Quote:
Originally Posted by NorCalAthlete
If the new solid state batteries Ford is developing pan out, and Tesla doesn't match or beat, that could be a shift in the tide. It's rumored for 500+ mile range (vs 300 for Teslas).
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In the 1890s a nerdy German orphan named Wilhelm Maybach started working on a side-hustle project secretly funded by his former German employer, Gottlieb Daimler; they called it "Project Phoenix".
Previously Daimler & Maybach had worked together at Nicolaus Otto's Gasmotorenfabrik Deutz, making new-fangled single chamber internal combustion engines; up until then steam engines were the shit, but Daimler, having discovered this teenage orphan machinist Maybach was a stickler for solving tough problems, recognized that internal combustion engines had real potential, so they went to work for Otto.
Daimler was the factory manager and Maybach was the Chief Designer. Despite improving Otto's engine enough to take orders, Otto took the credit which infuriated Daimler and eventually Otto fired Daimler, followed by Maybach.
Daimler & Maybach then moved into a Cannstatt (now Stuttgart) cottage where in 1885 they put a scaled-down version of an improved ICE onto a bicycle which Daimler's son famously rode for 2 miles hitting 7.5 miles/hour thus proving an ICE could power a human-controlled land vehicle. A year later they put a 1.1hp, 88lb IC engine into a modified horse-drawn carriage and drove it at 10mph.
Despite the success, Daimler & Maybach were still hurting for capital to expand, so in 1890 they partnered with a military industrialist named Max von Duttenhofer who became chairman of the new company, Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft. However within 3 months Maybach disagreed about so much with Duttenhofer that Maybach resigned.
That's when Daimler, still with Duttenhofer, started secretly funding Maybach's Project Phoenix: an ICE capable of 2HP ... but the secret wasn't just more power, it was a design innovation that would not only allow Maybach to double the power
BUT TO KEEP DOUBLING IT! The design innovation was, of course, the multi-chambered ICE, and just 20 years later the automobile would be a pretty common sight.
But yeah, anytime during the 1890s - 1910s you probably could've read 100s of articles about how small the market for ICE vehicles was, how there was no way to create enough fuel for millions of automobile and how, even if you could, there'd be no way to distribute that fuel anywhere other than only the largest cities. How horses made themselves, how they ate fuel anyone could grow, and how there was no way rich carriage makers were going to let some little upstart like Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft take their business ... especially when horses were so cheap to make!
How Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft barely had any capital to operate and couldn't even make a profit! ICE carriages were obviously a niche product as there was no way to scale the production, the fuel, or the distribution to make an ICE carriage ubiquitous. Duh.
So, yeah, I totally agree with you - there will be battery advances, technology advances, manufacturing advances, energy distribution advances, et al and in 20 years it'll seem amazing to teenagers that anyone would want to drive an oldtimey steampunk contraption like an ICE automobile.