Motor Car

Motor Car
First Seen	The Green Muse

The Electric Carriage, Motor Car, or Automobile, is first introduced in Season 2 of Murdoch Mysteries.

History

Electric Carriage

Between 1832 and 1839, the invention the first electric carriage is credited to a handful of men: Scotsman Robert Anderson, American Thomas Davenport, Professor Sibrandus Stratingh of Groningen, Holland, Christopher Becker, and Hungarian inventor Ányos Jedlik. By 1842, both Thomas Davenport and Robert Anderson invented practical electric carriages, using non-rechargeable electric batteries. In 1865, Gaston Plante of France invented rechargeable lead-acid batteries that made electric carriages which was improved by fellow Frenchman Camille Faure in 1881– thus securing the electric engine as a means of locomotion throughout Europe. In 1889, Thomas Edison builds an electric vehicle using nickel-alkaline batteries, but two years later, William Morrison builds the first electric carriage with any success in the United States.

In 1897, the first electric carriages used as taxis were built for fleet use in New York City by the Electric Carriage and Wagon Company of Philadelphia. In Belgium, 1899, an electric race-car called the "La Jamais Contente" sets a land-speed record of 68 mph. This first electric record-setting race-car is built by Camille Jénatzy. The electric motor cars become commonplace making up 28-percent of the marketplace by 1900.

Biofuel Motor Car

August 10 has been known as International Biodiesel Day, because Rudolph Diesel shows the first biofuel engine in Augsburg, Germany on August 10, 1893. About the same time, British inventors Herbert Akroyd Stuart and Charles Richard Binney had come out with a similar engine.

Diesel Motor Car

The first biofuel motor car is also the first diesel, Rudolph Diesel applies for a patent in Germany and in 1898, he was granted a U. S. patent. At the 1900 France World Fair in Paris, Diesel is given the Grand Prix award for excellence. While the first diesel engine is ever used in motor cars, the first oil tanker uses the engine in 1903 and the French uses it to power submarines in 1904.

Hybrid Motor Car

In 1899, the first hybrid motor car running on gasoline and electricity is invented by Porsche. Gasoline motor cars, however, were already dominant by this point because of short refueling times and extended travel distance.

Gasoline Motor Car

The first gasoline motor car is invented in 1870 by Austrian inventor Siegfried Marcus; He also invents the magento low voltage ignition system that would go into the 4-seat second Marcus car of 1888 and in other subsequent automobiles. France’s Etienne Lenoir invents a hydrogen powered car in 1860 called the 'Hippomobile', followed by the first petroleum (benzene, an oil derivative)-powered motor car. Several others are credited with inventing the first gasoline-powered car, including: Enrico Bernardi of Italy, who invents a one-cylinder motor on a tricycle and a motorcycle, Karl Benz of Germany and Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach also of Germany.

In 1889, Daimler and Maybach design an automobile from the ground up rather than attaching a gasoline engine to a carriage without the horse. In 1885, it is Karl Benz who builds his first gasoline motor car in Mannheim, Germany. Benz is granted a patent for his car in 1886, and starts production of it in 1888. The first four-wheel driven gasoline-powered motor car is invented by Frederick William Lanchester of Great Britain in 1895. Lanchester also patents the world's first electric starter along with the disc brake. About the same time, Olds Motor Works (now known as Oldsmobile) in Lansing, Michigan is formed and by 1901 it is the largest seller of American gasoline-powered motor cars. In 1902 - 1903, in a converted factory with money from 12 investors, Henry Ford’s Ford Motor Company launches its first production automobile, the Model A.

Appearances and Mentions

Season 2

The Green Muse

• Mr. Wilson is test driving the electric car, the first in the Toronto.

Season 5

Who Killed the Electric Carriage?

• The murder of an inventor of an electric motor car involves James Pendrick and Henry Ford.

Season 8

Murdoch Takes Manhattan

• The Toronto Auto Club is connected to a murder and three constables go in on the purchase of a motor car.

Season 10

Great Balls of Fire, Part 2

• Bloom and Crabtree Autoshop opens for business.

Jagged Little Pill

• A prominent Toronto businessman is found dead in his automobile.

Mr. Murdoch's Neighbourhood

• Louise Cherry purchases an automobile.

Season 11

The Accident

• A motor car causes a major and fatal accident in downtown Toronto.

Season 12

Brother's Keeper

• Higgins-Newsome Motorized Service is established.

Season 13

Toronto the Bad

• Higgins finds a dead passenger in the backseat of his taxicab.

Staring Blindly into the Future

• Henry Ford returns to Toronto.