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100-Year-Old Electric Car Design Makes a Comeback

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the they-do-make-em-like-they-used-to dept.

CNet's Green Tech Blog is reporting that Detroit Electric plans to release a small number of cars based around a car designed nearly 100 years ago. Detroit Electric is a joint venture between Santa Rosa, CA-based electric transportation specialist, Zap and China's Youngman motors. "Back in 1917, a Detroit Electric cost anywhere from $1,775 to $2,375--in other words, fit for the proletarian or plutocrat. The cars could go 65 miles to 100 miles on a battery charge, but only go at speeds ranging from 6 miles per hour to 25 mph."

13 of 385 comments (clear)

  1. Why no go back to horses sometime? by CRCulver · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In the essay "Calvary in the Age of the Autarch" (collected in Castle of Days ) Gene Wolfe explains why in his far-future science-fiction epic The Book of the New Sun he had battles fought on horseback with some kind of genetically modified horse. They reproduce for you, they don't break down as stubbornly as machines (and can be used as dog chow), and they can graze instead of needing processed petrochemicals. I find that an intriguing notion, and I wonder when genetic engineering will get to the point that we can create new species to order.

    1. Re:Why no go back to horses sometime? by knarf · · Score: 5, Interesting

      they don't break down as stubbornly as machines (and can be used as dog chow)

      I can tell you're not living with a horse vet like I do... nor do you have horses yourself like we do... otherwise you'd see that horses are among the most fickle creatures ever to be kept by humans. Murphy is an optimist when it comes to horses: give a horse something to hurt itself on and it will. Keep some horses together and soon you'll see that some of them eat to much and develop laminitis (hoof wall shear) while others don't get to eat enough and soon resemble the Grim Reaper's skin-and-bone nag. Ride them and they'll need regular shoeing and/or hoof care otherwise you'll soon have more dog chow than you can chow. And when it comes to that, even if you were inclined to have your dogs eat your horses you'll probably find that those horses have been treated with some medicine one time in their lives which makes it illegal for them to be used for animal or human consumption - at least that's the way it is here in Europe. So if you plan to use genetically modified horses may I suggest crossing them with a wolverine or some other creature with better healing capacities?

      Bicycles are a better alternative...
      --
      --frank[at]unternet.org
    2. Re:Why no go back to horses sometime? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      There are many US troops in Afghanistan who are also riding on horses. When they get into trouble they call in airstrikes and helicopter gunships. I suppose that must look sort of bizarre in an anachronistic meets prochronistic sort of way.

    3. Re:Why no go back to horses sometime? by jandrese · · Score: 5, Funny

      I don't know if it's true, but I heard awhile back that Horses generally can only put out about 3/4 of a horsepower. Turns out when they were defining the spec the farmer lied about his horse.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
  2. Article doesn't have much to it. by sgt.greywar · · Score: 5, Informative

    "Back in 1917, a Detroit Electric cost anywhere from $1,775 to $2,375--in other words, fit for the proletarian or plutocrat."

    This was my Father's era and he was a "prole". Working as a logger he earned somewhere around $200-300/year. The earliest data for per capita income I could find was 1929 here:

    http://www.census.gov/statab/hist/HS-33.pdf/

    but even then it was ~$700/year.

    So how does a car that cost 3-4 years salary qualify as being "fit for the proletariotarian"?

    In today's terms that car would cost ~$120,000!

    Aside from a announcing a publicity stunt by a company cashing in on a green fad in visible and public low-carbonism (believe me the replica cars will *not* be for the proles!) this article is shamefully low on any actual news or facts.

    Just a bit of hype.

    --
    Laborare Est Orare
    1. Re:Article doesn't have much to it. by eebly · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'm not certain you're doing your math right.

      Using the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator, $2375 1917 dollars have the same buying power as about $39000 2008 dollars. That inflation is based on the CPI.

    2. Re:Article doesn't have much to it. by sgt.greywar · · Score: 5, Informative

      You are correct. Problem is that in 1917 the "proles" weren't making $2375 1917 dollars. They were making a few hundred.

      Doing CPI, GDP, or per capita back that far is pretty difficult but there was no way this vehicle was even close to the proletarian price range. the article just used it to be cute without regard to the facts.

      --
      Laborare Est Orare
  3. Who Killed the Electric Car? by mysqlrocks · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you haven't seen the documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car? then I highly recommend you check it out. It explores the roles of automobile manufacturers, the oil industry, the US government, batteries, hydrogen vehicles, and consumers in limiting the development and adoption of the electric car.

    --
    Bradley Holt
    1. Re:Who Killed the Electric Car? by Rei · · Score: 5, Insightful

      1) The Prius isn't an electric car. It's a hybrid. It's just an efficient user of gasoline.

      2) Priuses aren't largely driven by "the affluent". They're mostly a middle class car. And they've been a stunning success; Toyota has said not to expect any more increases in sales next year because they can't produce them any faster.

      3) "In the end" is hardly applicable; the adoption of hybrids keeps expanding, and automakers are offering more and more options. GM, for example, plans to release a new hybrid modelevery three months for the next four years.

      4) As for electric cars, there are a lot of myths. Here they are, all broken down for you.

      5) Yes, you are correct that there was no conspiracy to kill the EV1. The EV1 was never designed to be profitable; like all of its competitors, it was solely a byproduct of the CARB mandate. It was produced in tiny numbers, with tech far worse than what is available nowadays, based on a design that shared no common infrastructure with other GM vehicles (a "one-off"), and so forth. The leases were heavily subsidized. GM wanted nothing to do with actually making EVs, and as soon as the CARB mandate was overturned, they were quite glad to be rid of them. So were the other manufacturers who also had similarly unprofitable EVs. It was a horrible PR move, and GM realizes that now, but it made sense on the books, especially since GM was bleeding money at the time. And as for the "liability" argument, GM was 100% correct; lawsuits add hundreds of dollars to the cost of every car made in the US, and an owner can't disclaim liability for *someone else's* lawsuits. And as for the battery argument, please -- if GM cared about the EV1, they wouldn't have *sold the batteries* in the first place. They had already shut down many other part lines before CARB was overturned anyways; even if they had the batteries, they still couldn't have made more. The conspiracy arguments get crazier and crazier from there (like GM destroying the EVs because they wanted to "hide" them, yet in a fit of insanity they donated them to museums, but then they put pressure on the museums to hide them...)

      --
      That was either the start of something bad or the end of something stupid.
  4. Re:And this is being brought back why? by Ron+Harwood · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, they're just bringing the brand back... that should have been in the summary - but it does encourage one to read the article. ;)

    --
    BlackNova Traders
  5. Re:And they still work! by director_mr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Wow, Its cool how you know exactly what streets will be like in 50 years (They will be made out of dirt) AND that electricity will be readily available, yet no fuels to alternatively power vehicles. Particularly shocking to me is that they will not be able to use concrete to pave roads. They will HAVE to resort to dirt roads in the future.

    I will predict you are 100% wrong. That in 50 years we will have roads paved with something and cars will be run on something other than pure electricity. Heck, even the ROMANS didn't use dirt roads when they could avoid it. And that was 19 centuries before asphalt.

  6. Such a lovely place, that Eastern front by wsanders · · Score: 5, Interesting

    More German troops froze to death and were killed by disease than were killed by bullets. They were riding on horses because Germany was having a hell of a time supplying them and they were getting their asses kicked by the Allies.

    Let's move to the ecological paradise or the early 19th century, people in Europe and America weren't dying too much of disease and cold (at least if you could get clean water.) You were just walking though mud and horse shit up to you knees, or dying of cancer at 40 from a atmosphere constantly polluted by wood and coal smoke.

    I'll take our media cluster-fuck-slash-ecological apocalypse anytime.

    --
    Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
    1. Re:Such a lovely place, that Eastern front by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      more people died prior to the year 2000 than any other time in history