1904 Pope-Waverley Electric Chelsea Runabout

The 1904 Pope Waverley Electric Car was neither fast, nor did it have a long range on its batteries. (about 40 miles despite what the literature says) It was, however, super easy to start and quite reliable.  It would have been used for short, in-city trips and was often purchased for use by doctors or women for whom cranking was an impediment. Variable speeds were employed by the use of resistors and/or feeding the armature and/or the stationary fields of the motor.  The controller was a wooden drum which had several pieces of brass wound around it.  Fingers reached out over the drum and when the drum was turned, connections to the motor were achieved by the fingers touching pieces of the brass that fed the electricity to the motor in various ways. It ran on a battery of 60 volts DC which is easy to recreate with 5 12-volt car batteries today.  

There were no battery charging stations at the time.  You had one at your home and hopefully your trip did not run out of juice before you got back.  While the electric controller did most of your speed reduction, there was an additional foot brake for those times when you needed it.  

There are a pair of gauges on the floor in front of you covering how much electricity you were using at the moment and how healthy your batteries were overall.  Steering was by “front tiller”.  Silent in operation and with a top speed of about 18MPH you can think of this as a very old, rather tall golf cart.