Electric Vehicle Company
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Electric Vehicle Company was a US automobile holding company and manufacturer.
The Electric Vehicle Company was founded as a holding company of battery-powered electric automobile manufacturers. It was taken over in 1899 by William C. Whitney and P. A. B. Widener's "Lead Cab Trust." They intended it to be a stock-jobbing operation and began a campaign to acquire other electric car manufacturers.
The trust collapsed in 1900 amid scandal surrounding the poor performance of their vehicles.
After the collapse of the trust, Electric Vehicle became a manufacturer in its own right, but its chief asset was the holding of the Selden Patent which established a right to royalties from all manufacturers of internal combustion engine vehicles. While this was initially lucrative, it led inevitably to opposition from the other manufacturers and expensive lawsuits, which ended with the patent being overthrown in 1911 and the financial ruin of the company.
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[edit] References
- James J. Flink, The Automobile Age (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1988).
