MEANS OF MOTION

The petrol engine has been the go to choice for powering cars (and much else) for over a century, and it’s only now that its hydrocarbon-fuelled grip on personal transport is being loosened. But that doesn’t mean that it hasn’t seen off several challengers over the years – some of which are once again vying for dominance.

ELECTRIC DREAMS

Today it’s the electric motor that is driving the internal combustion engine from the roads, and will be legislated to take its place in new cars by the end of the decade. It can seem like the electric car is an idea that has sprung up fully formed over the past decade, such has been its sudden rise to prominence, but in fact it is not only an old idea, but one which predates the internal combustion-powered car by some way.

In 1828 the Hungarian physicist Ányos Jedlik built, in model form, the first recognisably modern electric motor with a stator, rotor and commutator. He then built a toy-size carriage driven by one of his motors and an accumulator. The invention of the lead-acid battery in the 1860s greatly increased the potential for mobile electric transport. In 1881 Frenchman Gustave Trouvé fitted a small electric motor and a lead-acid battery to a modified Starley tricycle (the Starley firm would later become the Rover Company), creating the first person-carrying road-going electric vehicle. In Germany Andreas Flocken’s ‘Electrowagen’ was built in 1888 – recognised as the first true car to be powered by electricity and built in steady, if small, numbers until 1903. In the next decade, Walter Bersey designed a battery-powered taxi cab and successfully introduced a fleet of them to London in 1897 – by 1899 there were 75 in service. Unfortunately, their batteries were expensive to replace once they reached the end of their life and their weight overstressed their Hackney carriage-based frames and wheels, so the fleet was withdrawn before the turn of the century.

In the early days of the car the electric motor