Many people refer to pure electric vehicles as new energy vehicles, but in fact pure electric vehicles are not a new product, and the world’s first electric vehicle is actually older than the first internal combustion engine vehicle. Be early.
The world’s first pure electric car was born in 1834, and the first internal combustion engine car was born in 1885. This means that pure electric cars are 51 years earlier than internal combustion locomotives! But why didn't pure electric vehicles develop and be replaced by internal combustion engine vehicles for a long time? Today we will review the development history of pure electric vehicles.
If you want to understand the world’s first pure electric car, you must first know about this person, the Hungarian physicist Jedlik? Nyos, who invented the world’s first pure electric car The first electric motor, so it is also called the father of the DC motor.
In the spring of 1828, Jedlik Anush completed the first telegraph device in his laboratory. His invention of the commutator solved the previous technical problem of the inability of the motor to rotate continuously. He named this invention "Electromagnetic Rotor".
The father of the DC motor-Jedlik Anush
Shortly thereafter, Jedlik Anush launched the first three-wheel drive motor containing a practical DC motor. Equipment with three main components: stator, rotor and commutator. This device does not use permanent magnets because the magnetic fields of the stationary and rotating components are generated solely by the current flowing through their windings.
With the electric motor, Jedlik Anush tried to use it for practical work, so he fixed the motor on a wooden board and installed four wheels on the bottom. It may be the world's earliest pure electric vehicle concept. However, due to the small power of the motor and other reasons, this idea has never made any practical progress.
The world's first pure electric car that could actually drive was designed and manufactured by American inventor Thomas Davenport in 1834. The highlight of the car was its use of A DC motor is used as the power to drive the vehicle.
Thomas Davenport
Although this car looks like a conventional car, it still can only travel a short distance due to the technical obstacles at the time. A certain distance, and the maximum speed is only 6km/h, so it cannot be used as a transportation tool at all, and the battery is also very simple, it is disposable and cannot be recharged when the power is used up.
Three years later, in 1837, Thomas Davenport invented the commutator DC motor, and thus obtained the first patent in the American motor industry. The motor had obvious improvements in performance. The progress made it possible to run at 600 rpm, but the cost of batteries at the time was so high that the electric motor was not commercially successful, and Thomas Davenport eventually went bankrupt.
In this way, the research and development and progress of pure electric vehicles seem to have stopped.
The reappearance of pure electric vehicles was already in 1881, but with more than 40 years of accumulation and development, pure electric vehicles have finally made breakthrough progress. Frenchman Gustave Trouve has built a pure electric vehicle powered by lead-acid batteries. The vehicle and its driver weigh about 106kg, have a speed of 15km/h and a cruising range of 16km.
Compared with the car invented by Thomas Davenport in 1837, this car is obviously more practical, with improvements in both speed and cruising range. But even this performance was still not enough to compete with the carriage, so it did not attract attention at the time.
In 1885, German Karl Benz had invented the world's first automobile, and applied for and obtained an invention patent on January 29, 1886. The car was equipped with three wheels and a two-stroke, single-cylinder, 0.9-horsepower gasoline internal combustion engine. The world's first car was born.
Mercedes-Benz No. 1
Lohner-Porsche
And this gasoline internal combustion engine car seems to be more reliable than a pure electric car, but these are not Influencing the development of pure electric vehicles, in 1899 the German Porsche invented a hub motor, which was intended to replace the chain drive used in internal combustion engine vehicles at that time. Through this invention, the pure electric vehicle Lohner-Porsche was also officially launched.
That's right! It was Porsche, but the company hadn't even been established yet.
The car uses lead-acid batteries as the power source. The highlight is that the car uses two wheel hub motors as the power source. The wheel hub motors are directly installed on the front wheels of the vehicle, so it has great efficiency. Significant improvement. The car made its debut at the Paris World's Fair in 1900 and caused a sensation.
The appearance of Lohner-Porsche adopts the shape of a carriage carriage that was popular at the time. The hub motors located in the two front wheels can provide about 3 horsepower to drive the vehicle, and the power supply to the motors is located in the Lead-acid batteries under the cabin. However, even if the efficiency of the wheel hub motor is excellent enough, it cannot get rid of the immature battery technology, low energy density and bulky battery at that time. Therefore, the car's performance in terms of cruising range is not outstanding.
Later, Porsche also installed in-wheel motors on the two rear wheels of Lohner-Porsche, and the world's first four-wheel-drive electric car was born. Although the car's top speed can It can reach 60km/h, but the cruising range is still a very difficult issue.
In order to effectively solve the problem of cruising range, Porsche developed the world's first hybrid car in 1900. Porsche installed a water-cooled DeDion Bouton gasoline generator in the car. , the generator has a power of 3.5 horsepower and is installed in the middle of the car body. The generator can output a current of 20A at a voltage of 90 volts. The electric energy output by the generator directly drives the outer rotor hub motor, and the remaining electric energy flows into the battery pack. Store it.
La Jamais Contente
Also in 1900, Frenchman Camille Jenatzy designed a car that was eye-catching and full of personality. , he named the car La Jamais Contente. The biggest highlight of the car is its cannonball-shaped body. At the same time, as a pure electric car, it can reach a top speed of 105.88km/h. This speed not only refreshes the internal combustion engine car It is also the first time that the top speed of a pure electric vehicle has exceeded 100km/h. The La Jamais Contente pure electric vehicle maintained this speed record until the 20th century.
Camille Janaz once said: When you drive this car, it seems to leave the ground and be thrown forward like a bullet that bounces off the ground. As for the driver, he The muscles of the body and shoulders will become stiff when competing with the air pressure, the sight will be fixed at 200 yards, and the perception will be completely on alert.
This is what Kamil Janaz feels when he drives the La Jamais Contente pure electric car at a speed of more than 100km/h. It may not seem special now, but it is different The thing is, before La Jamais Contente, people had never achieved such speeds with a car.
The size of the La Jamais Contente pure electric vehicle is very compact, similar to that of today's small hatchback cars. At the same time, the vehicle weight is only 1,450kg. The total power of the two electric motors responsible for traction can reach 67 horsepower. Such performance was a completely breakthrough upgrade for pure electric vehicles at the time.
In addition, the body of the La Jamais Contente pure electric car is made of aluminum-tungsten alloy, aluminum alloy and other materials. It is also considered to be the world's first streamlined car. In addition, Michelin also provided tires for the car.
It is precisely because of these technological advances that the development of pure electric vehicles has progressed rapidly. At the same time, there have also been very outstanding improvements in batteries, which also made pure electric vehicles very popular at the time, and many concerns about speed and performance records were all set by pure electric vehicles, which could be said to be beyond the reach of internal combustion engine vehicles at the time.
At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, automobiles became popular in the United States. Electric vehicles also relied on their no noise, no exhaust gas, and smooth and comfortable characteristics to make the sales of pure electric vehicles far exceed that of internal combustion engine vehicles. Data shows that in the United States in the 1910s, the number of fuel vehicles was only 22%, while the number of electric vehicles was 38%.
But the good times did not last long. The glorious history of pure electric vehicles did not last long. The development of automobiles also promoted the construction of highways, and people are increasingly looking forward to driving cars to farther places. Therefore, the cruising range of cars has become people’s most urgent need.
This is undoubtedly a fatal weakness for pure electric vehicles. Coupled with the development of many oil fields in the world at that time, the price of fuel also dropped to an acceptable range for people, so internal combustion engine vehicles gradually gained people's attention. attention, technology has also developed rapidly.
Ford Model T
It can be said that Henry Ford and his Ford cars personally ended pure electric vehicles. With the mass production of Ford cars, they were not only cheap, Moreover, the leather is durable and the advantages of pure electric vehicles have been lost. Since then, pure electric vehicles have been in the doldrums and have been silent for a hundred years.
Peugeot VLV
However, after the outbreak of World War II (1939-1945), electric vehicles briefly recovered. Due to the shortage of oil resources at the time, the French Peugeot company took advantage of the situation and launched VLV electric vehicles. Sales are pretty good.
In 1941, Peugeot launched a VLV pure electric model with a maximum power of 1.3-3.5 horsepower and a motor with a voltage of 48V. The car could reach a top speed of 30km/h. It was on the streets of Paris at that time. The car is very common. But it was only a flash in the pan. With the end of the war, VLV was discontinued.
GM EV1
In the history of electric vehicles, a car that must be mentioned is the GM EV1. This car can be said to be the first pure electric vehicle closest to modern cars, and it also provided experience and technical standards for the subsequent development of pure electric vehicles. Many of the R&D and design ideas on EV1 models are still used today.
Although the EV1 model attracted widespread attention when it was released, in the end the car was not successful. The design of the EV1 model is very individual, and the rounded style makes it look a bit bloated. The integrated car The shell extends all the way to the butt of the car, and the semi-enclosed rear wheel adds an aesthetic center of gravity to the rear of the car and accentuates the car's low-riding visual effect.
The design of the rear of the car echoes that of the front of the car, with a large upward angle and a flatter mouth shape. Such a set of designs is very avant-garde even by today's aesthetic concepts. Under certain overlooking angles and paint colors, this car even looks quite modern.
In terms of power, EV1 is equipped with an AC asynchronous motor with a maximum power of 100kW and a peak torque of 149N?m. Such power performance could be considered top-notch at the time. Although the charging time of more than ten hours at a time is not long, for traditional cars that are accustomed to filling up the tank once and forgetting about it, such trouble also makes customers less and less patient to continue using it after the initial novelty wears off. . Coupled with various reasons such as some policies and regulations, only 1,117 EV1 units were mass-produced, and it became a forgotten history.
With the development of technology, pure electric vehicles have now become a major trend in future automobile development. Not only manufacturers like Tesla have launched many well-known models, but also many famous supercars Sports car manufacturers have also joined the ranks of pure electric vehicles. Moreover, both power performance and high-tech configurations surpass traditional internal combustion engine models. I believe that with the development of science and technology, pure electric vehicles will have greater development in the future.
This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.