Electric Car thread

[PDoz]

" BTW - Neither of those old photos were of any "Easter Parade". They were snapshots of daily life and congestion in a city"

Also worth reflecting on - even before cars, the rich had multiple lanes allocated for their convenience , whilst the pedestrians were crammed on a narrow sidewalk

 

[smorgasbord]

Yet the word is the only relevant one for when horses, as a whole, were replaced by machines. The cities themselves were not the "benchmark" for the automobile takeover because they were historically more suitable for a cards a horse

While you provide an interesting perspective on city versus rural adoption of the automobile, Scientific American agrees with me on the rate of automobile adoption:

The Motor Vehicle, 1917 [Slide Show]

Greater utility and more luxury

www.scientificamerican.com

In one decade, cars replaced horses (and bicycles) as the standard form of transport for people and goods in the United States.
In 1907 there were 140,300 cars registered in the U.S. and a paltry 2,900 trucks. People and goods still travelled long distances on land by railroad, and short distances by foot or horse-drawn carriage. Almost nobody rode horses, but plenty of people rode bicycles for pleasure and for transport.
Ten years later in 1917, there had been a 33-fold increase in the number of cars registered, to almost 5 million, and a 134-fold increase in the number of commercial, agricultural and military vehicles, to almost 400,000. Horses were now an imperilled minority on the roads; bicycles were in decline in the U.S., although still popular in Europe.

Another good read is this:

Dale C. Maley: The horse vs. the automobile controversy

Dale C. Maley column on the history of the city of Fairbury and its residents

www.pontiacdailyleader.com

This echos your comments:

The agricultural industry took much longer transitioning from horses to tractors versus city dwellers adopting automobiles. In 1917, 132 Fairbury farmers had purchased cars. Only nine Fairbury farmers had purchased nine tractors. Horses continued to be used on Fairbury area farms into the 1940s.

But it continues:

In 1907, only 12,000 vehicles were registered with the Illinois Secretary of State's office. By 1919, the number of car owners exploded to 478,400 total vehicles. This car adoption rate represented a 36% compounded annual growth rate in car ownership between 1907 and 1920. By 1920, most Fairbury city residents had traded their horses for automobiles.

The Amish still use horses - does that mean the conversion is not yet "complete?"

.BTW - Neither of those old photos were of any "Easter Parade". They were snapshots of daily life and congestion in a city.

This source has "5th Ave. Easter '13" written on the negative:

Shorpy Historical Picture Archive :: Fifth Avenue: Easter 1913 high-resolution photo

Vintage photographs available as fine-art prints or digital stock images

www.shorpy.com

You can peruse a variety of old NYC Easter Parade photos here: https://www.boweryboyshistory.com/2020/04/easters-fashion-parade-1913-images-of.html

The rate of adoption is clear.

 

[Mulezen]

Back then automobiles were considered the solution to horse pollution.

 

[PDoz]

Back then automobiles were considered the solution to horse pollution.

But they ARE a better option. Apart from the slushy mess left by the average equine, do we really need to get into a discussion about co2 emissions as they sit around munching green stuff ?

 

[Mulezen]

^ I was presenting a common observance of the times...no ‘better’. Great civilizations of the past functioned quite well without horse or car.

 

[kevinmccune]

Please Folks do the math, the percentage of total gas makeup for CO2 even now is miniscule, some of these greeenies would have you believe CO2 is the most abundant gas in the atmosphere, when something is a little over 400 ppm in the overall scheme of things is very little( a tiny fraction- it was tried in place of argon or other inert gases as an insulator in multi paned windows, in some cases it was worse than nothing( vacuum works pretty well) If we could get rid of most of the CO2 in the atmosphere we would starve to death, even though I am not a Republican I breathed a sigh of relief when Uncle Al lost the presidential election, hypocripsy knows no bounds.I know we are screwing the earth, OTH there are more pressing matters than CO2.
Ride your bike and exhale( make a little plant happy)

 

[scrambler]

Thank you for your complete ignorance about the physics and chemistry and issues at play

 

[smorgasbord]

Please Folks do the math, the percentage of total gas makeup for CO2 even now is miniscule, when something is a little over 400 ppm...

You're right! The percentage of CO2 in our atmosphere is about 0.04%. Not 4%, not 4/10%, but 4/100 of a percent!

Unfortunately, small amounts make a big difference in how much heat the planet retains, and that percentage has been steadily increasing, with bumps during the Industrial Revolution and accelerating just recently with a 25% rise in the last 60 years:

From a good article: https://www.sciencealert.com/co2-is...sphere-but-it-has-a-huge-influence-here-s-why

The scientists who first identified carbon dioxide's importance for climate in the 1850s were also surprised by its influence. Working separately, John Tyndall in England and Eunice Foote in the United States found that carbon dioxide, water vapor and methane all absorbed heat, while more abundant gases did not. Scientists had already calculated that the Earth was about 59 degrees Fahrenheit (33 degrees Celsius) warmer than it should be, given the amount of sunlight reaching its surface. The best explanation for that discrepancy was that the atmosphere retained heat to warm the planet. Tyndall and Foote showed that nitrogen and oxygen, which together account for 99 percent of the atmosphere, had essentially no influence on Earth's temperature because they did not absorb heat. Rather, they found that gases present in much smaller concentrations were entirely responsible for maintaining temperatures that made the Earth habitable, by trapping heat to create a natural greenhouse effect.

So the greenhouse effect is essential for life on earth - without it out planet would be 59ºF cooler than it was in the 1850s. But, now we have too much and so the planet is warming beyond that. And, it's warming because we have more heat trapping gases like CO2.

Here's an overview of the natural greenhouse effect:

We also have clues from history on climate change:

The influence of carbon dioxide can be seen in past changes in climate. Ice cores from over the past million years have shown that carbon dioxide concentrations were high during warm periods

And back to our 0.04% figure:

It shouldn't be surprising that a small amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can have a big effect. We take pills that are a tiny fraction of our body mass and expect them to affect us.

Focusing on the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere as a raw number means you're missing the problems that higher concentrations cause.

Today the level of carbon dioxide is higher than at any time in human history. Scientists widely agree that Earth's average surface temperature has already increased by about 2 F (1 C) since the 1880s

Ride your bike and exhale( make a little plant happy)

“We’re finding that plant respiration is outstripping their ability to absorb carbon dioxide,” says David Crisp of NASA.

 

[kevinmccune]

I am sorry I will go with some top Phds on this at this time there is too little to cause a runaway greenhouse event, a little warmer is better for the biosphere at one time the concentration of CO2 became so slight that plants were on the verge of stopping to grow or dying out,CO2 is necessary for photosynthesis to produce the 'sugars" that most life depends on, its basically the only source of carbon for plants to build structure and produce the food that life depends on.I am not saying burning nasty petrochemicals are good- the thing is at the present time it feeds billions and provides a better way of life.A little of everything as Germany found out, you cannot go clean wacko and stop burning carbonacous fuels while you shut down one of the cleanest power sources we have( nuclear), forget fusion that is a bunch of hype like this crazy ass crippled space program that NASA foisted on us, we could have had a colony on the Moon by now, make no mistake about it as the former "Skunk Works" Guy said we already posses technology beyond what you can imagine, why don't we use it?Ask the Cabal, antigravity tech cannot even be mentioned anywhere, if the "Evil Empires' get this game over.
As a tropical animal Man cannot prosper anywhere North or south of the tropics, we need our enerygy fix to truly populate this planet. My opinion is that the biggest threat to the human race is overpopulation even at a declining birthrate it would tak a very long time for the Human race to become extinct, we were down to 7000 souls onetime and we survived, we even survived Despots exterminating over a tenth of the population
The sad fact is we eat petroleum and it will become an increasing scarce and valuable commodity as the third world starts to catch up to our pampered lifestyle, we need Thorium reactors and more breeder reactors if we want to stop the CO2 from flowing into our atmosphere,I agree we need to stop using our breath of life as a dump( funfact it is now possible to produce completely carbon nuetral liquid fuels utilizing nuclear power- one reason the ICE is going to be around a good deal longer)

 

[Readytoride]

While you provide an interesting perspective on city versus rural adoption of the automobile, Scientific American agrees with me on the rate of automobile adoption:

The Motor Vehicle, 1917 [Slide Show]

Greater utility and more luxury

www.scientificamerican.com

And yet Scientific American did not spend, as I did, over 2 decades researching and writing articles for two national carriage and driving magazines, plus several local publications. My husband and I have a carriage collection we began in 1980. Our oldest vehicle is a 1871-1872 coil spring road cart made by the Cortland Wagon Company of Cortland NY when it first opened in 1871. Our youngest carriage is a pony wagonette circa 1900. My research spanned years of carriage publications archived in several historic societies as well as the Sporting Library in Middleburg, VA. If anyone knows carriages, their heyday and their demise as the premier form of transportation, I do.

Just putting this out there to let you know I do, from decades of research and over 40 years of driving singles and pairs, know what is what when it comes to carriages and driving.

Again keep in mind when articles like the Scientific American were written, they focused on the cities, not the outlying countryside where horses continued to be important transportation well into the 30's and 40's

Another good read is this:

Dale C. Maley: The horse vs. the automobile controversy

Dale C. Maley column on the history of the city of Fairbury and its residents

www.pontiacdailyleader.com

This echos your comments:


But it continues:

The Amish still use horses - does that mean the conversion is not yet "complete?"

No. I don't count the Amish. Actually, I profoundly wish (for many reasons) they would adopt the electric car and give up horses.

This source has "5th Ave. Easter '13" written on the negative:

Shorpy Historical Picture Archive :: Fifth Avenue: Easter 1913 high-resolution photo

Vintage photographs available as fine-art prints or digital stock images

www.shorpy.com

View attachment 154088

It may have been taken on Easter Day, but this is NOT a parade. Nor does the negative say it was a parade. Parades back then, as they are today, are an occasion to dress up both people and vehicles in all sorts of finery and paper flowers. Notice the people on the sidewalk are walking and going about their business. This is just everyday traffic

You can peruse a variety of old NYC Easter Parade photos here: https://www.boweryboyshistory.com/2020/04/easters-fashion-parade-1913-images-of.html

These are not photos of any organized city parade. When the word was used, it was standard nomenclature for "walking". As in: "she paraded through the town like she was the Queen of Sheba". Also hats were de rigueur for both men and women when they were out in public. Even the lowest of workmen and scullery maids wore a hat in public. Big (wide and tall and often covered in endangered bird feathers) hats were the norm up until the 20s when the close fitting hat, aptly named the cloche, pushed out the big hat (thus saving a number of bird species from extinction) and featured small, demure flowers instead.

Also, any lady of status would not be walking on the road with the riff raff. She'd step from the church right into her car, or carriage, to go home.

The rate of adoption is clear.

The rate of adoption, as I said before, followed the improvements to roads, the building of bridges, the economy, and a specific need. It didn't happen overnight, nor did it happen within one decade. It circled outward from the cities that were both right and ripe for the transition, to the countryside which saw no benefits to an automobile when a horse (who easily live to 25 or more years productively) was a better choice overall.

 

[smorgasbord]

Again keep in mind when articles like the Scientific American were written, they focused on the cities, not the outlying countryside where horses continued to be important transportation well into the 30's and 40's

More people live in the cities than not, so that the cities went quickly over to automobiles proves the adoption point, and lays a historical foundation for EV adoption as well. Now it's more suburbia that will adopt quickly (many New Yorkers don't even own cars), while rural areas will be slower to adopt EVs, but, again, in total numbers the adoption is already following the "S" curve, as it did then for cars over horses as well.

It may have been taken on Easter Day, but this is NOT a parade.

A "parade" is the hair you want to split? Those photos - and others as I linked - show that adoption of cars over horses went quickly.

Maybe you can point out the "riff raff" in this 1912 photo to me (more cars than horses then, too):

or this one:

Or the many others here:

Easter in Old New York: The Fifth Avenue Fashion Stroll - The Bowery Boys: New York City History

In the picture above: People in Sunday finery stroll past the New York Public Library building. The library had not even been open two years by the time this picture was taken in March 23, 1913. New York City’s time-honored Easter custom — the Sunday morning Fifth Avenue Easter bonnet stroll —...

www.boweryboyshistory.com

You may know carriages, but apparently don't know the Easter Parade in NYC.

 

[Art Deco]

Just a cool bit on lithium vs coal

Lithium: Storing more clean power with less pollution » Yale Climate Connections

Lithium mining is much cleaner than coal mining.

yaleclimateconnections.org

 

[Elkman]

" BTW - Neither of those old photos were of any "Easter Parade". They were snapshots of daily life and congestion in a city"

Also worth reflecting on - even before cars, the rich had multiple lanes allocated for their convenience , whilst the pedestrians were crammed on a narrow sidewalk

Check your history and you will find that in the late 1800's traffic jams were common and the solution was installing electric trolley car lines. The problem we now have is that after World War II a cabal with GM, Firestone Tire, and Standard Oil, created a corporation that then bought up all the street car lines in the USA and then ripped out the tracks and burned the streetcars and forced people to buy expensive and polluting cars to be able to move around the city. It was not a choice for people when the only option in the 1950's was to walk, bicycle, or own a car.

 

[Roamers]

The problem we now have is that after World War II a cabal with GM, Firestone Tire, and Standard Oil, created a corporation that then bought up all the street car lines in the USA and then ripped out the tracks and burned the streetcars and forced people to buy expensive and polluting cars to be able to move around the city.

Streetcars in North America - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Not as diabolical as you make it sound.

 

[Elkman]

It was diabolical and it ended up as a case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. The court agreed that these companies had behaved in a criminal manner but only fined them $1. Not that different from the Sacklers that caused pain and suffering and early deaths for many thousands of people and only paid a fine with not one day in court much less one night in jail.

I was a child in Pasadena California and saw first hand all the tracks being ripped up in the city. One could travel all over the LA basin in electric street cars prior to 1950. The company these three corporations formed also gave up the railroad rights of ways they owned and this has been a major impediment up to the present day. In the past couple years 13 cities tried to create light rail service for their people and quit thanks to attacks funded by the oil companies.

Travel around cities in Europe or Asia where the governments decided what transportation infrastructure would be built and you have much more people friendly places.

As FDR put it in 1938: “The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.”

 

[Roamers]

The company these three corporations formed also gave up the railroad rights of ways they owned

Sounds philanthropic.

 

[kevinmccune]

Sounds philanthropic.

Hardly, Mack was in on it too. As "Croc D" may have said[now thats a conspiracy]-"Altruism has a way of diminishing when confronted by Mammon"( from the book of "Plata')

 

[Roamers]

Hardly, Mack was in on it too. As "Croc D" may have said[now thats a conspiracy]-"Altruism has a way of diminishing when confronted by Mammon"( from the book of "Plata')

I am sad to say I'm too simple to understand that.

 

[PDoz]

Check your history and you will find that in the late 1800's traffic jams were common and the solution was installing electric trolley car lines. The problem we now have is that after World War II a cabal with GM, Firestone Tire, and Standard Oil, created a corporation that then bought up all the street car lines in the USA and then ripped out the tracks and burned the streetcars and forced people to buy expensive and polluting cars to be able to move around the city. It was not a choice for people when the only option in the 1950's was to walk, bicycle, or own a car.

I'd say they did you a favour - Coming from a country where TRAM lines are still in our roads ( and trams share roads still....with drivers who don't even pass car licences...) . Ever tried crossing wet tram lines in the dark on a motorbike?

 

[kevinmccune]

Paul Hogan as "Crocodile Dundee" said when confronted with a switchblade( as He pulled a giant Bowie knife" [ now thats a knife]-greed usually trumps altruism, ever notice how some Christians get rather testy when confronted with matters of the pocketbook?