New Electric Vehicles AG
The New Electric Vehicles AG ( NEFAG ) was a Swiss manufacturer of electric vehicles , especially light trucks. In the field of company vehicles and in certain niches of public transport, the electric vehicle had already established itself in the second half of the 20th century. In addition to its competitors SIG in Neuhausen am Rheinfall and Oehler in Aarau , NEFAG was an important supplier of electric vehicles in Switzerland.
history
Hans Weiss (1899–1972) was sales manager from 1929 and director of the predecessor company EFAG from 1932 , which in turn was split from A. Tribelhorn & Cie. In 1918 or 1919 . AG emerged. In 1937 Hans Weiss took over a majority in the company worth 45,000 francs and renamed it Neue Elektrofahrzeug AG (NEFAG). The company mainly produced light commercial vehicles for road and company traffic and flourished until the 1970s. Customers were often milkmen or butchers with door-to-door sales. After Hans Weiss' death, the company was continued by his wife Margrit Weiss, a qualified mathematician . When she sold the company to Mowag in Kreuzlingen in 1980 , she was already retiring.
vehicles
NEFAG vehicles were considered reliable and, thanks to their electric drive, also easy to use. During the Second World War , in which Switzerland was not directly included as a neutral state, a lot of food and fuel had to be rationed. The difficult procurement of fuel led to a renewed bloom of the electric vehicle. During this time, NEFAG did good business with its electric vehicles and also converted heavy trucks to electric drives. After the abolition of gasoline rationing, the short wave of success for electric vehicles of all kinds was over again. Industrial vehicles such as the platform car , but also increasingly road vehicles such as the milk truck and other small delivery vans with three and four wheels, remained typical areas of application due to their constant "stop-and-go operation". Most vehicles had engines from 3 HP to 6 HP (2.2-4.4 kW), a payload of up to 20 tons and a range between 20 and 50 km.
In the case of the cemetery vehicle or the electric road marking machine, the lack of engine noise has been proven to play an essential role in the purchase, as these machines could be used discreetly and even at night.
NEFAG today
Several vehicles and the entire corporate estate of this brand are preserved in the national transport collection in the Swiss Museum of Transport in Lucerne .
literature
- Martin Sigrist: Johann Albert Tribelhorn and his legacy at EFAG and NEFAG - pioneering history of the electric automobile. Association for economic history studies, Zurich 2011, ISBN 978-3-909059-54-6 (Swiss pioneers in business and technology. Vol. 93).
- Christoph Maria Merki: The bumpy triumph of the automobile 1895–1930. For the motorization of road traffic in France, Germany and Switzerland. Vienna 2002
- Gijs Mom: The Electric Vehicle, London 2004
- GN Georgano (Ed.), G. Marshall Naul: Complete Encyclopedia of Commercial Vehicles. MBI Motor Books International, Osceola WI, 1979; ISBN 0-87341-024-6 .
Web links
- Swiss Museum of Transport: NEFAG electric three-way tipper PK 1054 (1964). (accessed on September 19, 2016)