May 6, 20196 yr With all the (some would argue: overblown) current [no pun intended] attention on electric vehicles, might be interesting to acknowledge some past efforts. In the very early days of the industry, they met with considerable success, at the detriment to gasoline-powered vehicles, sales-wise. But there were a whole slew of occasional proposals, some which were merely concepts, some which were intended to but never saw production, others which eked out a small run. The '74-77 CitiCar : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citicar Edited May 6, 20196 yr by balthazar
May 6, 20196 yr Author BMW's concept, never built. Note the wildly optimistic electric vehicle sales projections - that number (290K in the U.S. in 2001) wasn't reached until 2018. Edited May 6, 20196 yr by balthazar
May 7, 20196 yr First Hybrid Vehicle: Lohner-Porsche Mixed Hybrid. (1900-1905) "First prototypes were two-wheel drive, battery-powered electric vehicles with two front-wheel hub-mounted motors. A later version was a series hybrid using hub-mounted electric motors in each wheel, powered by batteries and a gasoline-engine generator." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohner-Porsche Edited May 7, 20196 yr by ykX
May 7, 20196 yr The Cleveland Museum of History has a couple of vintage EVs, both Bakers IIRC... There was a recreation of a 1901 Lohner-Porsche also, Porsche showed it off at the intro of the Panamera Hybrid a couple years ago. Maybe they will bring it out for the Taycan launch.
May 7, 20196 yr Personally, I think this was and still is the coolest EV vehicle ever built Edited May 7, 20196 yr by ykX
May 7, 20196 yr 8 minutes ago, ykX said: Personally, I think this was and still is the coolest EV vehicle ever built I heard those wheels were the early prototype for the airless all plastic / rubber wheels that have been experimented with.
May 7, 20196 yr 40 minutes ago, dfelt said: I heard those wheels were the early prototype for the airless all plastic / rubber wheels that have been experimented with. Not really, similar concept i guess but they were metal "The wheels were designed and manufactured by General Motors Defense Research Laboratories in Santa Barbara, California.[20] Ferenc Pavlics was given special recognition by NASA for developing the "resilient wheel".[21] They consisted of a spun aluminum hub and a 32 inches (81 cm) diameter, 9 inches (23 cm) wide tire made of zinc-coated woven 0.033 inches (0.84 mm) diameter steel strands attached to the rim and discs of formed aluminum. Titanium chevrons covered 50% of the contact area to provide traction. Inside the tire was a 25.5 inches (65 cm) diameter bump stop frame to protect the hub."
July 1, 20196 yr 21 hours ago, balthazar said: Never quite caught on back then. But like EVs today, technology has changed and they're trying them again.
July 1, 20196 yr Author Tried in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and I’ll bet in the 80s & 90s too. It’s not so much technology as physics, but maybe they’ll find a niche one day.
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