MOTOR VEHICLES.
To conclude this series of articles without reference to the
long-continued efforts of inventors to create a successful motor
bicycle would be to omit what will doubtless prove a most interesting
chapter to many readers. Public interest is keen not only in the
direction of motor power as applied to the cycle and multicycle, but
to all other styles of vehicles used for pleasure, convenience or
commercial purposes. The present chapter will therefore treat of the
motor as applied to all vehicles—the bicycle, the tricycle, and the
heavier structures now worked by horse-power.
EVOLUTION OF THE MOTOR VEHICLE.
The term “motor cycle” must finally become broad enough to be motor
vehicle, and in five possible forms—the bicycle, single or tandem;
the tricycle, single or double; the four-wheeled carriage, with seats
for two, four, or six; the cab or ’bus for public hire; the truck for
hauling loads.
The first form cannot be thought likely to assume importance, for
notwithstanding the fact that to the practiced and regular rider the
bicycle becomes so far like the lower part of the centaur that steering
is almost unconscious and the balancing a matter of instinctive
bodily sway, it is also true that the constant call for equipoise
does somewhat “take it out of” the system, even if the demand is not
thought of. To state it in another way, it must be admitted that,
if various resistances were not greater on the tricycle and if one
could put aside all “feeling” and could regard only physical comfort
according to that supposition, the three-tracker would fatigue less.
Of course, the supposition can never be real, and as the bicycle must
remain the easiest to drive it will hold its place as the vehicle for
self-propulsion; but when the question comes up as to the vehicle to
supply its own power and to ride upon, not to drive by one’s muscles,
its stability, comfort in sitting, strength, and luggage-carrying
capacity, will give the tricycle overwhelming advantages, since light
weight will cease to be of consequence.
The motor-driven pleasure carriage and the passenger vehicle for hire
will come together; indeed, they are already here. The postal van and
the delivery wagon for light goods are running in London and Paris.
The heavy truck for conveying general merchandise and doing general
“carting” is not yet distinctly in sight, but its coming seems to be
manifest destiny.
The accompanying illustration of a bicycle with gasoline motor,
from the exhibit of a Coventry firm at the Stanley Show of 1896,
is interesting as a stone on the path of development rather than a
permanent type. The lengthened wheel base suggests the desirability
of the tricycle form, and the level gear from the pedals shows that
they are intended only as auxiliary for starting; the same appears in
the tricycle shown, which was also very long and was level geared. The
cut of a tricycle of present shape and having a gasoline motor is also
given because this is now advertised as a market article, by the same
firm, but the bicycle has probably dropped out.
The _Irish Cyclist_ of Dec. 8 last, reviewing the National Show, says
that “motor cycles are practically non-existent, the only specimen seen
being a Bantam, with a rather neatly constructed oil engine ignited by
electric spark, which was only exhibited last year.”
The Stanley Show, in the month previous, had a considerable display
regarding which the _London Cyclist_ said:
Three electric tandems have storage batteries carried in the frame
below the top tube, with a motor in the lower part of the rear frame
and on the handlebar a resistance coil to bring speed under control of
the rear rider; a similar tandem has been run up to a speed of forty
miles an hour, and these machines are for pacing purposes only. (This
is emphasized by the recent arrival in New York of the two French
professionals, brothers, with their electric tandem, booked to appear
on several tracks. The tandem is credited with a fifty mile rate, and
perhaps it may not be necessary for any little Michael to call out
to the pacemakers on it to “hit it up.”) A road tandem has an oil
motor with vertical double cylinders, the gear hub, of twelve inches
outside diameter, serving as a fly wheel; the motor is of two and a
half horse power and the maximum speed twenty-five miles an hour.
A three-quarter-horse power oil motor tricycle is meant as tractor
for a light two-seated two-wheeled chaise; the same parties showed
phaetons and parcel vans. The Daimler Co., the first to enter England,
showed a long line of vehicles with four-horse-power motors; one was a
parcel van for the _Cyclist_ publishers, and another was the _Cyclist_
editor’s car on which he took his vacation journey of 2,000 miles to
John-o-Groat’s and back to London. The review adds that the exhibit
should convince of progress, for there was not a single English-built
carriage in the collection, a year ago.
THE STEAM CARRIAGE.
[Illustration: MOTOR TRICYCLE.]
The motor itself is the primary factor in the problem, and seems to be
the most difficult. Naturally, steam was the first power tried, as it
is the oldest known of the artificially-produced powers. As tried on
the highway, it far antedates the railroad locomotive. In 1797, the
Frenchman Cugnot produced a three-wheeled steam wagon in Paris, which
ran fairly well until an accident befel it. In the thirties, several
steam wagons ran for passenger service in and near London, and on one
line 10,000 passengers were carried a total distance of some 4,000
miles. Most of these vehicles did not do both the carrying and driving
but used a road locomotive to draw a ’bus. In 1870, a ’bus was built
in Edinburgh with solid rubber tires, capable of carrying a load of
sixty passengers, but the attempt was not commercially successful. Not
long after, several vehicles capable of carrying a hundred persons at a
speed from three to ten miles an hour were made and sent to India.
There are a number of builders of steam automobiles in Paris, and a
considerable number of the vehicles are now in use in the gay capital,
mostly for such heavy work as carrying passengers and delivering goods.
There are comparatively few in England; yet a London insurance journal
of Dec. 22 reports a trial trip of the steam van experimentally adopted
by the postoffice and intended to run between London and Red Hill.
The particular machine referred to is an old one which had already
done about 4,500 miles, “and has been repainted for this purpose;
those specially built for the G. P. O. will be rather different in
arrangement although not differing in principle. The machinery, which
has a petroleum fire, seems to be thoroughly under control, the brake
very powerful and the wheels fitted with solid rubber tires; it is
probable that new vans may have the advantage of Foidart’s patent ball
bearings, which are in the hands of the British Ball-Bearing Syndicate.”
It may be a hint that oil is taken as fuel on the London postal vans,
and also that one of the wagons above mentioned did not exceed in
weight that of the heaviest electric phaetons now running with storage
batteries; and although steam hardly seems likely to be employed on
carriages for strictly private use it might be too much to predict
that the steam motor has no chance as against the others. A carriage
has lately been finished, by the way, by a mechanical engineer in
Rochester, N. Y., working by steam, generated by gasoline in some
manner, as reported, one charge of gasoline serving for twenty miles.
AIR AS MOTIVE POWER.
Air has of course not been overlooked, and it has the advantage
of possessing the quality of perfect and inexhaustible elasticity
according to pressure; its greatest disadvantage is that it must be
“stored” and runs down steadily by use like a compressed metallic
spring, hence requiring compressing stations. At intervals in this
century, plans and drawings for vehicles to be run by air have been
presented by successive inventors, and a system of tram-car service
thus propelled has been tried experimentally in France. An air-driven
tricycle has also been built in Chicago. What will be made out of this
particular motor we must wait to see.
ELECTRICITY AS POWER.
Electricity comes next in the list, and is now limited for production
of current to three forms—the power station, supplying current by
a trolley and motor; the primary battery, carried on the vehicle;
the storage battery, also carried on the vehicle. The first may be
impossible commercially, but it is not at all so mechanically. Given
the lines and some workable device for insuring that the carriage shall
not be too often “off its trolley,” together with provision for some
minor difficulties which need not be pronounced impossible (since in
an inventive and pushing Republic the impossible is the thing which
becomes possible), and the thing is done. Leave this method to the
future, meanwhile noting that a trolley automobile is already reported
from Nevada as having been built. The primary battery, to be taken
along, seems out of the practicable list in the present state of
electrical development.
THE COLUMBIA ELECTRIC PHAETON.
The third form, that of the storage battery, is now most prominently
put forward, at least in this part of the United States, by the Pope
Co., which is now prepared to fill orders for the Columbia electric
phaeton, after several years of experiment, which has included the gas
motor as well. At a casual glance this vehicle is an elegantly finished
phaeton with box, body and folding hood, fitted with bicycle wheels but
without the pole. The wheels are thirty-two inch front and thirty-six
inch rear, with stout spokes and hubs, and the tires are Hartford
single-tube pneumatic, with walls a little over a half inch thick. They
have a mechanical fastening to the rim in addition to the constriction
by air pressure, in order to guard against being rolled off on a curve.
The tires require hard inflation (at about 150 pounds pressure), which
can be done only with the special pump supplied. The temporary repair
as made on bicycles is hardly necessary, for the tires are made very
difficult to puncture, the objections to such a tire on bicycles not
applying here, and the quality of resistance to puncture makes the tire
so firm that the carriage will run temporarily on the tires deflated.
The entire supporting frame or truck is of fifty-point (not 50 per
cent.) carbon tubing. The sides and front are doubled, rigidly braced
and brazed; the rear of the frame is single and from this hangs
supports for the axle bearings, the gears and the motor. Three compound
flat springs transversely fastened to the truck support the entire
upper body, which is not elsewhere supported. The body-supporting
springs, placed equi-distant along the frame, are pivotally suspended
at each end from the under side of the side tubes. Ball bearings are
placed wherever any practical gain can be found thereby; the motor
armatures and various pivots, with those of the steering gear, as
well as all the axles and spindles, are fitted thus. The front axle,
carrying the steering wheels, is pivoted so as to allow running over
obstacles, as shown in the cut, representing the regular factory tests,
and every vehicle is put to thorough tests and inspections before being
passed as ready.
The motor works on the rear axle, which is divided so as to be double
driving on the usual plan with bevel-gears. The motor is driven by
a storage battery, consisting of forty-four chloride cells in four
sets of eleven each, fitted in two sliding wood boxes; the cells are
sealed against spilling and the whole is carried in the body, access
to them being had by doors at the back. The run from one charging is
from thirty to thirty-five miles, at the rate of twelve and one-quarter
miles an hour, although excessively heavy work or an injudicious
management may exhaust somewhat sooner; it was found, however, by
prolonged investigation, that the average daily run of bicycles falls
well within this figure. Recharging may be done in the owner’s private
stable, the proper connection having been once made once for all from
the nearest electric-light station, and in case of a private-power
plant the cost of running need not exceed half a cent per mile for
current; otherwise recharging is done at any station where there is
a 110-volt direct current, and this need not exceed 50 cents for
each full charge. The connections which have to be manipulated are
made of different sizes, so that misplacing is impossible. A small
meter is placed in sight of the driver, which shows approximately the
power remaining in the batteries; this having run down and the proper
connections having been made, the charging process begins and the meter
starts to run backward to “full” again; no attention is required,
for as soon as the “full” point is reached the battery automatically
switches itself out of circuit.
[Illustration: POPE ELECTRIC PHAETON.]
The driver sits at the left and steers with his right hand by means
of an L lever. At his left is the “controller” lever, working over a
notched arc resembling that of the locomotive reversing lever, and
having four positions. When the lever stands vertical it is in the
“stopped” position, and when the driver gets off he is to pull out and
pocket a small safety plug; this leaves the circuit broken and the
carriage cannot start accidentally or be started by any person who has
not a duplicate plug. A very powerful band brake, working on the gear
box on the rear axle, and capable of a very quick stop, is operated by
a lever within reach of the driver’s right foot; a backing press is in
reach of his left foot and a lever on the steering handle operates a
bell. Having taken his seat and replaced the safety plug, the driver
sets the lever forward to the first notch, which gradually runs the
carriage up to a three-mile speed on a smooth level; the second notch
increases to six miles; the third, which is the one meant for steady
use and the most economical, goes to twelve miles; the fourth notch
uses a position very exhaustive of the batteries, giving a speed of
nearly fifteen miles, but is for sparing and emergency use.
The motor drives directly on the axle, without intervention of any
belting or gearing. It is of two horse power, and in operation it
is assumed that about one and three-eighths horse power is actually
exerted at the wheel rims. The recharging takes three hours. With
continued use, the total power available from any given set of
batteries usually increases; but if allowed to stand still long
fully-charged cells will gradually lose part of their charge, and
to allow them to stand long in the condition of complete discharge
is destructive to them. Each battery chamber weighs a little over
200 lbs., requiring two men to handle it. The total batteries weigh
something over 800 lbs., and the total weight of the carriage is about
1,900. Its cost is $3,000.
Against this first cost is to be set the cost of keeping the pair
of horses which the motor replaces. The cost of current for power
is estimated to range from 10 to 25 cents per day. Of course the
vehicle must not go out of reach of a source of supply; but electrical
plants are to be found in most villages and a list of over 400
places of current stations available, is included in the pamphlet of
instructions. The considerations in favor of electricity as a motor are
certainly very strong, and within its limitations it is quite perfect,
having neither odor, noise nor possible explosion. To the quietness
of running and ease of control of the Pope vehicle we can personally
testify, and its honesty and thoroughness of construction can be taken
on faith in the well-established and well-earned reputation of the
Pope Company. As to “getting out of order,” the study has been to make
the vehicle “fool-proof.” Every condition involved in a practical
vehicle for everyday use, by people of ordinary intelligence, has been
thought of, and durability and service quite as long and as trying as
could ever be exacted without actual abuse, was proved before putting
the vehicle on the market. After carefully reading the pamphlet of
instructions, our conclusion is that although they are somewhat
extended and minute, there is nothing formidable in them and that any
person fit to be trusted with a horse, or even with a good carriage,
ought to be able, by paying attention to his duties and doing as he is
told, to make this carriage “go of itself” and maintain its integrity
without any trouble. An experimental carriage has been in use for two
years in and around Hartford, having in that time made a mileage of
3,500; it was entrusted to untrained hands, and yet never met a mishap
which required it to be taken home by any other power than its own.
OTHER ELECTRIC VEHICLES.
In the Borough of Manhattan the electric cab has for about a year been
too familiar a sight to attract attention. The cabs are not yet many in
number. The Electric Vehicle Co. have some fourteen in operation, and
the company also has a hundred more in construction or under contract.
The carriage made by The Barrows Electric Vehicle Company is peculiar
in being a three-wheeler; the rear wheels are 28 inch, with 2 inch
tires, thus approximating the bicycle wheel except in stoutness, while
the front wheel, which is of 36 inches and has a 3 inch tire, carries
a 1-horse power motor and 300 pounds of storage cells, another 100
pounds of cells being placed under the seat. The electric equipment
is thus some 500 pounds total, four-fifths of this being borne on the
front wheel, where it serves for traction. The motor gears by a 2½
inch rawhide pinion direct to a 28 inch gear fixed on the wheel rim,
and the total weight of the vehicle is 700 pounds. There are three
speeds forward and two backward; the run is about three hours, or 30
to 40 miles, on one charging. The price ranges from $600 to $1,200 for
regular carriages, and $300 to $500 for what are called children’s
carts. Interested with Mr. Barrows is Supervisor Dunton of Jamaica
Township, well known to wheelmen and father of the goods roads system
in Queens County.
[Illustration: BICYCLE WITH MOTOR.]
The Riker Company, at present of 45 York street, Borough of Brooklyn,
have in use a half dozen and have a dozen under contract, at prices
from $1,800 to $2,500, and say the difficulty is not to get orders,
but to fill them, the reason for this being that the subject is still
so new that everything must be devised and procured and construction
is therefore slow. The Riker Electric Trap No. 1 won first prize on
Narragansett track at the Rhode Island State Fair, Sept. 7, 1896, doing
five miles in 11:28; this weighed 1,800 pounds, had a capacity of ten
miles for four hours, and attained a speed of twenty-seven miles; it
was crudely put together as most convenient, and had bicycle wheels
with “direct” spokes, the drivers being provided with four tension rods
running in a tangential direction midway between rim and hub. Wheels
as now made are 32 inch front and 36 rear; speeds provided are 3 and 6
miles back and 3—6—12—15 miles forward. Distance run on one charging
and cost of current per mile are about as with the Pope carriage; the
general description of that will also answer for others of its class,
and we might add here that no attempt is made to go into the technical
description of any motor vehicle, as this could not be done except
at great length and with detailed illustrations. Mr. Riker believes
strongly in the carriage, mentioning its suitability for physicians,
for example, because it does not involve exposing a horse to inclement
weather; for safety in leaving in the streets when not having a driver
with it, he makes his “safety plug,” a special lock with the Yale
tumblers, so that the vehicle cannot be moved by its own power except
after first inserting the owner’s key.
The gas engine has for years been in use for stationary service in
England, and considerably by cycle makers, largely because of the low
price of gas in the Kingdom. These engines depend on the familiar
principle that hydro-carbon vapors are explosive when mixed with air
in certain proportions. As employed in driving boats or vehicles,
the operation is essentially the same as long familiar in shops; the
engines are explosion engines, driving the shaft only by the outward
thrust of the piston and commonly making only each second or fourth
movement effective, the remaining movements being consumed in restoring
the mechanism to its original condition, these recurring acts being
known as a “cycle” of changes. Hence a flywheel is required, and the
driving power is irregular and by recurrent throb or thrust rather than
by the usual reciprocal movement of an engine.
In England a great impulse was doubtless given to autocars by the
London to Brighton run, Nov. 14, 1896, to celebrate the date when
the new “Light Locomotives act” took effect, permitting speed up to
fourteen miles an hour. This occasion is claimed by an American maker
to have been a race, and won by him; the _Scottish Cyclist_ account
calls it a parade, in which 32 machines out of an expected 56 took
part. Mud and rain, with the pressure of traffic and spectators,
“disorganized the procession,” but this is pronounced a better test
of running qualities than favorable conditions would have furnished.
Various tricycles, the French carriage which won the Paris-Marseilles
race, landaus, dogcarts, bath chairs, delivery vans, etc., all
presumably motor-driven, participated. No winner is reported or any
time given.
THE GAS MOTOR.
The Winton Motor Carriage Company, of Cleveland, Ohio, now offers a
light single-seat carriage for two persons, at $1,000, deliverable in
sixty days. The motor is of the single hydro-carbon type, using common
stove gasoline, obtainable almost anywhere; a supply is carried for
a day’s run of seventy-five miles over ordinary roads, at a cost of
under a half cent per mile. The catalogue says that “by an ingenious
and simple arrangement the motor is absolutely under control, running
at any desired speed without affecting its driving power, and, in
contradistinction to other motors, variable gearing for different
speeds is not necessary, except the hill-climbing and backing gear; the
motor can be speeded from 200 revolutions to 900 or 1,000 per minute in
about three seconds, and almost as quickly slowed down to a governed
speed of 200.” A Winton carriage claims the world’s record with a mile
in 1.48, on a circular track, Decoration Day, 1897. It is claimed to
be equal to “actual service over all kinds and conditions of roads,
up hill and down, through mud, sand and snow, at from three to twenty
miles an hour,” and a challenge is out to any kind of motor carriage,
by American or foreign maker, for a race next summer from New York to
Chicago or over any other course of at least 1,000 miles.
The Hertel Gasoline Motor-carriage Company, lately of Chicago, but now
of Springfield, and interested with the Iven-Brandenburgh Company,
proposes a light and improved carriage at a moderate price, but
declines to furnish any information, on the ground of not yet being
ready to fill orders.
The Duryea Motor Wagon Company of Springfield, Mass., shows
illustrations of the racing wagon which it claims won the Liberty Day
run from London to Brighton, already mentioned; another of the one
that won the $2,000 first prize in the Chicago _Times-Herald_ race of
Thanksgiving Day, 1895; also of the winner of the $3,000 _Cosmopolitan
Magazine_ race, Decoration Day, 1896. The later models only have
bicycle wheels: the earlier one had wood wheels on the old wagon-wheel
pattern. The earlier weights were 1,200 to 1,400 pounds; the latest
are brought down to 750. Ordinary stove gasoline is the fuel, and
six gallons are carried, equal to 150 miles’ running. A small dynamo
furnishes the spark for ignition in the cylinder. No gas or vapor is
carried outside the motors; no flame is used; if the water in the tank
is gone, the motor simply stops; there is no danger of explosion or
fire; the two motors are independent, and one wall work even if the
other has failed; five minutes suffice for recharging with fuel and
water; the carriage steers so well that it will practically pass over
rocks “hands off.” Speed ranges up to thirty miles, and any rate below
that may be run at will.
Here might be remarked the lightness of the Pennington tricycle used in
the London to Brighton run of 1896, “for to turn out a vehicle of less
than 250 pounds, yet capable of propelling itself with a load of four
passengers at speeds ranging up to twenty and thirty miles an hour is
decidedly a noteworthy achievement.” This vehicle was put together by
clamping the tubes instead of brazing.
The Weston-Mott Company of Utica discerns the signs of the times, and
now offers all kinds of wheels for horseless vehicles.
[Illustration: POPE ELECTRIC PHAETON UNDER TEST.]