2023-08-14 04:00:14
At the very end of the 19the century, the big Western cities are growing rapidly and facing pollution that many inhabitants consider unsustainable. The main culprit? The horse, the means of transport of the time. There were so many of them – 300,000 in London in 1890, more than 150,000 in New York, nearly 80,000 in Paris – that their droppings posed serious problems, particularly from a health point of view. To remedy this, a solution emerged: replace these horses with horsepower, in other words these self-propelled vehicles then called “motor quadricycles” and not yet “automobiles”.
Among the various options available, the choice is difficult. Tradition inclines to rely on a steam vehicle, a technology that has proven itself on the rails but has a drawback on the road. Indeed, a small-sized boiler requires incessant stops to refuel with water and coal. Another solution is to bet on the petrol engine, a spectacular invention which has made machines difficult to drive but more enduring. In 1891, in Paris, Panhard-Levassor circulated a petrol-powered automobile between Porte d’Ivry and Boulogne-Billancourt (in what is now Hauts-de-Seine).
There remains a third way: electric traction. Also in 1891, the French coachbuilder Charles Jeantaud achieved a feat equivalent to that of Panhard-Levassor by covering 12 kilometers aboard a vehicle equipped with accumulators. His car does not lack advantages: silent, it starts smoothly, does not require exhausting oneself to handle a crank, and its operation is simpler. Of course, it takes a long time to recharge it on a domestic outlet, but finding a gas pump is, then, hardly less tedious.
An “electro-bat” in Philadelphia
It is in the United States, which in a few years has become the country of the automobile, that the rivalry between the three technologies is the fiercest. The outcome of the race they lead to win the bet will long remain uncertain. In 1900, steam cars still topped sales with 1,681 registrations, closely followed by electric cars (1,575). The thermals are clearly behind (936). Failing to have been able to adapt, the first will quickly decline, leaving in contention the silent engine connected to its lead batteries and the backfiring cylinders stuffed with petroleum.
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#Thermal #car #electric #car #rivalry #automobile
