Electric cars aren’t new technology, and actually, their history is somewhat underestimated. Personally, some years ago, I thought electrification started with consumer experiments like the GM EV1, followed by consumer-ready cars like the Mitsubishi i-MiEV and the Nissan Leaf, but the first electric cars go back far further – and perhaps the most interesting story we can tell you is about the EV driven by Henry Ford’s wife, Clara Ford.
Let’s mosey on over to the Henry Ford Museum website and look into Clara Ford’s EV for a bit (if you want to visit it in person, it’s in Dearborn, Michigan).
“In the years before World War I many women chose electric cars because they started instantly without hand cranking and had no difficult-to-shift transmission,” the website reads.
“The superintendent of the Detroit Electric factory employed his daughter, Lillian Reynolds, to sell to women – including Clara Ford, who drove this car into the 1930s.”
No hand-cranking Ford Model T’s for Mrs. Ford, no sir. Just like today, EVs in the early 20th century provided a much simpler driving experience. The car Clara Ford chose was the 1914 Detroit Electric Model 47 Brougham – an elegant-looking machine that veers away from the more hot rod-like aesthetic of the Model T.
Yes, that is a flower vase above the driver’s seat in the above photo.
The Model 47, according to the Thomas Edison website (apparently Edison also purchased a unit), could reach a top speed of 20mp/h, or about 32km/h. You’d be safe through school zones at the very least, but flooring it would fall short of the Model T’s 70km/h top speed. The Model 47 could travel for about 80 miles, or about 130 kilometres, on a single charge, while the Model T could travel for about 250 kilometres.
The car could be charged via a DC electric charger, pictured here in an Electrek article. The car ran on lead-acid batteries, not the lithium batteries you’d find in a Tesla today.
Oh, and of course, the car was quite expensive. $US3,730 according to the museum website, while a Model T in those days started at $US850 (the average U.S. wage in 1914 was about $US627 per year, which inflates to about $US19,250 today, making the total cost of the Model 47 about $US116,000 in today’s economy, via an inflation calculator).
The Model 47 had so much personality to it. By today’s standards, it’s probably a death trap, but it’s a death trap with style.
Image: The Henry Ford Museum
Want more Aussie car news? Here’s every EV we’ve reviewed in the last two years, all the EVs we can expect down under soon, and our guide to finding EV chargers across the country. Check out our dedicated Cars tab for more.