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Visions of Transportation: The EVC and the Transition from Service- to Product-Based Mobility

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

David A. Kirsch  and
Gijs P. A. Mom
Gijs P. A. Mom
Affiliation:
DAVID A. KIRSCH is assistant professor of entrepreneurship at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at theUniversity of Maryland, College Park. GIJS MOM is assistant professor in the history of technology at theTechnical University of Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
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Extract

The Electric Vehicle Company (EVC) and its affiliated operating entities (1897–1912), along with similar electric taxicab ventures in London and Paris, figured prominently in the early history of the automobile industry. Long dismissed as a quintessential instance of business failure resulting from the choice of inferior technology, the picture of EVC that emerges from new archival evidence suggests a different view. Seen within the continuing electrification of urban transit, traditional centralized approaches to transportation management, and genuine uncertainty about future automotive technology, EVC constituted a significant, if incremental, extension of traditional, service-based concepts of transportation. The goal of the owners of EVC was to offer an integrated, all-electric urban transportation service that included road- and rail-based components. The failure of EVC represented not simply the victory of internal combustion over electric propulsion but also the triumph of a decentralized, product-centered view of mobility, in which individuals owned and operated their own vehicles.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 76 , Issue 1 , Spring 2002 , pp. 75 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2002

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References

1 Rae, John B., “The Electric Vehicle Company: A Monopoly that Missed,” Business History Review 29 (Winter 1955): 311CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Since 1955, many historians of technology and transportation have accepted his judgment of the EVC taxicab fleets as an “illuminating example of business failure,” whose short history can be described as an unbroken chain of “errors of judgment, most of them, on the face of the evidence, avoidable.” According to this line of reasoning, one of the major mistakes the EVC made was its fateful choice in favor of electric propulsion. Following Rae, other automotive historians have generalized the critique of the EVC to include a whole mode of propulsion. James J. Flink, for instance, concluded that the electric vehicle did not stand a chance against “the inherently superior technological feasibility of the internal-combustion engine for the motorcar at that time.” Later, Richard Schallenberg, in his history of the electric storage battery, called the EVC a “very serious and impressive undertaking.” Schallenberg argued that the EVC was a “complex exercise in incorporation … built upon a minimal technical base,” and, like Rae, Schallenberg concluded that the company “was backing the wrong horse.” More recently, anthropological archaeologist Michael Schiffer came to a similarly negative conclusion: “It was not unsavory financial dealings that shook the cab companies, … but failing batteries”; and urban historian Clay McShane like-wise concluded that the promoters of the EVC “failed disastrously because they chose an inferior electric technology.” See Rae, “The Electric Vehicle Company,” 301–3. Rae himself drew heavily upon a dissertation by Greenleaf, William, “The Selden Patent Suit” (Columbia University, 1955)Google Scholar, subsequently published as Monopoly On Wheels: Henry Ford and the Selden Automobile Patent (Detroit, 1961)Google Scholar; Flink, James J., America Adopts the Automobile, 1895–1910 (Cambridge, Mass., 1970), 307Google Scholar; Schallenberg, Richard H., Bottled Energy: Electrical Engineering and the Evolution of Chemical Energy Storage (Philadelphia, 1982), 261, 273Google Scholar; Schiffer, Michael B., Taking Charge: The Electric Automobile in America (Washington, D.C., 1994), 72, 74Google Scholar; McShane, Clay, Down the Asphalt Path: The Automobile and the American City (New York, 1994), 110Google Scholar. For more on Rae, see memorial by Flink, James J., Technology and Culture 30 (1989): 718–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Flink refers to the 1955 Business History Review article, along with another piece written that same year, as “classics for serious students of automotive history.”

2 Electricity was also the favored technology among early commercial vehicle operators, where economy and reliability were more important than range, and many urban delivery fleets used electric trucks into the 1920s. See Kirsch, David A., “The Electric Vehicle and the Burden of History: Studies in Automotive Systems Rivalry in America, 1890–1996” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, Sept. 1996)Google Scholar, subsequently published as The Electric Vehicle and the Burden of History (New Brunswick, N.J., 2000)Google Scholar; Mom, Gijs, Geschiedenis van de auto van morgen; cultuur en techniek van de elektrische auto (Deventer, 1997)Google Scholar; an English translation will be published by Johns Hopkins University Press (forthcoming, 2002). On the his-tory of commercial electric vehicles, see Mom, Gijs and Kirsch, David, “Technologies in Tension: Horses, Electric Trucks, and the Motorization of American Cities, 1900–1925,” Technology and Culture 42 (July 2001): 489–518CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 The term business “concept” is borrowed from Sloan's, Alfred P.My Years With General Motors (New York, 1990 [1st ed., 1963], 58)Google Scholar, where Sloan observes: “Every enterprise needs a concept of its industry. There is a logical way of doing business in accordance with the facts and circumstances of an industry, if you can figure it out. If there are different concepts among the enterprises involved, the concepts are likely to express competitive forces in their most vigorous and decisive form.”

4 The competition between gasoline and electric vehicles is a quintessential instance of the general problem of technology choice. Within economics, technology choice emerged as an important research area following pioneering work on path dependence or technology lock-in by David, Paul A. (“CLIO and the Economics of QWERTY,” American Economic Review 75 [May 1985]: 332–7)Google Scholar; and Arthur, W. Brian (“Competing Technologies and Economic Prediction,” in Options, published by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis [Laxenburg, Austria, 1984])Google Scholar. The conceptual framework of path dependence has found acceptance in many fields, ranging from energy studies (see, for example, England, Richard W., “Three Reasons for Investing Now in Fossil Fuel Conservation,” Journal of Economic Issues 28 [1994]: 755–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Islas, Jorge, “Getting Round the Lock-In in Electricity Generating Systems: The Example of the Gas Turbine,” Research Policy 26 [1997]: 49–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar) to management of technology and business history. Michael Cusumano, Yiorgos Myolandis, and Richard Rosenbloom investigated the specific role of market “bandwagon” effects in the adoption of VHS over the competing Betamax standard (“Strategic Maneuvering and Mass Market Dynamics: The Triumph of VHS over Beta,” Business History Review 66 [1992]: 51–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Berk, Gerald, building upon the work of Michael Piore and Charles Sabel (The Second Industrial Divide [New York, 1985])Google Scholar, examined the choice between local and national regimes of rail-road regulation, arguing that early institutional arrangements profoundly shaped the structure of the American railroad industry (Alternative Tracks: The Constitution of American Industrial Order, 1865–1917 [Baltimore, 1994])Google Scholar. Albert Churella framed technology choice in the transition from steam to diesel locomotives within the larger corporate cultures of the two main participants (“Corporate Culture and Marketing in the American Railway Locomotive Industry: American Locomotive and Electro-Motive Respond to Dieselization,” Business History Review 69 [1995]: 191–229CrossRefGoogle Scholar). And Paul David also contributed to this line of inquiry, arguing that the resolution of the “battle of the systems” between AC- and DC-based power transmission was shaped as much by Thomas Edison's desire for a graceful mode of exit as by the specific characteristics of the two competing technological systems (“Heroes, Herds and Hysteresis in Technological History: Edison, Thomas and “The Battle of the Systems' Reconsidered,” Industrial and Corporate Change 1 [1992]: 129–80Google Scholar). As summarized in note 1(above), most scholars have accepted John Rae's explanation of the choice of technology without question. An exception is Rudi Volti's “Why Internal Combustion?” (American Heritage of Invention and Technology [1990]: 42–7), which first raised some of the issues explored here in greater depth.

5 William F. D. Crane Papers, New Jersey Historical Society, Newark, New Jersey (hereafter, Crane Papers); Thomas Alva Edison Papers, Edison National Historic Site, West Orange, New Jersey (hereafter, Edison Papers); Richard Worsam Meade Papers, Columbia University, New York (hereafter, Meade Papers); Henry Cave Papers, National Automotive History Collection, Detroit Public Library, Detroit, Michigan (hereafter, Cave Papers); William Collins Whitney Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (hereafter, Whitney Papers); and Frank C. Armstrong Papers, Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village Research Center, Dearborn, Michigan (hereafter, Armstrong Papers). In addition, electric trade journals like Electrical Review, Electrical World, and Western Electrician and accounts of taxicab developments in journals like Power Wagon and Commercial Vehicle provide a needed corrective to the received history of the automobile that emerges from traditional automotive trade publications like Horseless Age.

6 For the period until the 1920s, three generations of electric vehicles can be identified. The first generation (until about 1900 for Europe and about 1902 for the United States) consisted of literally electrified horse-drawn carriages; the second-generation vehicles (1905 to 1910) were developed as automobiles but differed from the first generation mainly by the use of more reliable and durable electric batteries and pneumatic tires; the third generation (from about 1910) was characterized by a convergence toward general vehicle technology (i.e., the gasoline car).

7 The creation of the company immediately preceded the repeal of the onerous “Red Flag Act” that had legally limited the use of motor vehicles in Britain by requiring that all such vehicles be accompanied by a flagman; “Great Horseless Carriage Company,” The Automotor and Horseless Carriage Journal (Jan. 1898): 125–6.

8 Moore, Henry Charles, Omnibuses and Cabs; Their Origin and History (London, 1902), 277Google Scholar; The Electrician (25 July 1899): 504.

9 Beaumont, W. Worby, Motor Vehicles and Motors; Their Design Construction and Working by Steam Oil and Electricity, 2nd ed. (Westminster, U.K., 1902), 395, 414Google Scholar.

10 “A Short History of the Electric Taxi-Cab,” Electric Vehicles (July 1916): 2.

11 Lockert, Louis, Les voitures électriques avec Supplément awe voitures à pétrole et note sur les moteurs à acétylène et à alcool; traité des véhicules automobiles sur route, vol. 4 (Paris, 1897), 199Google Scholar; see also the following by Nicholas Papayanis: “The Development of the Paris Cab Trade, 1855–1914,” Journal of Transport History (n.s.) (March 1987): 57–8, 60, 62; The Coachmen of Nineteenth-century Paris: Service Workers and Class Consciousness (Baton Rouge, 1993), 192–204Google Scholar; and Horse-Drawn Cabs and Omnibuses in Paris: The Idea of Circulation and the Business of Public Transit (Baton Rouge, 1996)Google Scholar.

12 Cited in: “Electric Cabs in Paris,” The Automotor and Horseless Carriage Journal (Oct. 1897): 17. See, for the complete text of Bixio's report on motorization to the CGV stockholders' meeting in 1897, “L'Automobilisme à la Compagnie Générale des Voitures à Paris,”l'Industrie Electrique (10 June 1897): 241–2.

13 The journal reported that the lone electric cab was owned and operated by a competitor to CFVE; see “A Discredited Expert,” Horseless Age (18 Oct. 1899): 5–6.

14 A. Delasalle, “Les automobiles électriques,” La Vie Automobile (13 Dec. 1900): 7978; and “A Short History of the Electric Taxi-cab,” Electric Vehicles (July 1916): 2. It is remarkable that Papayanis in neither of his two publications (see note 11) mentions this crisis, which ultimately led to the end of Bixio's directorship in 1905. In 1901, for instance, Bixio asked in a rhetorical speech to his stockholders “if the CGV should not disappear.” “Cie Gle des Voitures a Paris,” Les annales économiques et financières (4 May 1905): 9 (Archives Nationales, Paris, Box 65 AQ Q3703); Boudou, Anne, “Les taxis parisiens de la fondation des Usines Renault aux ‘Taxis de la Marne’ 1898–1914” (unpubl. Master's thesis, Université Paris X Nanterre, 1982), 279Google Scholar, on which Papayanis bases part of his narrative, deals directly with this crisis.

15 Sencier, Gaston and Delasalle, A., Les automobiles électrìques (Paris, 1901), 81–93Google Scholar.

16 Compagnie française de voitures électromobiles, Rapport du conseil d'Administration; Assemblée Générale Ordinaire du 19 Juin 1900 (Paris, 1900), 5Google Scholar, 9 (Archives Nationales, Paris, Box 65 AQ Q131).

17 Doubling energy density alone would not have been sufficient to tip the economic scales in the CFVE's favor. Durability, not range, was the primary issue driving cost and performance of the battery. In other words, the prevailing battery technology would have been as unacceptable for the starting-lighting-ignition function in internal combustion vehicles as it was for powering the European electric cabs.

18 “An Electric Carriage Company,” Electrical Review (N.Y.) (22 Jan. 1896): 53; “Electric Motor-cab Service in New York City,” Electrical World (14 Aug. 1897): 183. See also: “Prospectus of the Electric Carriage & Wagon Company,” Horseless Age (June 1896): 26.

19 The body of Electrobat 2 was built by the Crawford Wheel and Gear Company in Hagers-town, Md. “Horseless Carriages,” Electrical Review (N.Y.) (6 Nov. 1895): 265. The name of the “Electrobat” series was derived from the neologism “Aerobat” for an airship, coined by the poet-banker Edmund Clarence Stedman, the “bat” being adapted from the Greek word for “going, moving,” which is “banein” (Electrical Review [N. Y.] [28 June 1899]: 411). For a detailed recent description of the Chicago contest, see Scharchburg, Richard P., Carriages Without Horses (Warrendale, 1993)Google Scholar.

20 “Morris & Salom's Prospectus,” Horseless Age (Jan. 1896): 23.

21 “The Morris & Salom Electric Carriages and Wagons,” Electrical Engineer (N.Y.) (30 Sept. 1896): 327–8; “New Vehicles of the Electric Carriage and Wagon Company,” Horseless Age (Sept. 1896): 18.

22 “Electric Carriages in New York City,” Electrical Review (N.Y.) (24 Feb. 1897): 85–6; “Electric Motor-cab Service in New York City,” Electrical World (14 Aug. 1897): 183–6. One of these hansoms, for instance, was used by “Proctor's Theatre” for publicity purposes. “Electric Hansom Cabs in New York City,” Electrical Engineer (N.Y.) (10 Mar. 1897): 269–70.

23 The rate was one dollar for the first two miles or a part thereof and fifty cents for any additional mile for a maximum of two persons. For “shopping” the rate was one dollar per hour. “Electric Motor-cab Service in New York City–II,” Electrical World (21 Aug. 1897): 213–16.

24 Ibid., 216; “Work of Electric Hansom in New York,” Horseless Age (July 1897): 12.

25 For the certificates of incorporation, see manuscripts “Electric Vehicle Company” and “Agreements” in: Cave Papers, Series II, Box 5, Items 1 and 3.

26 “The Age of Automobiles,” Electrical Engineer (N.Y.) (28 July 1898): 87. According to a brochure produced to commemorate the Hartford Automotive Gold Jubilee in 1947, the Pope Mark III electric phaeton was the first model “produced in this country under actual production conditions by manufacturing experts and not by the development engineers.” Cave Papers, Box 4, Folder 20. It is nearly impossible to verify the detailed vehicle counts. Many early vehicles were one-of-a-kind artifacts constructed either as prototypes or for the personal use of the builder. The numbers in the text refer to completed vehicles produced and offered for sale by recognized manufacturing concerns, as reported in Bradley, James J. and Langworth, Richard M., “Calendar Year Production: 1896 to Date,” in The American Car since 1775, ed. Bailey, L. Scott (New York, 1971), 138–43Google Scholar. Several early manufacturers opted to produce steam vehicles, including White Motors, Locomobile (using patents obtained from the Stanley brothers), and later the Stanleys themselves. Steam-powered commercial vehicles were limited to small numbers of large trucks and engineering and farm equipment.

The first national data on automobile production, collected in 1899 and reproduced in hundreds of government census publications, established the conventional wisdom that steam (and, to a lesser extent, electric) vehicles dominated the automobile market prior to 1900. These data, however, are deeply flawed, as they fail to distinguish between the respective automotive applications that the different technologies were intended to serve. If the EVC's approximately 850 electric cabs (see below) are removed from the national data, the passenger-vehicle data show that even as early as 1899, production of internal combustion vehicles for individual use was already ahead of that for electric passenger vehicles. For more on the census data, see the paper by David A. Kirsch, “Behind the Numbers: Early Quantitative Data on the History of the American Automobile Industry,” presented at International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC) Annual Meeting, Prague, August 2000.

27 “Snow and Mud Pictures,” Horseless Age (Dec. 1898): 14–15. In the month of June only, 632 telephone calls were received, with a maximum of 32 and a minimum of 12 per day. During this month 1,580 passengers were transported over a total distance of 4,400 miles. Supposing that every call resulted in a trip, 1.2 to 3.2 trips per day per vehicle were made, implying gross revenue of $1,080 to $1,580 for that month, hardly a “paying basis” as the company announced, but nevertheless enough to promise a profitable operation, once the fleet was expanded to 100 vehicles and the high infrastructure costs could be spread over more vehicles.

28 “An Electric Carriage Company,” 53; “Electric Motor-Cab Service in New York City,” 183. See also “Prospectus of the Electric Carriage & Wagon Company,” 26.

29 On Condict, see biography in Electrical World 38, no. 24 (1901): 976Google Scholar; description of Englewood and Chicago streetcar line, Western Electrician 21 (7 Aug. 1897): 71–5Google Scholar; appointment as chief engineer and work on central station, Western Electrician 21 (25 Dec. 1897): 365Google Scholar; on station operations, see “New Station of the Electric Vehicle Company,” Electrical World 32 (3 Sept. 1898): 227–32Google Scholar.

30 On the capital-intensive bias of American technological investments, see, among others, Cochran, Thomas C., Frontiers of Change: Early Industrialism in America (New York, 1983)Google Scholar; and Habakkuk, H. J., American and British Technology in the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1962)Google Scholar.

31 “Progress of the Electric Vehicle Co.,” Horseless Age (Jan. 1899): 13; “Horseless Carriage Motors for the Electric Vehicle Co., New York,” Electrical Engineer (N.Y.) (6 Oct. 1898): 333–4.

32 Additional reports on individual drivers' performance suggest that actual revenue varied widely by driver; data on actual miles traveled are from Crane Papers, Box 2, Folder 7. Also, mileage may not accurately reflect the informal trend toward dedicated rental service. Regardless, prior to the introduction of the Exide battery in 1902 (see below), the life span of the basic chloride batteries limited the potential to achieve long-term profitability.

33 For example, Fred R. Jenkins of Chicago Edison observed that an average of only seven miles was made on each charge, “it being the custom to change the battery each time the cab returns to the station”; while not necessarily the basis for a profitable regular taxicab business, the report did not refer to any battery failures; see Jenkins, Fred R., “The Electric Automobile,” paper read before the Association of Edison Illuminating Companies, 20th Convention, Philadelphia, 12–14 Sept. 1899, 5Google Scholar; Edison Papers, 1899, “Electric Storage Battery Company” Folder.

34 George H. Condict, “The Motor Vehicle in Commercial Operation,” Electrical Engineer (N.Y.) (2 Mar. 1899): 252–3; interview in India Rubber World as quoted in “Automobile Tires,” Electrical Engineer (N.Y.) (16 Feb. 1899). Later, Pope president Herbert Lloyd remembered: “[W]e had only single tube tires which ran about two or three hundred miles.” “November meeting of the Electric Vehicle Association of America,” Central Station (Dec. 1914): 180.

35 That is, if the “cab service” Jenkins is referring to actually is the EVC, which is most likely. See Jenkins, “The Electric Automobile.”

36 Jenkins, “The Electric Automobile,” 8.

37 William P. Kennedy to EVC, New York, 21 Nov. 1899; Crane Papers, Box 2, Folder 8; Condict to Johnson, 27 Nov. 1899, Crane Papers, Box 2, Folder 8.

38 Maxim, Hiram P., Horseless Carriage Days (New York, 1962 [1st ed., 1936]), 165Google Scholar.

39 On the early history of the commercial vehicle, see Raburn, Robert A., “Motor Freight and Urban Morphogenesis with Reference to California and the West” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1988Google Scholar); Rodriquez, Louis, “The Development of the Truck: A Constructivist History” (Ph.D. diss., Lehigh University, 1997)Google Scholar; and Mom and Kirsch, “Technologies in Tension.”

40 “A New and Powerful Electric Storage Battery Company,” Electrical Engineer (N.Y.) (12 Apr. 1899): 231; “An Electric Vehicle Company in Chicago, “Electrical Engineer (3 May 1899): 279.

41 “Electric Cab Service for the New York Central Railroad,” Electrical Review (N.Y.) (31 May 1899): 347.

42 “New Public Electromobiles in New York City,” Electrical Review (N.Y.) (11 Apr. 1900): 362; “General Carriage Company's Electromobile Rates in New York City,” Electrical Review (N.Y.) (2 May 1900): 464; “The General Carriage Company,” Horseless Age (17 May 1899): 8. When the General Carriage Company failed in 1902,45 electric cars were listed among its assets. The only extant accounts of the Anglo-American Company come from several impressionistic paragraphs written by amateur automotive historian Doolittle, James Rood, The Romance of the Automobile Industry (New York, 1916), 357–8Google Scholar. According to Doolittle, this company was founded by Lawson in cooperation with his flamboyant American alter ego, Edward J. Pennington, to induce a merger of the major English and American car producers. W. Gibbs (then no longer employed by the EVC) was part of this scheme. Curiously, Doolittle also supposed that the EVC formed part of these plans (pp. 359–60). Anglo-American's original plan included the installation of a fleet of 200 internal combustion and steam buses in Philadelphia. Rae, John B., The American Automobile Industry (Boston, 1984), 43Google Scholar.

43 Hirsch, Mark, William C. Whitney: Modern Warwick (New York, 1948)Google Scholar; Cudahy, Brian J., Cash, Tokens and Transfers: A History of Urban Mass Transit in North America (New York, 1990), 45–6Google Scholar; Irvine, Andrew C., “The Promotion and First Twenty-two Years' History of a Corporation in the Electrical Manufacturing Industry,” (M.A. thesis, Temple University, May 1954), 60ffGoogle Scholar.

44 Sullivan, Joseph P., “Fearing Electricity: Overhead Wire Panic in New York City,” IEEE Technology and Society 14 (Fall 1995): 8–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Carman, Henry J., The Street Surf ace Railway Franchises of New York City (New York, 1919), 204–20Google Scholar; Cheape, Charles W., Moving the Masses: Urban Public Transit in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, 1880–1912 (Cambridge, 1980), 44–70Google Scholar.

45 Greenleaf, Monopoly on Wheels, 57ff.; Schallenberg, Bottled Energy, 260. Also see the following by H. E. Cuntz: “Harold Hayden Eames,” Cave Papers, Series 1, Box 3, Item 1; “The Electric Vehicle Company,” 3, Cave Papers, Series 3, Box 10, Item 3; “Story of the Selden Case and Hartford,” 3–8; Cave Papers, Series 3, Box 10, Item 28.

46 Hirsch, William C. Whitney: Modern Warwick, 421–68.

47 Whitney had also arranged to obtain the Selden patent and thereby ensure that the new combination would have a virtual monopoly in the gasoline as well as the electric-vehicle market; see Greenleaf, Monopoly on Wheels. According to stock prices reported in Electrical World and Commercial and Financial Chronicle, the price of ESB shares reached $188 in April 1901, suggesting that despite the acquisition premium, the Whitney interests did not necessarily overpay for the ESB.

48 Horseless Age, “Annual Statement of the Electric Vehicle Company” (27 Sept. 1899): 7–8; “Census Reports on Automobile Manufacture in 1900” (17 Sept. 1902): 307; “Electric Vehicle Companies for Every State and Territory,” (24 May 1899): 11; “A $200,000,000 Enterprise,” (10 May 1899): 6.

49 Critchlow, Donald T., in his recent Studebaker: The Life and Death of an American Corporation (Bloomington, 1996), 45–7Google Scholar, mentions an order of a hundred bodies and, “[a] short while later, Studebaker entered into another contract to manufacture a thousand vehicles with everything except ‘electric machinery.’” For report of 12,000 vehicles, see “The Electric Vehicle Co. Spreads Out,” Horseless Age (12 April 1899): 11.

50 “Four Thousand Two Hundred Electromobiles Ordered,” Electrical Review (N.Y.) (19 July 1899): 34.

51 “Progress of the Electromobile,” Electrical Review (N.Y.) (28 Aug. 1899): 406.

52 In a report entitled “Automobiles versus Trolley Cars,” dated September 1, 1900, the author captures both the initial concerns “in railway circles” at the prospect of the “supplanting of the modern street car by the more modern automobile,” as well as the dawning realization that the automobile “should become a feeder for the street railway rather than a competitor.” Typescript, author unknown, Edison Papers, 1900 “Electric Storage Battery Company” Folder.

53 Rae, “The Electric Vehicle Company,” 303. R. A. Fliess (“The Electric Automobile for Business Purposes,” Horseless Age [6 Feb. 1901]: 50) estimated 650 vehicles in the combined EVC fleets in New York, Boston, and Washington as of early 1901. If one adds the Chicago fleet of 109 not mentioned by Fliess (“Illinois Electric Vehicle Transportation Company,” Horseless Age [16 Mar. 1901]: 354) and an unknown number of vehicles in Philadelphia and some other cities (presumably not more than about 90) the total fleet size of 850 at the beginning of the twentieth century is probably not an underestimate.

54 On the merger movement, see Lamoreaux, Naomi R., The Great Merger Movement in American Business, 1895–1904 (New York, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 “Lead Cab Financiering,” Horseless Age (24 Jan. 1900): 11.

56 “Lead Cab Finale,” Horseless Age (20 Dec. 1899): 8.

57 “A Discredited Expert,” Horseless Age (18 Oct. 1899): 5–7.

58 “The Autoelectrophobe,” Motor Age 2 (29 Mar. 1900): 77Google Scholar.

59 Even in January 1900, as Horseless Age continued its campaign against the Lead Cab Trust, Ingersoll promised that “when the Lead Cab Trust is entirely through promoting and the electric vehicle stands on an honest basis, the Horseless Age will take it up again from an engineering point of view and endeavor to repair the damage promoters have done it.” Two years later, in a special annual industry review, the journal was again supporting the promise of the electric vehicle: “The real field of the electric vehicle, that of the boulevard carriage, park carriage, etc., is now receiving the greatest attention … and there is at present very little rivalry apparent between the electric and the gasoline automobile.” See “Electric Vehicle Number Later” (3 Jan. 1900): 8; and “The Status of the Electric Vehicle” (1 Jan. 1902):3.

60 A review article in 1916 in Electric Vehicles probably overstated the situation, suggesting that “at no time did they ever approach in actual value one-fiftieth of their capitalization.” See “A Short History of the Electric Taxi-Cab,” 2. According to EVC patent expert Hermann Cuntz, “the venture [was] abandoned with heavy financial loss to all concerned” (H. E. Cuntz, “The Electric Vehicle Company,” 7, Cave Papers, Series 3, Box 10, Item 3. According to Adolph Müller, a director of German battery manufacturer Accumulatoren-Fabrik AG (AFA) who frequently traveled to America and knew the ESB managers personally, the American battery manufacturer “invested and lost very much money” because of the collapse (“Protokoll der Automobil-Konferenz zu Berlin am 20. Jan. 1912,” 2, Varta Archives, Germany).

61 Irvine, Andrew C., “The Promotion and First Twenty-two Years' History of a Corporation in the Electrical Manufacturing Industry,” 64, 82–7, 95Google Scholar; Centralblatt für Accumulatoren-, Elementen- und Accumobilenlamde (1 May 1903): 123; Isaac L. Rice, “To the Stockholders of the Electric Storage Battery Company,” Cave Papers, Series II, Box 5, Item 12. In 1898 ESB processed 2.6 million kilograms of lead and a year later, 8.1 million kilos. The annual report for 1897–98 enables us to roughly estimate the share of EVC in the profits of ESB. Since ESB started to expand in 1895, more than 800,000 lead plates had been sold, 6.6 percent of which was delivered to EVC and the Hartford factory. For the year that ended in May 31, 1898, this share had risen to 14.4 percent. Assuming 3 plates per battery cell and 44 cells per battery set, ESB delivered about 56 batteries to EVC and Hartford in the period prior to the 1897–98 fiscal year and 347 during that year. If all these batteries were installed in EVC-affiliated taxicabs (with 1.5 sets per taxicab), EVC possessed 269 cabs in mid 1898; this number rises to slightly more than 300 if one instead assumes that every vehicle was equipped with only one battery set.

62 In July 1900, T. J. Regan, Whitney's personal secretary, cabled glowing operating statements from ESB to Whitney, who was spending the summer in London, concluding, “It [the operating statement] was so good I thought you would like to see it, so send it herewith.” Telegram from T. J. Regan to William C. Whitney, 31 July 1900, Whitney Papers, Box 100, series II, vol. 11, p. 12.

63 “Public Passenger Service in New York,” Commercial Vehicle (June 1906): 124–9; memorandum from Richard W. Meade to Board of Directors, 6 June 1910, Meade Papers, Box 26, Folder “New York Transportation.”

64 Palmer, William H., “The Storage Battery in the Commercial Operation of Electric Automobiles,” Electrical World and Engineer 34 (12 Apr. 1902): 647Google Scholar.

65 Electrical World 40, no. 20 (18 Apr. 1903): 671; “Biographical Note,” Finding Aid, Meade Papers.

66 “New York Taximeter Cabs,” Horseless Age 20 (4 Sept. 1907): 305Google Scholar; Perry, Harry, “Taxi-meter Cabs Actually in Use in New York,” Commercial Vehicle 2 (July 1907): 174Google Scholar. The EVC had experimented with a “taxameter” from 1898 to 1899, contracting with an engineer named James Keyes to develop a prototype. Company records indicate that this effort was abandoned in August 1899; see Minutes of Executive Committee Meeting, 28 Aug. 1899, Armstrong Papers, Box 1, Folder 6.

67 “Public Passenger Service in New York,” 124–9.

68 “Contract Automobile Livery Service,” Pamphlet, n.d., Meade Papers Box 26, Folder “New York Transportation.” Records do not allow confirmation, but it is likely that the New York Transportation Company acquired the Newport station from the New England Electric Vehicle Transportation Company sometime in 1901 or 1902. “Newport” first appears as a line item in the company budget in 1902. “Notebook of R. W. Meade–Operating Accounts and Other Statistics, 1900–1920,“ Meade Papers, Box 15, Folder “N. Y. Transp. Co.”

69 “Public Passenger Service in New York,” 124–9.

70 “New York Notes,” Western Electrician 28 (15 June 1901): 417Google Scholar; “New York Transportation Association: A Short History,” in Official Souvenir Program, Meade Papers, Box 15, Folder “NY Transp. Co.–7th Annual Employees Ball, 1909,” 11.

71 The figures for overall profit and loss are more ambiguous owing to unexplained miscellaneous entries that alter calculations of net profitability.

72 “Motor Cab Drivers' Strike,” Power Wagon 2 (Dec. 1906): 8–9Google Scholar.

73 On labor relations in the streetcar industry, see, for instance, Molloy, Scott, Trolley Wars: Streetcar Workers on the Line (Washington, D.C., 1996)Google Scholar.

74 “Hundreds of Electric Cabs Burned,” Power Wagon 3 (April 1907): 4Google Scholar.

75 “Taxicab Development in New York City,” Horseless Age 21 (13 May 1908): 571Google Scholar; “Taximeter Cab Situation in New York,” Commercial Vehicle 2 (Oct. 1907): 254–6Google Scholar; Perry, “Taximeter Cabs Actually in Use in New York,” 174–5; “New York's Taximeter Cabs,” 305.

76 Mom, Geschiedenis van de auto van morgen, 254–5.

77 Power Wagon, for instance, asked: “[W]hy is it necessary to go abroad for motor vehicles for public service when it is highly probable that before full deliveries can be made American manufacturers will be freely producing machines in all respects as good as any which may be imported at twice the cost?” and went on to predict that “there are many disappointments in store for those who buy abroad before they can be brought to realize that their natural market is here at home.” The fact that both Meade and Allen chose to import European vehicles underscores the lack of availability of suitable American vehicles. See “Motor Cabs for New York,” Power Wagon 3 (May 1907): 5–6Google Scholar; and Anglada, Joseph, “The Taxicab Business in New York,” Horseless Age 24 (21 July 1909): 63–5Google Scholar.

78 “Progress of the New York Taxicab Company,” Horseless Age 20 (13 Nov. 1907): 737Google Scholar.

79 “Reducing the Repairs of Taxicabs,” Horseless Age 21 (10 June 1908): 699Google Scholar; McDowell, E. P., “Are Taxicab Companies Operating at a Profit?” Horseless Age 26 (27 July 1910): 106Google Scholar. An editorial in Horseless Age claimed that average receipts for cabs fell by 50 percent as the “novelty wore off and the number of vehicles on the streets increased” (“Taxicab Development and Its Possible Consequences,” Horseless Age 21 [13 May 1908]: 549Google Scholar). This pattern paralleled events in Paris and Berlin where many new entrants in the taxicab market failed because of the poor service reliability of internal combustion vehicles, resulting in an out-right “taxicab crisis” in both European capitals; see Mom, Geschiedenis van de auto van morgen, 273.

80 “Causes of the Taxicab Strike,” Horseless Age 22 (14 Oct. 1908): 517Google Scholar; “The Motor Cab Drivers Strike,” Power Wagon (1 Nov. 1908): 12–13.

81 The Sultan Taxicab Company claimed that its vehicle engines could be quickly exchanged with minimal effort; see “Sultan Taxicab with Removable Power Plant,” Commercial Vehicle 5 (Feb. 1910): 87–8Google Scholar; also see description of Bergdoll Motor Car Company taxis operating in Philadelphia, “The Taxicab Business in Philadelphia,” Horseless Age 24 (11 Aug. 1909): 136Google Scholar.

82 Meade, Richard W., “Influence of Standardization on Taxicab Operation,” Horseless Age 26 (27 July 1910): 119–20Google Scholar; on the decision to suspend electric operations, see memorandum from Chief Engineer G. A. Green to Richard W. Meade, 21 Feb. 1912, Meade Papers, Box 15, Folder “New York Transportation Co.” It is interesting to note that during this period, European electric cabs all used pneumatic tires, an apparent reflection of the relative quality of American and European city streets.

83 Meade wrote: “[T]here is no possible doubt that, so far as accidents are concerned, the gasoline cab is a far better risk than the electric cab, and for this reason the amount of our accident and damage claims is decreasing as the electric cabs are eliminated. This is directly contrary to the belief of every accident insurance company representative with whom I have ever discussed the matter, as they believe that the higher speed of the gasoline cab makes it a more potent engine of destruction than the electric cab with its lower power and speed. The secret lies, however, in the lighter weight and better control of the gasoline car and the bad skidding propensities of the electric cab on solid tires.” Memo from Richard W. Meade, n.d., Meade Papers, Box 15, “New York Transportation Company” Folder. An editorial in Horseless Age made a similar argument, claiming that the gasoline cab “would … be materially safer than the antiquated design of electric cabs now running”; see “Gasoline Cabs,” 19 (6 Mar. 1907), 371Google Scholar.

84 Mom, Gijs, “Haver- en andere motoren: de Amsterdamse paardentaxi en het dilemma van de motorisering, 1880–1925,” in Het paardloze voertuig: de auto in Nederland een eeuw geleden, Bos, Ariejan, van Groningen, Hans, Mom, Gijs, and van der Vinne, Vincent, eds. (Deventer, 1996), 165–267Google Scholar.

85 Electric Vehicles: “Electric Taxicab Successful in Detroit” (Feb. 1915): 54; “Electric Taxicabs for New York,” (Jan. 1916): 16; “Women to Drive Taxicabs in Detroit” (Dec. 1917). See also A. Jackson Marshall, “Women to Drive Taxicabs,” Central Station (July 1917): 93–4.

86 Central Station: Harvey Robinson, “Electric Vehicle Expert Sees Future for Electric Taxi,” (Jan. 1916): 189; A. Jackson Marshall, “The Electric Vehicle Situation,” (Dec. 1917): 173–7. See also “Electric Taxicabs for Chicago,” NELA Bulletin (1916): 475.