Richmond Firsts by RAY SCHREINER

Electric Cars No Need for Cranks

The electric automobile put in its appearance at just about the same time as the gasoline engine. In 1900 these elegant and quiet-running town cars had 38 per cent of the U.S. market. Individual models appeared on Richmond streets after the turn of the century. By 1911 there were said to be 10 to 14 “electrics” in the city.
 
This type of transportation found a buying public, through limited, into the 1920s. One of the last car producers was the Detroit Electric Car Company, which operated on a reduced basis until 1929.
 
There were a number of different brands. Baker Motor Vehicle Company perhaps was the most aggressive in its 1911 Times Dispatch advertisements. They stressed the electric car’s cleanliness, convenience and comfort. Heavily emphasized was the fact that these vehicles were so easy to drive: “A child could operate them with safety.”
 
Electric car buyers had a choice of 22 different models, some priced as low as $1,000. As an added inducement to the buyer, the Worth Electric Vehicle Company pointed out that across the country there were more than 5000 of their Baker models being operated, “…some of them a dozen years old.”
 
These cars were available at the Richmond Electric Garage at 1623 West Broad Street. Another car source was Waverly Electrics at W. C. Smith & Company at 314 North Fifth Street.
 
There was also interest in the electric delivery wagons at the Virginia Railway & Power Company at 7th and Main Streets. They were advertising five-ton trucks for heavy loads and cited the savings and the capabilities of the vehicles. In their 1911 ads in the Times Dispatch, they extolled the success a New York brewery had experienced with five trucks which the brewery had been using since 1904.
 
Gasoline cars had some advantages. Electric speeds were slower at 20 to 30 miles per hour. The Model T Ford was only $500 compared to the electric price of $1000 or more.
 
But women were particularly pleased with electric cars, not only for their smooth and noiseless operation, but for their lack of mechanical troubles. They also liked the ease of starting an electric car. The cranking of a car was a man’s job. But that all changed in February 1911 when the first Delco starters were installed.
 
It has been said this was the beginning of a long line of jokes about women drivers.