Electric Vehicles

Abstract

THE class of electric vehicle which has proved most successful in Britain up to the present time is the lorry of from i ton to 5 tons capacity. The author has had extensive experience of the working of electric battery vehicles belonging to the Glasgow Corporation, and he quotes test figures which are very interesting and instructive. He compares, the cost for electric, petrol, and steam motors and shows that the electric vehicle is cheapest to run, provided that the load capacity lie between 2 and 5 tons. For loads of less than 2 tons, the petrol vehicle is the most economical. But electric vehicles are preferable in every way to horse-drawn vehicles. The average consumption of energy for a ten-mile run is generally about a unit. It is rightly pointed out that electric vehicle builders are greatly handicapped in their endeavours to induce private firms to use electric vehicles by the fact that most electricity authorities have no vehicles of this type themselves. It would pay the municipal electric authorities if all the city work at present being done by horses were done by electric vehicles. For each horse displaced a night load on their station of about one kilowatt for seven hours would be obtained. Valuable data are given which should enable engineers to come to a decision.