The Los Angeles Auto Present wrapped up this week after the good and the nice from the automobile world descended on the occasion to exhibit their new electrical automobiles and different ground-breaking tech that’s meant to vary the best way we journey. Whereas there have been some cool ideas on show, numerous the designs that had been meant to showcase the way forward for the trade harked again to concepts which were talked about because the very first auto present.
Motor exhibits aren’t a brand new concept and their historical past can truly be traced again greater than 100 years, to a time when steam trains and horse-drawn carriages nonetheless dominated world journey. Again then, a number of pioneers in France thought there must be a platform to point out off the newest transport tech, and the auto present was born.
The yr was 1898, and the worldwide automotive trade descended on France to take over a pavilion on the lawns of Le Jardin des Tuileries in the middle of Paris. The occasion was thought to be the world’s first automobile present and fashioned the premise of the Paris Auto Present that also runs to today.
Formally known as the Exposition Internationale d’Cars, the occasion brought on fairly the stir when it confirmed off new creations like buses, bikes and even automobiles, as Autocar studies. In complete, 77 producers had been in attendance to showcase greater than 200 completely different fashions to the greater than 140,000 attendees who turned up over the occasion’s 18 days, as the positioning explains:
“A run by means of the exhibition afforded hanging proof of the validity of the brand new trade, and the useful resource in the best way of invention, as displayed within the many new techniques of car propulsion, was enough proof of the appreciable growth that’s sure to happen within the early future,” we mentioned.
“It was in these new techniques of [cars] that the curiosity of the present mainly lay. Some had been little question of detached advantage, and others had been completely impracticable, however amongst them there have been many ingenious and attention-grabbing gadgets that may be turned to wonderful account.”
The automobiles that 1000’s of Parisians had been flocking to see sound as if they wouldn’t have been misplaced at this yr’s LA present both. There was a new public transport system from French producer De Dion-Bouton, which was a 20-seat bus that ran on steam, in addition to luxurious creations designed for those who wish to journey in model.
Much more akin to the form of innovation you’ll discover at a twenty first century auto present was a fleet of battery powered taxis, as Autocar provides:
The general public roads trial of battery-fed taxis – which proved to have ranges of as much as 100km – had additionally included these made by native EV specialists Jeantaud and Kriéger, the previous of which gained the prize of 1000 francs (about £8000 right now) for the very best two-seater.
Battery energy and area for 2, now what may that be reminding me of? After strolling away with the large prize from the Exposition Internationale d’Cars, Kriéger did then develop into a mildly profitable EV producer off the again of the present.
The French firm marketed three completely different battery-powered fashions from 1898 to 1909, with the Electrolette packing a 3 hp motor that was enough to energy it on to a high velocity of round 20mph, studies Automobiles Forgotten. See, pioneering electrical automobile makers can exhibit ideas and convey them to market.
