The Gasoline Age-Why?

     Few of mankind’s many and varied inventions has had such a long-ranging, all-encompassing impact on modern history as has the automobile.  This certainly applies from the time the earliest automobiles began to appear in noticeable numbers on America’s roads from the mid-1890's on.  Additionally, few have gone through as many different permutations on the same basic theme as the car.  Yet, barring the “perfection” of the long-awaited fuel cell, the basic automobile structure appears set, at this writing, with the usual minor deviations, into the foreseeable future.

     This subject touches everyone.  Granted, not every person who could drive does, but this modern conveyance has become so much a part of our everyday lives it would likely now be impossible to imagine society without it.  Further, a large part of this country’s workers make their living from the motorcar, either directly or indirectly.  The automobile has reached the stage where it is taken for granted.  As such, it is not odd to see the dearth of academic writing on this topic.

     That aside, the cars of the end of the twentieth century were very much as they had been for decades, with the same basic type internal combustion engines.  Yet, like the cars it powered, this engine type, too, had gone through several metamorphoses by that point; like twin-cams, superchargers, and various cylinder configurations ranging from in line threes and fours through V10s.  But, still the same basic engine designs.  Although electric cars, like the EV1 from General Motors, were available, they were meant for a limited market with very little chance for expanded production.  The existence of this exception, if anything, by that point had proven the rule about the gasoline engine’s dominance in the automotive world.

     Yet, there was no denying the fact finite supplies of fossil fuels, coupled with their increasing costs—not to mention the public’s continuing perception of the gasoline engine as a polluter—had spurred forward development of alternative powered cars.  There was an increasing public call for alternative-powered, “environmentally friendly” cars.  However, a viable, mass market “speciality” vehicle remained elusive.  The turn of the century did find engineers working hard to tackle the problems like never before.  Incidently, in this case, alternative meant any car not solely powered by internal combustion gasoline engines.

     With these alternative cars poised for a possible comeback, the turn of the century also seemed like a good time to be investigating why they had failed to start with.  To be sure, the contemporary progress of alternative cars was not of historical concern then.  However, as the nation embarked upon the second century of the American automobile, it was certainly worthwhile to look over why these power sources had failed at the beginning of the first. 

     In this work, we will examine those early days when both steam and electric were distinct possibilities as power sources for the then fledgling car industry.  When they had just as much of a chance as the gasoline engine.  We will endeavor to explain why the alternative cars developed in the manner they did, and, more importantly, why they ultimately failed to satisfy the American consumer.  We will do this, in part, by examining five of the early alternative cars found at or near the beginning of the twentieth century that were also made in Ohio.  Why we are interested in the time frame has already been established.

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