WI Hybrid or Electric cars at the begin of the 20th century

WI the attempt of creating a hybrid or fully electric car like the Lohner - Porsche wasn't abandoned. What would be good PODs for pushing this development instead of gasoline cars? What would be the effect in society, technology and warfare?
 
WI the attempt of creating a hybrid or fully electric car like the Lohner - Porsche wasn't abandoned. What would be good PODs for pushing this development instead of gasoline cars? What would be the effect in society, technology and warfare?
Batteries. Anything for nice, lightweight and safe batteries cheaply manufacturable with 1901 tech. Unfortunately, that's pretty much ASB. :mad:

Fuel cells were known to be theoretically possible but platinum catalyst which needs pereodical replacement b/c of "poisoning" by impure fuel, and no way to store large volumes of hydeogen pretty much makes them as good as non-existing.

Everything else either won't cut it or is decades away.
 
Speaking first to fully electric cars, they existed and were a very large share of the market for a while. As a matter of fact, the first two land speed records were held by electrics, first to exceed 40mph and 60mph. Their death knell was better roads and electric starters. To elaborate, in the beginning intercity roads were poor so most driving was in-town, hence electric's limited range was irrelevent. Better roads = longer trips. Longer trips =/= electric cars. A big selling point of electrics was that women could drive them, as crank starting is physically demanding. When electric starters came in, this was no longer a problem.

As for hybrids, i've heard of them but seen no info, so thanks for the link. I'll read the references and get back to you.
 
Speaking first to fully electric cars, they existed and were a very large share of the market for a while. As a matter of fact, the first two land speed records were held by electrics, first to exceed 40mph and 60mph. Their death knell was better roads and electric starters. To elaborate, in the beginning intercity roads were poor so most driving was in-town, hence electric's limited range was irrelevent. Better roads = longer trips. Longer trips =/= electric cars. A big selling point of electrics was that women could drive them, as crank starting is physically demanding. When electric starters came in, this was no longer a problem.

As for hybrids, i've heard of them but seen no info, so thanks for the link. I'll read the references and get back to you.

Now there's a little difference in the english and the german wikipedia: The english says sad the Lohner-Porscher was a Hybrid and the german says that the modell of 1900 was a pure electirc
 
I did what i said (for once) and read the articles that the Wiki article referenced.

Now there's a little difference in the english and the german wikipedia: The english says sad the Lohner-Porscher was a Hybrid and the german says that the modell of 1900 was a pure electirc
They're both right, the 1900 model was pure electric, but later years were hybrid.

It seems that the main advantages the hybrids had was no need for gearboxes, shifting gears (which i hear was a HUGE pain back then), differentials, and probably a couple of other things, too. So they were more fuel efficient and faster, due to no mechanical friction losses in the drive train. Reading between the lines, they may not have needed to be crank-started which, added to no gear boxes, says they were much easier to drive.

What killed the early hybrids was the expense of batteries and electric motors, cheaper gasoline, and electric starters. Maybe more development dollars into gasoline told as well, driving their production costs down while those for hybrids stayed high.

More interesting than the Lohner-Porsche is that a guy name of Henri Pieper (same as H. Piper?) developed a regenerative braking system at about the same time.

Conclusions: higher gas prices and/or delayed adoption of electric starters seem the most obvious and effective PoDs. An advance in making cheaper electric motors would help. Maybe advances in steam cars would help, as money spent to buy them is money that won't go into developing better IE cars, keeping IE prices closer to that of hybrids. I'm sure there're other possible PoDs. Any PoD that keeps IC cars down or their prices up will help steam cars and motorcycles.

I've a feeling that if the hybrids can keep their vigor until TTL WWI-equivalent, they'll do well as a 'patriotic' car, using less gas which can go towards airmen, ambulances, &c.
 
Top