Page 21 - MetalForming Magazine February 2023 - Metal Forming for the Automotive Industry

FAMOUS FIRSTS
How Electrification Fits into the Automotive-Development Timeline
1478
Leonardo da Vinci sketches out a concept for a self-propelled vehicle
1600
Based on his studies of magnetism, English scientist William Gilbert coins the
Latin word “electricus,” leading to the English word “electricity”
1769
A French military engineer, Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, builds a steam-powered tricycle to haul artillery
1821
English scientist Michael Faraday invents the electric motor
1830s-1880s
With steam considered unwieldly as a vehicle power source, electric-battery R&D soars, helping to propel EV development
offered the best solution for motorized movement, using nonchargeable then rechargeable batteries as power sources. However, these vehicles lacked practicality, as they only could travel a few dozen miles at most. Still, EVs offered many advantages over steam-powered vehicles, which, though using tried-and-true technology, took a long time to start and required frequent water fill-ups that limited range. Electricity, on the other hand, offered clean, quiet operation—if only could those batteries improve!
Importantly, though EVs suffered from limited range, few saw this as a technology killer. Most people had no need to travel more than a few miles in any one day. Long-haul needs? Take the train.
Against this backdrop, battery and EV R&D continued, but a sophisticated new technology, the internal combustion engine (ICE), lurked. We can mark January 29, 1886, as the advent of ICE vehicles. On that date, Karl Friedrich Benz and Gottlieb Daimler filed patents separately for what are considered the first modern ICE automobiles, with Benz’s three-wheeled vehicle the first to integrate the ICE with a vehicle chassis, and Daimler introducing a four-wheeled vehicle featuring the first high-speed gasoline engine.
Some even saw how electric and ICE might prove viable in tandem. One such auto pioneer, Austro-Bohemian engi- neer Ferdinand Porsche, built the first hybrid automobile in 1899—the System Lohner-Porsche Mixte, where a gas engine supplied power to an electric motor that propelled a vehicle’s front wheels.
Also in 1899, other developments spoke to the acceptance of EVs. For example, Pope Manufacturing Co., Boston, MA, and two smaller EV companies combined to form Electric Vehicle Co., New York, NY, considered the first U.S. large- scale EV-production operation and also the largest overall U.S. motor-car maker. And, in Europe, Belgian race-car driver and inventor Camille Jenatzy broke the 100 km/hr.
The Duryeas, Charles Edgar (pictured) and his brother Frank, develop what is considered the first successful gas- powered car and set up the first U.S. automotive- manufacturing company
1893
Danish professor Sibrabdus Stratlingh, with his assistant Christiaan Becker, builds what was then considered the first drivable, steam-powered vehicle, a three-wheeled model that he later modified to run on electricity
1837
Vermont blacksmith Thomas Davenport gains the first U.S. patent for an electric motor, and uses that to develop an EV that runs on a track—considered a forerunner
of electric streetcars
1832-39
Robert Anderson invents the electric carriage, replacing a horse with a motor and nonrechargeable battery
1834
1859
French physicist Gaston Planté invents the lead-acid battery, the first rechargeable battery
1886
On the same day, January 29, Karl Friedrich Benz and Gottlieb Daimler file patents separately for what are considered the first modern ICE automobiles, with Benz’s three-wheeled vehicle the first to inte- grate the ICE with a vehicle chassis, and Daimler introducing the first four-wheeled vehicle featuring the first high-speed gaso- line engine
Images courtesy of Library of Congress
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