SAE R-122-1993 History of the Electric Automobile Battery-Only Powered Cars (To Purchase Call 1-800-854-7179 USA Canada or 303-397-7956 Worldwide).pdf

1、History of the Electric Automobile Battery-Only Powered Cars Ernest H. WakefieldLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wakefield, Ernest Henry, 1915- History of the electric automobile : battery-only powered cars / Ernest Henry Wakefield. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and in

2、dex. ISBN 1-56091-299-5 : $49.00 1. Automobiles, Electric-History 2. Automobiles, Electric-Batteries- History. I. Title. TL220.W343 1993 629.2502-dc20 93-32254 CIP Copyright 1994 Ernest Henry Wakefield ISBN 1-56091-299-5 All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Permission to pho

3、tocopy for internal or personal use, or the internal or personal use of specific clients, is granted by SAE for libraries and other users registered with the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), provided that the base fee of $.50 per page is paid directly to CCC, 222 Rosewood Dr., Danvers, MA 01923. Sp

4、ecial requests should be addressed to the SAE Publications Group. 1-56091-299-5/94 $.50 SAE Order No. R-122Gustave Trouv, who in 1881 first assembled an electric vehicle Courtesy: H. Munn on entrepreneurship and many economic papers on Third World nations: African, Southwest Pacific, as well as the

5、Caribbean. In history he has recently completed editing fifty booklets bearing text and etchings entitled Wakefields American Civil War Series. Among them are The Battle of Mobile Bay, 1988. He has written The Lighthouse That Wanted To Stay Lit, 1992, and also on genealogy for writers who have acces

6、s to a word processor. In fiction Dr. Wakefield wrote The Treasure of Fishermans Reef, 1953. Using his forty- year experience in nuclear energy, he has also chronicled the chance of nuclear winter, and has written a three volume love story. xiPreface This book is the story about electric automobiles

7、. In anticipation of oil shortages and increasing air pollution in American cities the U.S. Congress passed over a Presidential veto the Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Research, Development and Demonstration Act of 1976. By nomenclature the Congress differentiated between battery-powered electric vehic

8、les and those vehicles which might have both battery-power as well as other means of propulsion. This particular book is devoted to the history of the battery-only powered electric vehicle and its components. A second volume is being written that covers the development of the many multi- powered ele

9、ctrics including battery-powered plus: a spring, an internal combustion engine, a flywheel, solar cell powered, and fuel cell vehicles and their unique constituents. As batteries, controllers, and electric motors are common to both classes of vehicles, their development is in this volume only. While

10、 probably no person has exact knowledge, qualitatively speaking possibly equal time has been spent on each of these two paths of personal transportation. Presently intense work is proceeding on battery-only powered vehicles with possibly less emphasis on multi-powered electric cars. Both approaches

11、have a rich background; however, no one knows which system will be followed in the near and distant future. To many the romance and nostalgia of electric cars and electric carriages have an almost mystical interest. Furthermore, with electricity being such a clean and versatile fuel that is so widel

12、y used, a perennial question is asked: why not employ it for personal transportation? Because no book chronicles the history of electric vehicles, the author collected this information and placed it in book form for its preservation. Fortunately, the author has been, for more than a third of a centu

13、ry, an integral part of the emerging electric vehicle industry in conception, design, construction, marketing, financing, and interpretation. This book, in treating the past of this long nascent industry, is an attempt to bring clean air to metropolitan cities worldwide. Hopefully objective and corr

14、ect, the authorship has been a labor of love. Electric cars have resulted from a happy arrangement of mechanical, electrical, magnetic, and chemical laws which, operating in perfect order, yield personal transportation. This book describes and illustrates the application of these natural laws to veh

15、icles, to battery chargers, to batteries or other sources of energy, to controllers, to motors, to transmissions, to wheels, and identifies some pioneers who were responsible for their applications. Considering the range of physical principles embodied in an electric vehicle, no one can be an expert

16、 on all phases of their xiiiPreface elements. The present volume can only touch on much of the technology. However, the serious student should be able to secure an introductory grasp on the principles of electric vehicles from this book and its Notes, Appendices, and Further Readings list. History o

17、f the Electric Vehicle: Battery-Only Powered Cars is structured into five sections. There is a brief introduction indicating how the knowledge for electric vehicles was gained through earlier centuries, particularly the period beginning with the quantitative experimenta- tion with electrical phenome

18、na. These innovations were finally assembled as an electric vehicle system in 1881. Then the first two electrical vehicles, which were developed in France and England, are explored first, followed by early electric vehicle development in America. With this introduction, a critical comparison of gaso

19、line, steam, and electric powered systems is undertaken. Then turning to the vehicles themselves, the development of the electric battery charger, the motive power batteries, the controller, and direct-current electric motors are briefly discussed. In design, the motorcars of this period were wagons

20、 or carriages which closely copied horse-drawn vehicles. Small wonder they were called horseless carriages. The second section demonstrates improvements in electric vehicles from 1900 to 1935. Beginning in 1902 the automobile adopted its present conformation, engine forward. Personal cars also gaine

21、d a closed-in body during the early years of this time span, serving to protect passengers from the weather. The era was a period which saw the flowering and demise of the commercially produced over-the-road electric car. Yet the decade from 1902 to 1912 was one of the most productive and fruitful i

22、n design of personal cars and industrial trucks. And it was also an era of high mortality of companies. One could succeed, and one could fail. Steel-tired, wood-fabricated wheels yielded to solid rubber-tired, then pneumatic-tired, wire-spoked wheels which in turn became pressed all-steel design as

23、well as cast aluminum. From the component with the greatest single problempunctures, tires became a paragon of reliability. The chassis was transformed from a wagon to a well-engineered assembly. The body metamorphosed from a horseless carriage to its present configuration. Wick lamps became acetyle

24、ne, then filament, now gaseous-discharge. Brakes proceeded from wheel rim-friction to an axle-based contracting cylinder, then finally to disc-type. Drive power-transfer passed from linked chain to the concept of the earlier conceived differential. Smooth friction surfaces adopted roller-bearings. L

25、ubrication changed to high-technology, petroleum greases and liquid. All these improvements, and many more, transpired to place the Western World on wheels. As if to match, many nations began major road-building programs that continue today. The third section of the volume covers the dead period for

26、 electric vehicles (1935 to 1955) and prepares the reader for the transition and rebirth. This section critiques why the manufacture of electric cars ceased and presents reasons for the dominance of the internal combustion engine- powered vehicle. The fourth section describes the innovative, modern

27、electric drive systems that were devised internationally in the early 1960s. Employed is solid-state electronics, 3-phase A-C power, and more exotic batteries. The period demonstrated new electric drive systems. This segment also shows advances, which continue at this writing, to vehicles that reach

28、 road-testing. The fifth section of History of the Electric Automobile: Battery-Only Powered Cars contains ten appendices, a glossary, and an index. Finally, for more than a century, from 1881 through the present, nearly all seers who have predicted the role of electric vehicles in personal transportation have been wrong. This book records what actually happened in America and throughout the world. xiv