Hub Motor Company

Hub Motor Company
legal form	Company
founding	1899
resolution	1901
Seat	Chicago , USA
management	Charles Berg HL Irwin
Branch	Automobiles

The Hub Motor Company was an American manufacturer of electric vehicles .

Company history

The company was in 1899 by real estate brokers Charles Berg and the lawyer HL Irwin in Chicago ( Illinois founded). Your automobile appeared on the market as a hub , possibly with the addition of Electric . Although the company held patents, the original design seems to have been based on plans by Fred J. Newman and the engineer and designer Joseph Ledwinka (1869–1849), the latter a relative of the well-known automobile pioneer Hans Ledwinka (1878–1967) and pioneer of front-wheel drive in the USA.

The drive of the Hub Electric was innovative. It consisted of an electric motor in each wheel hub similar to that of the Lohner-Porsche presented around the same time . The company and brand names referred to this principle; hub is the English word for (wheel) hub. How the Hub Electric Company came into possession of the vehicle's plans is unclear. One theory is that Ledwinka had access to the documents on the Lohner-Porsche, brought them with her and sent them to the company under rather dubious circumstances. The timing speaks against this theory. The Hub Electric apparently appeared before the Lohner-Porsche Semper Vivus , which in turn was custom-built for a wealthy customer. Ledwinka should have traveled to the USA with the plans and found partners there for the construction; the partners, in turn, should have cranked up production so quickly that the Electric Hub (1899) could have been introduced before the Lohner-Porsche (1900). The Hub Electric Company itself was also founded in 1899; the company's name suggests that the company was set up for the purpose of building this very car. A contemporary illustration shows a carriage-like vehicle with two rows of seats without doors.

As early as 1895, long before the Lohner-Porsche and the Hub Electric , the Caffrey Steam appeared , a steam car with a small steam engine in each wheel hub. The drive principle was also known in the USA. In 1901 the Cunningham was built in Boston ( Massachusetts ) , a steam truck with a compound steam engine arranged in the middle of the car , which transmitted its power to each wheel via a drive chain , which also results in all-wheel drive.

Production ended in 1900.

Westinghouse

In 1901, technical laypeople Berg and Irwin had put the company in considerable financial difficulties. It was taken over by Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company in Pittsburgh ( Pennsylvania ), a subsidiary of the electrical company Westinghouse Electric , which manufactured passenger cars, buses and other commercial vehicles with wheel hub drives under its own name until 1903.

literature

• GN Georgano (Ed.): Complete Encyclopedia of Motorcars, 1885 to the Present. Dutton Press, New York, 1973, ISBN 0-525-08351-0 .
• Beverly Rae Kimes (Ed.), Henry Austin Clark Jr.: Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805-1942. Krause Publications, Iola WI 1996, ISBN 0-87341-428-4 .
• Beverly Rae Kimes: Pioneers, Engineers, and Scoundrels: The Dawn of the Automobile in America. Ed. SAE ( Society of Automotive Engineers ) Permissions, Warrendale PA, 2005, ISBN 0-7680-1431-X .
• David A. Kirsch: The Electric Vehicle and the Burden of History. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick NJ / London, 2000, ISBN 0-8135-2809-7 .

Web links

• Allcarindex with photo

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 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. 725 (English).
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Kimes: Standard Catalog. 1996, p. 721.
3. ↑ austria-forum.org: Hans Ledwinka (accessed on May 23, 2020)
4. ↑ Harald H. Linz, Halwart Schrader : The International Automobile Encyclopedia . United Soft Media Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8032-9876-8 .
5. ^ Kimes: Standard Catalog. 1996, p. 403.