September 1914: Electric emergency vehicles

Despite their current prominence — if you’ll excuse the electrical pun ­ — electric vehicles have a history as long as internal combustion engine-driven ones; and a century ago, even The Engineer was hedging its bets on which technology would prevail. In a long, in-depth article which can be read here, our predecessors describe electrical drive trains as being particularly suited to vehicles such as fire engines, ambulances and buses.

Referring to buses using an early version of a range-extended technology with a petrol engine charging a battery, it notes that ‘the progress which these vehicles have made during the last few years indicates that the petrol-electric system is not such a silly idea as was at first supposed, and it is well that those who still have doubts as to the possibility of pure electric vehicles making headway should bear in mind that not so long ago very similar doubts were expressed with regard to petrol-engine cars.’