EDISON'S MARVELS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 318, 6 July 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

EDISON'S MARVELS

N'EW BATTERY. LIGHT COMPACT ACCUMULATOR FOR ELECTRIC VEHICLES. London, May 11. After nine years of constant experiment, Mr. Edison appears to have produced a light storage batery suitable for driving vehicles. A light van, capable of travelling 39 miles on one charge of the new battery, which has been running in London for some days, was yesterday inspected by a Daily Mail representative. About sixty of the cells are stored in the van, and there is an electric motor run at seventytwo volts, the whole taking up considerably less space than an ordinary petrol engine. The chief features of the battery are its lightness, portability and the high rate at which it can be charged and discharged. It weighs hardly more than one-half of what an ordinary storage battery of the same capacity would do. and takes up considerably less space. Tramway cars have been operated in Washington with the battery, and have run for sixteen minutes, with a threeminute interval for "charging up." It is claimed that the battery will prove serviceable for taxicabs, which can make use of town charging stations. An experiment will be made at Slough next Tuesday, when the, battery will be tested as a substitute for the. petrol engine in "starting up" the petrol-electric locomotive made by the British Thomson-Hous-ton Company, Each cell has a scries of specially prepared platvs, the positive elements consisting of alternate layers of nickel hydro-oxide and metallic nickel compressed into perforated nickel tubes, and the negative elements of black oxide of iron compressed into perforated nickel receptacles. The plates are immersed in a solution of potash containing a small percentage of lithia, the cell being enclosed in a nickel steel case.