Electrobat
{{short description|Defunct American motor vehicle manufacturer}}
Image:1894Electrobat.jpgThe Electrobat was one of the first electric automobiles. It was designed and built in 1894 by mechanical engineer Henry G. Morris and chemist Pedro G. Salom in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.{{Kimes-USCars3rd}}{{Cite web |last=queviv |title=Remembering New York's other 'taxis of tomorrow' from decades past |url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/roadwarriorvoices/2015/09/04/remembering-new-yorks-other-taxis-of-tomorrow-from-decades-past/83307834/ |access-date=2024-10-10 |website=USA TODAY |language=en-US}}
History
Morris and Salom had backgrounds in battery-powered streetcars and, as the battery streetcar business was fading, they teamed up to make battery road vehicles. Their Electrobat received a patent on August 31, 1894. Built like a small version of a battery streetcar, it was a slow, heavy, impractical vehicle with steel tires to support its immense, 1,600-pound lead battery.{{cite web|url= http://www.caranddriver.com/flipbook/worth-the-watt-a-brief-history-of-the-electric-car-1830-to-present#2 |title=Electrobat to Columbia|work=Car and Driver|accessdate=16 October 2016}} An improved version, the Electrobat II, entered production in 1895.
In 1896, the pair founded the Morris & Salom Electric Carriage and Wagon Company.G.N. Georgano, Cars: Early and Vintage, 1886-1930. (London: Grange-Universal, 1985).
Subsequent versions were lighter and had pneumatic tires, with bodies built at the Caffrey Carriage Company in Camden, New Jersey. These cars steered by their rear wheels and had two {{convert|1.5|hp|adj=on|lk=in}} motors that propelled them {{convert|25|mi}} per charge at {{convert|20|mph|abbr=on}}. Morris and Salom went on to build about a dozen Hansom cabs based on this vehicle, to compete with the horse-drawn cabs then in service in New York City; they operated in New York, Boston, and elsewhere.
In 1897, they sold the cabs and their concept to Isaac L. Rice, who reincorporated the enterprise as the Electric Vehicle Company, which later became part of Albert Augustus Pope's empire.
File:Morris & Salom 1895 Electrobat IV and Detroit Electric Brougham 1915.jpg|alt=|Morris & Salom 1895 Electrobat IV
File:Electrobat Taxis on Manhattan 39th Street in 1898.jpg|alt=|Electrobat Taxis in Manhattan in 1898
See also
- [https://www.conceptcarz.com/z31589/morris--salom-electrobat-iv.aspx 1895 Electrobat IV at ConceptCarz]
References
{{Reflist}}{{Commons category|Electrobats}}
Category:Vehicles introduced in 1894
Category:Defunct motor vehicle manufacturers of the United States
Category:Companies based in Philadelphia
Category:Motor vehicle manufacturers based in Pennsylvania
Category:Electric vehicles introduced in the 19th century