
| If you insist: electric motors have always been _far_ more
| efficient than their ICE counterparts. 80% is easy, 90% is
| doable. 95% and up requires more tricks and even regular
| EVs don 't bother because they might as well use some of
| that waste heat to heat the pack or the interior of the
| vehicle.
| theodric wrote:
| The efficiency is undeniable, but it couldn't make up for
| the awful battery technology and absurd drag coefficient
| of a garden-shed-on-wheels car from the 1910s.
| Streamliners and aerodynamics matured a little later.
|
| It's a pity we didn't go for Otto-electric hybrid drive
| cars like the EMD locomotives that have been running
| since before I was a going concern. The genset runs at
| its optimal RPM for power delivery and fuel consumption,
| with rapid refuelling and the massive range benefits of
| liquid fuel while the electric motors deliver a wall of
| torque and minimal driveline losses all the time. Dump it
| into a battery (or a flywheel KERS, whynot) to smooth out
| the peaks and valleys if you're feeling fancy. I am
| nearly certain that we had all that tech in 1912 - it's
| completely analog and self-regulating! - but it probably
| didn't pay for itself back in the days before they'd
| invented things like the environment and non-unlimited
| supplies of crude. Bummer.
|
| I still want to build an EMD lawnmower.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Streamlined isn't a concern below 30 mph or so.
| theodric wrote:
| And 30mph is fine if you're not going very far, but
| that's not what people wanted, and their wants dictated
| what technology succeeded at the time. Even a Model T
| could do about 50 MPH, not that you'd want to, and not
| that you'd be able to stop in time if anything bad
| happened, but it did it and delivered 20 MPG in the
| 1910s.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| This does not make him wrong. It's barely even relevant
| because even with that difference, even with todays
| batteries and motors, it still doesn't hold a candle to
| the utility of ice. Let alone then. I'm not saying I like
| it or hate the idea of evs, but the facts are the facts.
| Geisterde wrote:
| Its a little overambitious to compare electrical
| efficiency and heat cycle efficiency. Electrical
| efficiency says nothing about how that energy was
| generated; if it was generated in coal, gas turbine,
| nuclear etc then you simply cant exceed carnot efficiency
| (solar is far less efficient than that for how much
| energy hits the panel); it also doesnt say anything about
| the extractable specific energy, which far favors ICE
| vehicles, efficiency be damned, ice will run longer on a
| fixed weight of fuel than an EV will on the same weight
| battery.
|
| EVs in my experience have been a step change in car tech.
| Having a battery as a starting point rather than an
| alternator opens so many doors, from just having a stable
| grid to run devices on, the real time AI video
| processing, to the ability to play modern games on the
| cars hardware. The designs are far more simple than ICE,
| take the steering wheel off a tesla vs an ICE and you can
| get a peak at just how far behind ICE is in relying on
| complicated and expensive implementations of basic
| functions.
|
| I just don't like these comparisons regarding efficiency,
| we arent really making a fair comparison; if we did EVs
| would probably lose considering the energy source and
| transmission losses, and it still would be a useless
| metric because thats not what anyone (sane minded) has
| ever bought a car for. All I care about is that the cost
| of ownership makes sense; the fact that the total
| efficiency of my own setup, where solar charges my car,
| is probably <25%, does not concern me.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| With a mature grid and better long distance (electric of
| course!) rail, electric cars and busses could have been the
| last mile instead of _all_ the miles. During the War it was
| not uncommon for cars and busses to carry a little wagon
| for syngas generation. Imagine that, but with a system of
| battery wagons.
| saalweachter wrote:
| I've always felt like farms should be able to have another
| route to electrification, because you're dealing with the
| same set of fields in a constrained geography for years at a
| time.
|
| Like, why go battery-heavy at all? Why not design some sort
| of EVA-like tether to a utility pole in each set of fields?
| Hook up your equipment when you enter the fields, spend 8-12
| hours driving back and forth attached to the tether, unhook
| and use a small battery -- or even a battery-trailer -- to
| reach the next field or the barn at the end of the day.
|
| Obviously there are problems with this scheme, but the point
| I'm getting at is that field work is such a radically
| different set of constraints to interstate, city or even rail
| networks that it feels like there should be a different set
| of solutions possible.
| mrtksn wrote:
| That sounds quite logical, and almost like there must be
| some equipment working that way.
| theodric wrote:
| There's a tethered electric ferry, anyway
| https://youtu.be/xhwZ-XFKJKk
| Aardwolf wrote:
| Not a farm example, but trolley buses do this in cities
|
| Apparently there was one in 1882: https://en.wikipedia.or
| g/wiki/File:First_Trolleybuss_of_Siem...
| theodric wrote:
| I think it would be tricky and would create more purpose-
| specific equipment to buy. Fields are big, like sometimes
| really big, definitionally remote, and electrical
| transmission losses are real at "normal" voltages with
| fieldscale lengths. And crucially, the weight of batteries
| is actually a benefit for a tractor: the heavier you are,
| the more you can pull and cantilever. Without them, you'll
| still be dragging around 5000 pounds of steel ballast to
| hit a useful weight on your tethered tractor. Batteries can
| also serve as remote power banks (electric PTO) miles from
| any electrical supply, just as regular PTO driven tools use
| the mechanical energy from the engine to do other work
| besides toodling and pulling anywhere on the farm.
|
| I mean, I'm open to it. Batteries are expensive-- most of
| the cost of a tractor conversion. Go build a prototype that
| competes on cost and I'll cheer from the sidelines and
| maybe buy one if I can afford it.
| bee_rider wrote:
| It might have resulted in a better world, less oil consumption
| and all that. But who knows? I wouldn't be surprised if the
| solution they came up with was to just use some slow charging
| tech and swap them at the battery-station. Hand over your spent
| battery to the local attendant, he'll either bring it in and
| pay some recycling fee or chuck it in a nearby creek for free.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| > It might have resulted in a better world, less oil
| consumption and all that.
|
| Considering pretty much all power back then was produced by
| burning coal and that lead acid batteries are not exactly
| environmentally friendly it's not that obvious.
| bear141 wrote:
| This is the tech that most Asian motorcycle manufacturers
| have recently agreed upon for interchangeable batteries
| without charging wait times.
| PKop wrote:
| Any nation pursuing this would have been dominated
| geopolitically, militarily, and economically by those that just
| took advantage of cheaper and more productive use of combustion
| engines.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Yep.. It's game theory, always has been.
| ajross wrote:
| > battery technology would have progressed far more
|
| Seems unlikely. The core innovation behind lithium cells is
| polymer chemistry that didn't exist until the 80's. There might
| have been a market to drive adoption, but it still needs to
| wait for the science.
| cornholio wrote:
| > battery technology would have progressed far more had the
| electric car been chosen
|
| This seems unlikely. There were major industrial and military
| uses for rechargeable batteries throughout the 20th century.
| Things like submarines, portable electronics, stationary
| fallback for critical services (phone exchanges) etc., all
| added up to a substantial economic interest in battery
| technology.
|
| The Nikel-Cadmium chemistry was known since 1899, but the
| materials and production process were considered too expensive
| to make them practical until mid 20th century. Advanced
| processing such as powder sintering to increase area were
| simply unknown at the time when the ICE vs EV competition was
| in play. By the 1920s, the ICE and petrol fueled cars were
| capable of ranges and fuel economies we can barely reach even
| today with Lithium batteries, a technology that became possible
| only in the 70s, taking advantage of substantial lateral
| progress in material and chemical science.
|
| A hypothetical world of electric vehicles would have spurred
| battery sales and investment by an order of magnitude or so,
| but the actual effects in hastening productization of high
| density cells would have probably been marginal and below what
| was required to win against the ICE, disproving the hypothesis.
| You can see this diminishing return of research at work today
| where, despite the order of magnitude increase in the battery
| market, progress is very still sluggish, pitted against hard,
| physical limits.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| True, but it's easy to imagine (to me!) an alternative past
| with battery replacement chariots etc.
| duck wrote:
| Most homes didn't have electricity at that time and wouldn't
| have it until the early 1930s.
| aamoyg wrote:
| What about steam? Especially with Doble fast steam boilers?
| chaostheory wrote:
| $1.5 million in 1914 is about $48 million dollars today
| rkagerer wrote:
| If you like "what ifs" like this, you might enjoy For All
| Mankind which is a fictional show about an alternate history
| where the space race continued after Soviets beat the US to the
| moon.
| thsksbd wrote:
| No. Gasoline cars have the advantage of not having to carry
| their own oxidizer. Even today, EVs make no sense at all
| compared to hybrids from a CO2 emissions stand point.
|
| Not only that, but the fundamentals of the thermo involved in
| ICEs were understood way before the electrochemistry thermo
| which lags thermal thermo by 50 to 100 years. Thats the theory;
| on the practical engineering side, by the time Goodenough was
| born in 1923, Sir Ricardo had figured everything we need to
| know about ICEs. Goodenough was working with late 20th (early
| 21st!!) century technology, Ricardo with turn of the 20th
| century tech.
| nojvek wrote:
| From perspective of electric cars, the efficiency compared to
| ICE (combustion engine) cars is fantastic. 90%+ energy is used
| to move the car with electric motors, while only 30% is used in
| combustion engine, rest is losses in heat and friction.
|
| Modern electric cars can now also use regenerative braking
| which means brakes last a long time.
|
| The biggest downside of electric cars currently is the
| batteries. They 100x less gravimetric dense than
| gasoline/petrol.
|
| Gasoline has volumetric density of 34.2 MJ/L and gravimetric
| density of 45 MJ/kg. Cost about ~$1/L. A 50L tank has same
| energy as ~450 kWh battery weighing only ~40kg.
|
| Lithium ion batteries have volumetric density of ~1 MJ/L and
| gravimetric of 0.5 MJ/kg. A 450 kWh battery would weigh 3,240kg
| (3 tonnes!).
|
| We are gonna be addicted to gasoline for a while until we solve
| for an equivalent clean energy dense fuel that can be
| efficiently converted to electricity.
|
| --
|
| In similar perspective, solar panels are now quite cheap
| (<$1/watt). The big problem is energy storage. Lithium
| batteries are still quite expensive, bulky and not much energy
| dense.
|
| Nature on the other hand has solved this problem millions of
| years ago. Natural solar panels (leaves) store energy in wood
| (mostly cellulose).
|
| Dry wood is ~20 MJ/kg and ~10MJ/L. Still >10X more dense than
| Li-ion batteries.
|
| --
|
| Long range electric cars use most of the energy to move the
| heavy battery instead of the payload inside the car.
|
| Humans don't weigh much (~70kg). A tesla model Y has (~770kg)
| battery. That's 10X the weight of payload.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| Not to mention refill time.
|
| Not to mention safety.
| DFHippie wrote:
| According to this IEEE article, ICE fires are a greater
| danger than EV battery fires.
|
| https://spectrum.ieee.org/lithium-ion-battery-fires
|
| Recharge time is not the problem as much as recharge
| frequency. I can go on long trips with my Tesla. I don't
| mind the recharge time -- it's a good chance to get a cup
| of coffee or take a bio break -- but their frequency is a
| little irksome (if you're being cautious to protect the
| battery life). But then, generally I'm traveling with at
| least one person who needs bio breaks pretty frequently, so
| it works out fine.
| boznz wrote:
| As Tesla 3 owner with a $4000 bill for a scrape under the
| passenger door at 1MPH navigating a tight carpark I will tell
| you there are definitely a few more things they need to get
| right.
| insecureforever wrote:
| The crux of the issue is missing on this entire conversation.
| The role of women, or perceived womanly roles, as this post
| shows, needs to take into consideration the plight of women
| during those times. Women's suffrage and the result of which we
| see in our current times is probably more an influence on the
| entire chain of thought here, in regards to the incredible
| advancement we see in gender roles we see now. The range and
| effectiveness of these vehicles, so desperately described as
| 'consistently improving with technology', misses the point
| entirely.
|
| So despite the current state of modern transportation/
| technological advancement, we can now all see what apparently
| matters most to a (now) seemingly useless generation of
| educated 'opinionated specialists' pitifully beholden to their
| investors or large banks (this means you Tesla!), the reality
| of actual utility (such as farm use or manufacturing) can be
| seen on a grander scale, eg. A mass grid of indentured servants
| working a non-optimized routine for decades (might have
| overestimated their capabilities in that sense) vs customized
| electric tools (think handheld farming, perhaps each attached
| with it's own horn - not necessarily loud or aggressive but
| like those you see on clown cars), would they have eventually
| revolted against the machines/electric tools taking their
| place? Like the farm equipment of the past, obviously not the
| current capable tech we have to read about daily (for lack of
| better offerings), those indentured workers would likely be
| seen as no different to said farm equipment of the past.
|
| Their only outlet to vent their frustrations at their inabilty
| to escape their milieu wouldnt amount to much more than dainty
| gossip, or to take a term from reddit 'circle jerks' (probably
| with not much to jerk about), but perpetually useless against
| effecting any actual change to their plight, espousing their
| views as best they could. So at least some technical know-how
| would give them a voice!
|
| Workers rights have advanced leagues upon leagues in the past
| century.
|
| We can only learn from the past and apply those competitive
| (capitalistic!) tendencies and methodology to building better
| tech and actively avoid the same pitifalls.
| layer8 wrote:
| And they drove 1000 miles with it in 1910:
| https://sweetbeacon.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/edison-elect...
| SushiHippie wrote:
| For others that also don't know what a rectifier is:
|
| > A rectifier is an electrical device that converts alternating
| current (AC), which periodically reverses direction, to direct
| current (DC), which flows in only one direction. The reverse
| operation (converting DC to AC) is performed by an inverter.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectifier
| anovikov wrote:
| Only reason why electric cars existed back then is because gas
| engine had to be hand-cranked before electric starter was
| invented in 1911. People hated doing it because it was dangerous
| and dirty. Especially women.
|
| As soon as electric starter became a thing, electric cars were
| dead. Their usage continued only with delivery vans for some time
| as gas engines were still unreliable and for delivery fleets,
| dispatch reliability was very important.
| notatoad wrote:
| pre-emptive mirror, because the site seems like maybe it's not
| going to handle much more of HN's traffic:
| https://imgur.com/c7uQbFr
| bunabhucan wrote:
| This is part of a whole series:
|
| https://artsandculture.google.com/story/ge-and-the-electric-...
| paulsutter wrote:
| What are we overlooking today that will be obviously a bad
| decision 100 years from now?
| bee_rider wrote:
| The obvious answers are things like plastics, but we can
| already kind of tell those are bad.
|
| I dunno, actually, it is hard to say because we tend to be a
| little pessimistic nowadays, I don't think we overlook much, it
| is just that there's an all encompassing feeling that every
| choice has negative outcomes and we have to pick one. Maybe
| that's the thing we're overlooking, cynicism disguised as
| skepticism resulting in total paralysis.
| berkes wrote:
| I'd say we are overlooking the willingness of humans to change,
| have less, or reduce their impact.
|
| I'm pessimistic, but I doubt the human race can bring up the
| sacrifices needed to save itself from slow (or fast)
| annihilation.
|
| We have the tech, the knowledge, the urgency and the funds to
| change. I'm convinced all that's holding us back from actually
| fixing stuff is social.
| Ekaros wrote:
| My guess will be under investment in nuclear energy... I just
| don't believe in global grids and scaling of storage.
| porkbeer wrote:
| Drinking water and sewage water treatment, and its
| ineffectualness when difficult to filter chemicals become
| concentrated.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| But it wasn't a bad decision. Unless we believe that investing
| ICE or steam engines was a bad decision. Based on technology
| available at the time electric batter powered cars were a dead
| end. The market was just too small to justify the massive
| investment required to make them competitive with ICEs.
| freetonik wrote:
| There is an interesting documentary about the stalled evolution
| of electric vehicles: Who Killed the Electric Car? [1] AFAIK,
| there is nowhere to stream it (at least in Europe), but you can
| rent or buy it online.
|
| It's tempting to blame the industry, and endeavor into conspiracy
| theories, but even without doing so, it is baffling how modern
| charging infrastructure and policies (again, at least in Europe)
| are not progressing very well. Apart from the Tesla supercharger
| network, all other charger networks still require you to have a
| dozen accounts, different payment methods, sometimes mandatory
| "balance" accounts, RFID tags, etc.
|
| 1. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489037/
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| One thing about these early electric cars that gets overlooked is
| how primitive their motors were.
|
| Yes, induction motors existed then because Nikola Tesla had
| invented them, but they couldn't be used in a car because they
| required AC. So cars were stuck with brushed DC motors. Those
| work but they're not maximally efficient and the brushes
| eventually wear out and need to be replaced.
|
| Today we use efficient induction and brushless DC motors in cars,
| and those are only possible because we have cheap power
| electronics that can chop up a DC voltage into an AC waveform of
| arbitrary complexity with fine precision. Power electronics
| didn't exist until the 1960s, and they only got cheap in the
| 1990s.
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| Who invented the field of power electronics?
| sbierwagen wrote:
| Julius Edgar Lilienfeld, the guy who invented the
| electrolytic capacitor, also patented the field-effect
| transistor in 1930. But he never made one, material science
| just wasn't there yet. (This is why the Nobel for "inventing
| the transistor" went to a completely different team who were
| using a different method 17 years later) Power electronics
| requires the whole suite of semiconductor technology:
| atomically pure silicon crystals, dopants, vacuum coating,
| lithography, etc. First VFD motor controller wasn't until
| 1982.
|
| The technology wasn't even remotely ready yet in 1912.
| Remember, the GM EV1 of 1996, with VFD drive and NiMH
| batteries that didn't exist and couldn't exist in 1912, still
| only managed a hundred miles of range. Despite the conspiracy
| theories, the EV1 wasn't a very compelling car. It required
| better batteries and motors to get something like a Tesla a
| decade later.
| bhickey wrote:
| > This digital image may be used for educational uses. Please
| cite as miSci - Museum of Innovation and Science. Prior written
| permission is required for any other use of the images from
| miSci.
|
| Glad to see copyfraud alive and well on Public Domain Day.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| There were solar panels in 1800s already
| https://www.smithsonianmag.com/sponsored/brief-history-solar....
|
| Apparently the inventor had tried to make a solar thermal
| generator but noticed a direct voltage being produced.
| legitster wrote:
| I've had the pleasure of riding in a Baker Electric Car. Very
| cool - one of my favorite antiques I've ever ridden in.
|
| It's worth pointing out that the early electric cars were almost
| exclusively sold to women. Early cars were messy and dangerous,
| and a safe easy-to-operate car was often bought by the wealthy to
| give to their wives. It ended up being the advent of the electric
| starter that killed the early electric cars more than anything.
| (Breaking your thumb hand cranking a car was a very common
| occurrence previously).
| robertkeizer wrote:
| https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/tags/electric-cars/
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