A 1905 Woods electric car sells for $94,770

CleanTechnica

It is the early 1900s (1904–1905), along with Wilbur Wright making his 1st airplane flight, New York City was beginning to build Grand Central Station. Nikola Tesla was describing the process of the ball lightning formation, and Arthur Conan Doyle was bringing Sherlock Holmes back from a 10-year hiatus. What else? The first electric cars were being sold.

Yes, electric cars were sold over 100 years ago. In fact, Dr. Ferdinand Porsche’s first car was electric. One of the most popular electric cars back then was the Woods Electric. There are still a few around, and they aren’t cheap.

Ecomento.com writes: “just last week, a 1904 Woods electric car was sold at Bonhams auction for $95,000.” Technically, the price was DKK 632,500, or $94,770 according to the current transfer rate. The car “is believed to be the only 1905 Woods Electric Style 214A Queen Victoria Brougham in existence,” Bonhams, which auctioned the car, noted.

The Woods Motor Vehicle Company began in Chicago a handful of years before this car was built, in 1899. The now-$94,770 Woods Electric sold for a whopping ~$3,000 back when it was produced. Of course, that’s 1905 dollars, which is basically “equivalent to double what a fully equipped Tesla Model S sells for today,” Ecomento adds. “It features a battery-powered electric motor, a leaf spring suspension, and rear drum brakes.”

“The car has been retrofitted with a fast charging system and lightweight batteries so it can drive at car shows without waiting an eternity for the battery to recharge. The passenger compartment can be removed to make the car into the early electric roadster. It has a top speed of 30 mph.”

Electric trikes I see around town get up to 35 miles per hour.

Other vintage memories? How about circa 1966 and those old VW buses that blew all over the road if it was too windy. We’ve now got at least one electric version of those. “The CTO of healthcare IT company Vecna Technologies, Daniel Theobald, has reportedly converted an iconic 1966 Volkswagen buses into a completely solar-powered vehicle. The solar panel bolted to the top of the Volkswagen bus looks like something the driver is transporting, but it apparently works nonetheless,” EV Obsession writes.

It is too bad electric cars could not hold their ground back in the early 1900s or grow market share. There are so many great benefits of electric cars.

Source: CleanTechnica. Reproduced with permission.