Electric Carriage & Wagon Company

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This plaque from a Russian encyclopedia from around 1900 shows a Hansom Cab from the Electric Carriage & Wagon Company. The driver sits elevated on the battery box, and the passenger compartment is accessed from the front.

The Electric Carriage & Wagon Company was one of the earliest manufacturers of electrically powered taxis . The company existed from 1896 to 1897 in New York City ( New York ).

description

The company was founded in January 1896 with a capital of 10,000 US dollars . The driving force were Henry G. Morris and Pedro G. Salom , two important pioneers of the electric car in the USA , who had contributed significantly to the early spread of electric automobiles with the Morris & Salom Electrobat test vehicles.

Initially, the plan was to manufacture open and closed electric carriages, delivery vans, buses and omnibuses. Salom was convinced that an untrained owner would not be able to cope with the complex technology, so a trained mechanic would have had to travel with every vehicle delivered to instruct the customer. In addition, any repairs would have to be ensured over a large area. Then Morris and Salom deviated from this concept. Instead, they switched to the production of electric taxis, which were only offered in the cities of New York and Philadelphia ( Pennsylvania ). They were mainly - but not exclusively - rented to taxi drivers. Maintenance and charging costs were included in the individually negotiated contracts. This was ensured by specially set up stations that could each supply 10 to 15 vehicles. Above all, of course, empty batteries had to be exchanged for full ones, which saves a lot of time in view of the long charging time. The first twelve of these taxis began operating in New York City from January 1897. This also applies to the time of the first use of motorized vehicles for commercial passenger transport.

Very soon Isaac Rice took control of the company, which was now incorporated into his Electric Storage Battery Company (ESB) and led by ESB Managing Director WW Gibbs .

The EC taxi was modeled on the horse taxi. It had much larger wire-spoke wheels at the front than at the rear and narrow pneumatic tires all around.

In mid-March 1897, the preparations for a trial operation were completed and from March 27, 1897, the company offered its taxi service, initially limited to Manhattan . The tariff was the same as that of the horse carts: For 1–2 people, 1 dollar for the first two miles and 50 cents for each further.

In 1897, the Electric Vehicle Company took over the company, which has now been capitalized with $ 5 million and incorporated as a subsidiary of EVC . This included EVC vehicle production, the Electric Storage Battery Company with a valuable patent on batteries, and the Columbia Motor Car Company . President of the society was George H. Day (1851-1907), vice-president of the former naval officer Harold Hayden Eames . As the operator of the electric taxis, EVC bought the entire corresponding production of the ECWC. According to another representation, the ECWC was organized as a holding company and was reorganized as an Electric Vehicle Company after its takeover . So far, no other sources have been found for this view.

Individual vehicles

From 1894 to 1897, the vehicles had the brand name Morris & Salom , analogous to the individual items from Messrs. Morris and Salom, and Electrobat as model names. Also, according to a source, the brand name Electric Carriage was used between 1896 and 1897 .

Details are known about three vehicles:

  • Skeleton Bat was a lightweight two-seater bodyless with front-wheel drive and almost equally sized wheels in the front and rear.
  • Fish Wagon had a closed body for four people in the rear and also had front-wheel drive.
  • Crawford Wagon was an open two-seater with rear wheel drive.

literature

  • David A. Kirsch: The Electric Vehicle and the Burden of History. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick NJ / London 2000, ISBN 0-8135-2809-7 . (English)
  • Ernest Henry Wakefield: History of the Electric Automobile; Battery-Only Powered Cars. Published by SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers), Warrendale PA 1970, ISBN 1-56091-299-5 . (English)
  • William Greenleaf: Monopoly on Wheels: Henry Ford and the Selden Automobile Patent. Great Lakes Books / Wayne State University Press (March 15, 2011; first edition 1955); ISBN 0-8143-3512-8 . (English)
  • Beverly Rae Kimes, Henry Austin Clark Jr .: Standard catalog of American Cars. 1805-1942. Digital edition . 3. Edition. Krause Publications, Iola 2013, ISBN 978-1-4402-3778-2 , pp. 525 and p. 1002 (English).
  • George Nick Georgano (Ed.): Complete Encyclopedia of Motorcars, 1885 to the Present. 2nd Edition. Dutton Press, New York 1973, ISBN 0-525-08351-0 . (English)
  • Beverly Rae Kimes: Pioneers, Engineers, and Scoundrels: The Dawn of the Automobile in America. Publisher SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) Permissions. Warrendale PA 2005, ISBN 0-7680-1431-X . (English)
  • James J. Flink: America Adopts the Automobile - 1895-1910. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1970, ISBN 0-262-06036-1 . (English)

Web links

Commons : Electric Carriage & Wagon Company  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Greenleaf: Monopoly on Wheels: Henry Ford and the Selden Automobile Patent , p. 55.
  2. ^ Kirsch: The Electric Vehicle and the Burden of History. 2000, p. 41.
  3. ↑ Greenleaf: Monopoly on Wheels: Henry Ford and the Selden Automobile Patent , pp. 66-67.
  4. ↑ secondchancegarage.com: The Columbia Car: Reliable, Simple to Operate and Ready for Action - Page 3: To The Electric Vehicle Trust ( Memento from July 24, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
  5. ↑ Beverly Rae Kimes, Henry Austin Clark Jr .: Standard catalog of American Cars. 1805-1942. Digital edition . 3. Edition. Krause Publications, Iola 2013, ISBN 978-1-4402-3778-2 , pp. 1002 (English).
  6. ↑ a b c d George Nicholas Georgano (Ed.): The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile . Volume 2: G-O . Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, Chicago 2001, ISBN 1-57958-293-1 , pp. 1076 (English).
  7. ↑ Beverly Rae Kimes, Henry Austin Clark Jr .: Standard catalog of American Cars. 1805-1942. Digital edition . 3. Edition. Krause Publications, Iola 2013, ISBN 978-1-4402-3778-2 , pp. 525 (English).