Today, when we think about green mobility, we think about cars that don’t use fossil fuels such as gasoline or hybrid cars that may use a mix of gasoline and electric fuel sources that put less greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere. Elon Musk’s Tesla and the hybrid Toyota Prius are the foremost examples of these types of cars today. Gasoline was once widely available and cheaper to use, and the technology for electric cars wasn’t there back in the day. Early electric vehicles were far slower and had less range than their gasoline counterparts, and to top it all off, the infrastructure just didn’t support it. But like all technologies, people have tried to find alternative methods to use electric cars in spite of the high costs and feasibility. My research took me a lot further back in time than I expected and to the doorstep of Detroit Electric, which lasted from 1907 to 1939.
Detroit Electric was known as the Anderson Carriage Company until 1911 and produced carriages and buggies since 1884. It gets its name from the automobile manufacturing home of Detroit, Michigan. This is also the home of Ford, General Motors, and Cadillac. Many early cars used hand cranks to power the internal combustion engines, which was very physically demanding (today, you just turn a key or press a button). The 1914 Detroit Electric 5-Passenger Opera Coupe cost USD3,000 with a rechargeable lead acid battery, or USD3,880 with a nickel-iron battery (USD94,681.50 to USD122,454.74 in 2025 dollars). By contrast, Henry Ford’s Model T, which also had the advantage of being mass-produced, was as cheap as USD290 in 1924 (USD5,352.37 in 2025 dollars).
As previously mentioned, early electric cars couldn’t go very fast or even very far. Detroit Electric advertised their cars as getting around 80 miles (130km) per charge. One driver reported running 211.3 miles (340.1km) on a single charge. The car’s top speed was only 20mph (32kph), but that was enough to drive within city or town limits. Today, electric vehicle owners can easily charge their cars when not in use using their own home or electric charging stations. We also have to take into account that car batteries (along with other types of batteries) degrade over time, and probably even more so in the early 20th century. Despite these limitations, Detroit Electric forged on. In a twist of irony, Clara Ford, the wife of Henry Ford, drove a Detroit Electric. Other famous individuals who drove a Detroit Electric were inventor Thomas Edison, First Lady Mamie Eisenhower (wife of US President Dwight D. Eisenhower), and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr. It was even featured in a 1962 episode — The Case of the Borrowed Baby — of the popular TV show Perry Mason.
Ford’s use of the assembly line meant cheaper automobiles for everyone, which was already a thorn in Detroit Electric’s side. The lack of infrastructure made it more of a novel curiosity and plaything for the rich, who may have had the money to buy something like an electric car. By the 1920s, electric cars had declined as mass-produced vehicles got even cheaper, and the Great Depression made them out of reach for the average person. Still, Detroit Electric pushed on and lasted all the way to 1939, although some cars were available as late as 1942.
The legacy of Detroit Electric found life in other countries such as Japan, where Genzo Shimazu, the founder of Japan Storage Battery Co. (today known as the GS Yuasa Corporation) drove them around after importing two cars in 1917 and used them to demonstrate the effectiveness of battery technology. Shimazu was seen driving them around until his retirement in 1946. In fact, GS Yuasa restored one of Shimazu’s vehicles to working condition in 2009 with a modern lithium-ion 24-volt battery. May 20 is now Electric Car Day in Japan. Many Detroit Electric cars have made it to museums around the world in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia, and several are still driven to this day.
While it took until the 1960s to even get interest in electric cars going again, multiple attempts to get them popular again failed until the 2000s, when the Tesla Roadster launched. It took until the 2010s for major car manufacturers to develop and heavily market electric vehicles. While electric cars are increasing in popularity and use, just remember the name Detroit Electric if you want to know a great origin story.
Words by Jose Alvarez
Photos courtesy of Detroit Electric, and Car and Driver
Also published in GADGETS MAGAZINE Volume 25 No. 7 Issue