zzdcar
Home
/
Reviews
/
Tech
/
A 1909 Baker Electric Shows Donut Media That a 100-Year-Old EV Still Holds Up
A 1909 Baker Electric Shows Donut Media That a 100-Year-Old EV Still Holds Up-July 2024
2024-02-19 EST 22:10:23

Image for article titled A 1909 Baker Electric Shows Donut Media That a 100-Year-Old EV Still Holds Up

Even though the inventions of and are seen as some of the earliest and most crucial developments in the world of — much to the chagrin of fans everywhere — fully-electric cars are often as the of self-propelled technology they are. The gearheads from are here to change that with their latest well-laid out about what it’s like to drive a 100 year-old EV. Spoiler alert: even after a full century, and then some, the earliest electric cars are still as smooth as butter.

The video takes a closer look at a , silently pulled from the garage of everyone’s favorite automotive enthusiast, . Officially, the Baker Electric was classified as a horseless carriage, which tracks given that its designer, , got started in the nascent automobile industry by making axles for horse-drawn carriages.

And thanks to a newfangled technology known as electricity, which was quickly becoming popular in the early twentieth century, Baker was able to give horses a break by designing and making a chic carriage that rolled on its own, impulsed forward by charged particles.

It was a very early design — one of the first — so it looks rudimentary or prosaic to our modern eyes, especially next to an EV like a Lucid Air or Tesla Roadster, but the Baker Electric was the bleeding edge of fully-electric cars 114 years ago. In fact, you could draw analogies between it and today’s EVs and, maybe, even autonomous vehicles: the Baker EV lacked a steering wheel and was a seating pod on wheels. Kind of like the modern AVs that and others are making to one day ferry passengers in room-like enclosures powered by battery packs.

The Baker Electric was steered with a rudder, and the throttle was a lever rather than a pedal, but underneath those differences it’s not hard to see the line that connects the Baker EV with modern-day , and EVs. They even had the same limitations, such as crappy wait times at charging stations, which actually existed back then in cities like New York.

Sure, the Baker EV could take up to 48 hours to charge, as Jay Leno explains, instead of the three or four hours modern electric cars take, but it had a range of up to 80 miles even back then! Take that range anxiety. The point being that EVs have always been the bane of impatient and range-anxious drivers. In any case, check out the whole because it’s a fun crash course on the history of EVs, which goes way further back than most people realize.

Image for article titled A 1909 Baker Electric Shows Donut Media That a 100-Year-Old EV Still Holds Up

Comments
Welcome to zzdcar comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
Tech
Biden’s First EV Charging Station Goes Online After $7.5 Billion In American EV Investments
Biden’s First EV Charging Station Goes Online After $7.5 Billion In American EV Investments
Despite in investments for the development of in the , not a single charging station had gone live thanks to — until now. The first EV charger paid for by Biden’s Bipartisan deal has come online in Ohio, according to , which marks the operational start of what the...
Jul 29, 2025
Costco Will Sell The Chevy Blazer EV At A Discount To Go With Your Rotisserie Chicken
Costco Will Sell The Chevy Blazer EV At A Discount To Go With Your Rotisserie Chicken
knows that you keep coming back for the and Kirkland brand, but you can now also buy a cheaper at your local warehouse. Chevy notified its dealers that members are eligible for a $1,000 rebate on the through January 2, according to . The discount is part of ,...
Jul 29, 2025
Danish Investors Dump Tesla Shares After Elon Musk Calls Strikes In Sweden 'Insane'
Danish Investors Dump Tesla Shares After Elon Musk Calls Strikes In Sweden 'Insane'
Danish pension fund PensionDanmark is dumping all of its stock and putting the U.S. EV maker on its exclusion list of the companies it chooses to invest in – or not. The fund is selling all of its shares due to Elon Musk’s refusal to enter into labor agreements...
Jul 29, 2025
GM Says It's Dropping Apple CarPlay And Android Auto Because They're Unsafe (Update)
GM Says It's Dropping Apple CarPlay And Android Auto Because They're Unsafe (Update)
GM is still dealing with the fallout of its decision to drop Apple CarPlay and Android Auto in favor of developing its own in-house system. In the last eight months, the company has had to deal with while still maintaining its in-house system will be “.” Since neither of...
Jul 29, 2025
Volkswagen EVs Can Now Power Your House For Two Days (Update)
Volkswagen EVs Can Now Power Your House For Two Days (Update)
Experts have said that one of the ways to speed up EV adoption is for them to support . The ability for owners to power their house off their car or from the grid is vital. Just nine EVs on the market currently support bidirectional charging, but now VW...
Jul 29, 2025
Truck Fans Would Rather Wait For A Toyota Tacoma EV Than Buy A F-150 Lightning Or Cybertruck
Truck Fans Would Rather Wait For A Toyota Tacoma EV Than Buy A F-150 Lightning Or Cybertruck
fans are already cooling on despite more options on the market and news of upcoming models from the likes of Chevy and Ram. The and have yet to be released, while the has recently joined the and for sale in the U.S. And, yet, all of these current and...
Jul 29, 2025
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.zzdcar.com All Rights Reserved