Nicola Tesla and his battery-less electric car

It seems that electric cars and electric motorcycles are a recent development, from just a few years ago. But quite the opposite is true: vehicles powered by electricity date back many years, to the early last century. As early as 1931, a certain Nikola Tesla was seen on the streets of Buffalo in an electric car built by himself. But that car had something unusual: it had no batteries.

Nikola Tesla, the inventor of alternating electric current, which Edison took care to discredit, built a vehicle in the 1930s that would still seem avant-garde even in our own era. While wireless charging systems are being perfected today, the American inventor managed to create an electric car that did not need batteries.

How was this possible?

Edison’s most fierce rival acquired a Pierce-Arrow. He removed the combustion engine from this legendary car, leaving the clutch, gearbox and four-wheel transmission exactly as they were. He fitted a 57 kW electric motor and, instead of mounting batteries to make it run, installed an electrical system powered wirelessly; Wi-Fi or Bluetooth almost 100 years ago.

Mounted in front of the instrument panel was a 60x25x15 centimetre converter with 12 vacuum tubes. From this “box” emerged a rather heavy 1.8-metre antenna, along with a pair of thick bars of about 10 cm. The antenna’s sole function was to receive energy from a tower and transmit it to the electric motor, which was roughly 1.65 metres long.

Today we pay exorbitant prices for fossil fuels and for electricity, while at the same time polluting our planet more and more. Curiously, Tesla invented a system through which he obtained completely clean and free energy, and without cables. The antenna that sent electricity to the converter I mentioned earlier was self-sufficient: it obtained energy through electromagnetic waves, something totally unlimited, clean, free and, believe it or not, cable-free.

People were astonished and “racked their brains” wondering how anyone could have built a car that made no noise and did not use petrol as fuel. Even now, in 2013, it surprises us that an electric car could move without batteries.

Fast, and with kilometres to its name

It seems the car reached a speed of 144 km/h, which is still remarkable today; its performance was easily comparable with that of a petrol car. It was driven for a week of tests, covering an enormous distance: about 1,500 kilometres, apparently.

George Westinghouse
, the investor

Nikola Tesla always had his own patron at his side, an investor who believed in him from the moment he handed in his irrevocable resignation to Thomas Edison. Thanks to George Westinghouse, Tesla was able to supply alternating current to many homes and also to develop his electric Pierce Arrow.

But you will all know that those years were practically the worst the United States had ever experienced: a severe recession followed the crash of ’29, when Wall Street collapsed. This, together with the discrediting of alternating current and, consequently, of Tesla that Edison’s pressure had brought about, is what halted the possible production of the model we are discussing.

The legend goes…

There are always enigmas and legendary details in these stories. According to some accounts, the car ended up on a farm near Buffalo, where it has remained stored for 80 years. Collectors, treasure hunters and followers of Tesla are still searching for it like madmen, knowing that if they find it they will uncover an object worth its weight in gold… or even more.

Can you imagine what would have happened had this model been sold? Would we now be talking about vehicles powered by an electric motor without batteries? Anything can be dreamed.

A documentary from the History Channel about this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgQWq4cl3q4

Sources | Forococheselectricos, loqueignoras, bolindodecarlos.