When Allesandro Volta invented the storage battery in 1796, he had no
idea he was inventing the modern automotive electrical system. Volta made
his discovery 89 years before the first car was offered for public sale. It
was another 25 years before the storage battery got even a passing nod
from some automakers.
Between 1885 and 1910, most cars having gas engines did not need storage
batteries because they had no devices that required electricity. Ignition was
left to the nonelectrical hot tube; later to the magneto, which was a
self-generating mechanism.
Until 1908, motorists warned pedestrians to "move it" by shouting or by
pressing a pedal to clang a bell. Neither method was as raucous as the
electric horn, which got its name, the Klaxon, from the Greek word
klaxo, meaning "to shriek."
Between 1908 and 1911, the few autos that had Klaxons used dry cells to
operate them. However, dry cells wore down quickly and had to be
replaced, which was expensive.
By 1911, storage batteries had attained a degree of reliability exceeding
that of dry cells; they lasted at least a month. Then, they could be
recharged and put back into service, unlike dry cells, which were
discarded. This degree of reliability was due in large measure to research
and development done by the electric car industry, which needed good
batteries so that its vehicles could compete with gas- and steam-engine
models.
The few manufacturers who adapted the storage battery to work the Klaxon
then looked around to see what else they could do with the excess current
the storage battery provided -- and found electric lights.
The first electric lights were introduced on the 1898 Columbia. This was
an electric car with storage batteries. Manufacturers of cars with gas
engines had another way to produce light. This was with the Prest-O-Lite
tank, introduced in 1904. It was a steel cylinder containing pressurized
acetylene gas that was fed to headlamps and ignited by flame.
Other manufacturers revived the dynamo, which had been around for some
time. (Today we call the dynamo the generator, but in those days most
called magnetos "generators.") The battery then didn't have to be taken out
of the car every month for recharging.
A problem still presented by those first dynamo-equipped cars was battery
overcharging. However, this trouble was resolved with the development of
a variable speed regulator by DELCO. It was first used in the 1912
Cadillac, which displayed another feature that set the auto industry on its
head: the self-starter.
Once they adopted the self-starter, auto manufacturers had to adopt the
battery/generator system to work the starter. However, the system put out a
much more current than the starter, lights and horn needed, and carmakers
realized they could harness this current experience. and use it for igniting
the fuel mixture. The magneto then became obsolete.
Self-starter beginnings
The self-starter came about by accident -- literally. In the winter of 1910
on a wooden bridge on Belle Island Mich., a Cadillac driven by a woman
stalled. Not having the strength to hand crank the engine herself, she was
forced to wait on the bridge in the cold until help arrived.
In time another motorist, also driving a Cadillac, happened along. His
name was Byron T. Carter, and he was a close friend of the head of Cadillac, Henry M. Leland.
Carter offered to start the woman's car, but she forgot to retard the spark and the engine
backfired, and the crank flew off and struck
Carter in the face, breaking his jaw.
Ironically, moments later another car carrying two Cadillac engineers,
Ernest Sweet and William Foltz, came along. They started the woman's car and rushed Carter to
a physician, but complications set in and a few weeks later Carter
died.
Leland was devastated. He called a special conference of his engineers and
told them that finding a way to get rid of the hand crank was top
priority.
"The Cadillac car will kill no more men if we can help it," he
announced.
Self-starters for automobile engines had been tried in the past. Some were
mechanical devices, some pneumatic and some electric.
But all attempts at finding a self-starter that was reliable, efficient and
relatively small had failed.
When the Cadillac engineers could not come up with a workable system,
the company invited Charles F. Kettering and his boys at DELCO (still
independent of GM) to take a hand. Kettering presented the device in time
for its introduction in the 1912 models.
The Kettering solution
Kettering's unit was a combination starting motor and generator equipped
with an overrunning clutch and reduction gear. Gear teeth engaged the
flywheel to provide a reduction of about 25 to 1 between the starting motor
and crankshaft, allowing sufficient torque to crank the engine successfully.
GM brass didn't trust the new system at first and demanded a backup
magneto and hand crank.
As public confidence in the reliable battery/generator/self-starter system
soared, it soon replaced the magneto in all GM cars. GM enjoyed a sales
boom, and the remainder of the auto industry soon adopted the system. Of
the 462 models shown at the 1911 New York Auto Show, only 19 had
battery/generator systems, and they all had backup magnetos. Of 119
makes displayed at the 1924 New York Show, 110 had storage
battery/generator systems and self-starters.
Other electric milestones
Here are some other electrical system "firsts":
In 1915, the Forrest Co. of New York City thought it had found a better
way to keep a storage battery filled with water. Called the 20th Century
Automatic Water Filler, the device consisted of a one-pint aluminum water
container screwed to the firewall. Water flowed from it through rubber
tubes to the battery, which in those days was usually mounted beneath the
front seat or floor. Water entered the battery through hard rubber caps that
contained float valves to halt the flow when the cells were filled.
In 1939, the first sealed-beam headlamps were introduced.
During World War II, the military needed an electrical generating unit that
could provide more current than the d.c. generator. They found it with the
a.c. (alternating current) generator, commonly called the
alternator.
In 1949, Chrysler Corp. became the first to offer a combination
key-operated ignition and starter switch. Previously, the starter was
operated by a separate button on the dash.
In 1962, the alternator for civilian vehicles arrived none too soon: The
number of electrical devices manufacturers put on cars by then began to
strain the limits of the d.c. generator. The first car manufacturer to make
the alternator available was GM, followed shortly by Chrysler.
In 1971, Pontiac introduced a completely sealed storage battery that
required no water during its lifetime. It had side terminals that the
company claimed stayed completely corrosion-free. In time, the battery was
to be named the Freedom Battery.
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