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Henry Ford’s lesser-known involvement in electric car development sheds light on his visionary approach to automotive innovation.

Home / Car Features / Classics / Henry Ford and the electric … Advertisement Henry Ford and the electric car By Daniel Strohl — Updated August 27, 2024 in Classics SHARE THIS ARTICLE photo from the collections of The Henry Ford Keep Watching Watch Hemmings videos without ads here. That Henry Ford and Thomas Edison became good friends later in their lives is well known. They camped together, they presented each other with lavish gifts, they owned houses immediately adjacent to each other. Many Ford enthusiasts also know that, at the time Ford first drove his Quadricycle on the streets of Detroit in 1896, he was working for Edison at the Detroit Edison Illuminating Company. They also know that a couple months later, when Ford was introduced to Edison and showed Edison his plans for a gasoline automobile, Edison encouraged him to pursue those plans. That Edison and Ford later put their minds together to conceive a low-priced electric car is not so well known. At about the same time Ford founded his eponymous automobile company, Edison had made inroads into battery technology and began offering nickel-iron storage batteries for several uses, among them automobiles. His announced plans that same year to convert four large touring cars from gasoline to electric power (using his own batteries, of course) reeks of a publicity stunt to sell his new batteries, but it was enough to get him listed in the Standard Catalog. And though he prodded Ford off into production of gasoline cars, by 1903 he was denouncing them. Electricity is the thing. There are no whirring and grinding gears with their numerous levers to confuse. There is not that almost terrifying uncertain throb and whirr of the powerful combustion engine. There is no water circulating system to get out of order – no dangerous and evil-smelling gasoline and no noise. Ford, however, still high on Edison’s encouragement (he’s often quoted as saying that Edison was the greatest man in the world, so he would probably have jumped off a bridge if Thomas Alva told him to), not only rigorously pursued the gasoline-powered car and left Detroit Edison to found his own automobile company, he also ordered the development of a flywheel magneto system for the Model T specifically to avoid using batteries. (One story I’ve read, possibly apocryphal, is that during one of Henry Ford’s camping trips, the battery in a pre-production Model T overturned, cutting the trip short and causing Ford to ban batteries from his new low-priced car.) Just about five years later, Ford began to change his mind. In early 1914, word had gotten around that work had started on a low-priced electric car. Reports appeared in the Wall Street Journal, in the trade magazines, and in other newspapers as far away as New Zealand regarding Ford’s foray into electric cars. Ford himself even confirmed the rumors in the January 11, 1914, issue of the New York Times: Within a year, I hope, we shall begin the manufacture of an electric automobile. I don’t like to talk about things which are a year ahead, but I am willing to tell you something of my plans.The fact is that Mr. Edison and I have been working for some years on an electric automobile which would be cheap and practicable. Cars have been built for experimental purposes, and we are satisfied now that the way is clear to success. The problem so far has been to build a storage battery of light weight which would operate for long distances without recharging. Mr. Edison has been experimenting with such a battery for some time. Advertisement Ford may have fibbed a little by saying that multiple experimental cars have been built, but we know for a fact that at least one experimental Ford electric was built in 1913, as seen above out in front of Ford’s Highland park plant. It was a tiller-steered car with an unusually swoopy frame and a contingent of batteries under the seat. The man operating it, Fred Allison, was an electrical engineer from Detroit who was tasked with designing the car’s motor. According to Ford Richardson Bryan, writing in his book, Friends, families, & forays: scenes from the life and times of Henry Ford, the car’s electrical system and overall design were handed to Alexander Churchward, at that time the vice president of Gray & Davis, while general mechanic’s duties were assigned to Samuel Wilson, a former Cadillac employee. A year earlier, Churchward had written a paper on The Standardization of the Electric Car (in which he argued for a 25 MPH maximum speed for all electric vehicles), while Wilson had experience with Cadillac’s self-starter program. 1914 Ford electric car photo from the collections of The Henry Ford Advertisement Work continued into 1914, as we can see from Allison perched atop the second experimental electric car, this one using a Model T frame, suspension and front axle, a Model T steering wheel, and a worm-drive rear axle. The latter indicates that the motor, mounted behind the driver in the prior car, resided up ...

Henry Ford and the Electric Car: Visionary Innovation