A MOTOR-CAR FOR £40

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8800, 30 April 1907, Page 4

A MOTOR-CAR FOR £4O

In fifteen years from now Edison ■prophesies that the horse will be a. Orange has, we are assured in the Times Magazine, invented a new storage battery,-which will he on the market before 1907 is very old, and which will enable every man to travel in his own private carriage at about the cost of tramcar fare. To quote the Times Magazine : rlage, once supplied with the new power, for £4O, will travel without repairs for fifteen years, for a hun> dred thousand miles, if necessary. Edison reiterates the declaration that ho has Invented a storage .battery which will solve the_problem_of cont {Tested traffic I 'in cities of the j world as soon as he can manufacture I enough of them. He is erecting two J large factory buildings, now nearly I completed, and is installing in them 1 new machinery especially for the manufacture of a motor battery that vrill.be as common a factory in the business life of the world as the telephone is now. “ ‘Last year you were sure that you had solved this problem?” he was reminded. “ ‘Tea, last year X was sure,’ replied Mr -Edison, ‘but now I am dead sure. Thera is a difference between he two.' It’s one thing, for instance, to be sure, and another to be —Wallstreet sure 1’

“Thoro ia a gaiety about the' Wizard these days that is umistakably indicatiro of a new discovery, for when ho is in ft ‘blind mood,’ when Nature refuses to reveal her secret, he is as tragic and silent as the Sphinx. He says that he will be able to sell at the cost of ten, dollars a cell, a storage battery that is almost indestructible. It will travel a hundred thousand miles before it is worn out. Twenty cells will be all that is needed for a runabout or brougham, and sixty cells will be enough for the largest and heaviest truck used, Ihr 300 dollars one will be equipped with motive power that will need no renewal for fifteen years. “ ‘I can positively promise,’ >dds Edison, ‘that the new battery will be on the market in the spring. The factory buildings are ready, and the machinery is being Installed. ’ ‘ ‘ ‘ But there may he some surprise that Nature is holding back that will interfere. ’ “ ‘Absolutely none. I haven’t kept 35,000 batteries working for three years without discounting all chances of failure.’

“Edison’s assurance is not lightly given. He told how ho had never j before been certain, in spite of what the newspapers had said, and how at the present time it was absolutely accomplished. Tha storage battery, disposing, as it ’does, of the horse, means that the congestion of street traffic will be reduced one-half. It places within the reach of almost everyone a private conveyance. Its effect upon the public street traction companies will be interesting. It will bo cheaper to buy twenty cells and a ‘runabout’ that will last fifteen years than to pay car faro. Their limited ‘speed capacity, about thirty miles at most, will insure safety to pedestrians, and, as to the comfort and privacy that will accrue —there is no doubt as to which of the two methods of city traffic the public will prefer. These are only some of the achievements Edison promises and expects by nest spring. ’ ’