The first American electric taxis were fricking weird.

[awesomeaustinv]

I've just dug up a ton of information on the first motorized taxi cabs in America, and they are some of the strangest cars I've seen in a long time. First off, they were front wheel drive, which means that everyone who thinks the Cord is the first American FWD car is wrong. Also, these had rear-steering, the driver sat above and behind the passengers, the passengers entered through doors in the front, they had no differential (instead simply using two separate motors for the drive wheels), and the company operating them had a very clever and efficient system of switching out batteries when they started to die. They had four horsepower, a top speed of 15 mph (although around town they usually only went about 10 mph), and a range of about 25 miles before needing the battery exchanged for a fresh one, which took only three minutes. These things are surprisingly well-documented in period publications such as The Horseless Age, with plenty of technical drawings and wiring diagrams and whatnot available. Using these, I imagine you could figure out how to build a replica. which might be nice, since I don't think any of these things survived I might have to write a more in-depth article about these on DT, these things are fascinating.

[trivet]

@awesomeaustinv said in The first American electric taxis were fricking weird.:

I might have to write a more in-depth article about these on DT

Why DT? - I'd love to hear more about these. VERY cool and VERY OPPO

[awesomeaustinv]

@trivet IMO DT is better for longer, more in-depth posts. Also, I can get paid to write there, which is nice. You can of course read it there, and I will share a link here when it's finished.

[Rusty Vandura]

@awesomeaustinv I think that thing is pretty cool. I'd like to see better how it's steered.

How's school going?

[ranwhenparked]

@awesomeaustinv Pre-pandemic, there might have been a business case for selling replicas as neighborhood electric vehicles for use in theme parks and tourist areas, like Cape May, Key West, or Savannah, maybe would have sold a few hundred. Not sure the travel and tourism industry is a thing that will exist again, though.

[Exage03040]

@ranwhenparked

If that happened I would have heard the distinct opening of the Torchinsky wallet.

"You'll never guess what I swapped my Changli for..."

[ranwhenparked]

@exage03040 He'd borrow one from a quirky microcar museum to take a test drive in and make a couple videos about. And it would have several things broken on it, despite having 62 miles on the odometer

[awesomeaustinv]

@rusty-vandura I think it's steered via a tiller, like most cars of the time. Throttle, however, was controlled by twisting a handle, while forward/reverse was controlled via a foot pedal, and the brakes had their own pedal as well.

School is... meh. I'll recover. Thank God it's Christmas break now.