From Hoof to Coil: The Rise of Electric Mobility in Canada

Dumaresq de Pencier, Exhibit & Project Coordinator
Canadian Automotive Museum

Reading time: 8–12 minutes

Signs of changing transportation times: a streetcar, bicycles, a horse-drawn carriage and an automobile on Main Street in Winnipeg, MB, 1909. Library and Archives Canada.

Introduction

The automobile is the foundation of the modern Canadian transportation landscape; this has been largely true for more than a century. Though the nature of the cars and trucks we drive has changed with the years, and even now electric and hybrid vehicles are usurping the gasoline car’s previous dominance, they remain automobiles. This wasn’t always the case. For a brief period in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Canadian transportation landscape was wildly in flux, as dozens of new technologies, including inexpensive electric transportation, steam power, the internal combustion engine and more, rose, fell and competed with each other. All were influential in very different ways; all had their major advantages, and serious disadvantages, over the competition. All left their mark on the Canadian driving landscape.

This paper explores this tumultuous early period in Canadian driving, as a society dominated by the horse, the steamship and the steam locomotive evolved over a period of approximately 20 years to one dominated, but only barely, by the gasoline car. Indeed, the eventual dominance of gas-powered vehicles was not a foregone conclusion, and Canadians were strong early supporters of the electric vehicle industry in all its forms. The second Canadian-built car ever made was an electric. Canada’s first commercial auto company produced exclusively electric cars, trucks, and personal mobility devices, and Canadian funding and enthusiasm were in large part responsible for the first electric car boom in the United States as well. Though this first boom in Canadian EVs was largely over by the time of the First World War, its roots are fascinating and worth exploring.

Canada Before Cars

From walking overland to the travois, dogsleds, freight canoes, horses and the steamship, Canadians employed any number of ways to get around before the advent of the automobile. The 19th century saw rapid and dramatic changes in the country’s transportation network, from the personal level to the mass movement of goods. Most of these changes came as a result of the Second Industrial Revolution and the large-scale use of steam and early electric power, but they were also accompanied by the use of horses on an industrial scale, and the surprising social influence of the bicycle.

Well into the automobile age, the ratio of horses to people in Canada was still slowly increasing, due in large part to the boom agricultural industry on the Prairies.

A Society on Horseback

For the majority of Canadians in the 19th century, horses and carriages were the way to get anywhere; there were on average three Canadians for every horse in the country. Carriage manufacturers across the nation built hundreds of different models, from sporty two-wheeled cabriolets to iron-framed freight wagons capable of hauling tons of cargo. During this period, Canadian companies like Tudhope of Orillia and McLaughlin Carriage of Oshawa provided mass-produced carriages across the entire British Empire. For all that the horse-drawn carriage was a well-understood and familiar technology, horses had problems when used at societal scales. They were slow, dirty and maintenance-intensive; stables and other businesses where they could be fed, watered, or housed were a labour-intensive part of any kind of long-distance transport.

By Rail and Sea

When the Canadian Pacific Railway completed its trans-continental rail line in 1885, for the first time it was possible to travel from Nova Scotia to British Columbia overland in a single trip. Road networks were laid out around rail hubs, leading to a decrease in the quality of inter-city roads. Many rail companies also owned or partnered with steamship lines, and small river or lake steamers provided connections to cities or communities that could not be reached by rail lines. The steamship ports of Halifax, Vancouver, and other coastal cities offered travel around the globe.

The Canadian railway system, circa 1905; where railway connections didn’t exist, cities were linked by stagecoach and steamship. Collection of the Internet Archive.

The Next Big Thing

As railways grew, cities turned to the streetcar for local transport. Between 1861 and 1910, more than 65 Canadian cities and towns built or adopted streetcar networks; the cars were horse-drawn at first, but later electric. As with road networks, streetcar networks were often arranged around intercity train stations, but due to their great cost, were usually limited in scope.

The Bicycle Craze

Canadians got their first introduction to the bicycle in the 1860s, but it was not until the 1890s that the concept took off. Pre-existing cycle clubs or racing organizations exploded in popularity as the modern “safety bike, ” fitted with a chain drive, reliable brakes, and pneumatic tires, became common and affordable. Bikes helped to establish the idea of personal transportation – as opposed to the shared transportation of carriages or streetcars – and cyclists were instrumental in the first pushes for better-quality road construction and traffic regulations. On the industrial side, many manufacturing concerns that got their start building bikes would eventually join the motor-car business.

The Electric Age

Electric cars weren’t the first cars in Canada; that honour falls to a pair of steam-powered vehicles, one driven in P.E.I. in 1866, and one built in Quebec in 1867. Electrics were, however, the first cars sold and commercialized here.

The story of the electric car in Canada begins with a British engineer, William Joseph Still. A successful inventor of steam and electrical technologies on both sides of the Atlantic, he had been tinkering with electric vehicle concepts for years. In 1893 he approached patent lawyer Frederick Barnard Fetherstonhaugh of Mimico, Ontario, with a new lightweight electric battery design. Fetherstonhaugh was strongly interested in electric technology – he and Still had worked together before – and was taken with the invention.

Still believed that his lighter lead-acid battery was perfect for use in an electric road vehicle, and Fetherstonhaugh did not need much convincing. He commissioned Still to design a quiet, light electric automobile for him – a vehicle that would let him commute to work in style and comfort.

Fetherstonhaugh was directly involved in the construction of the vehicle, built by the Dixon Carriage company at the corner of Bay and Temperance in downtown Toronto. The result was a car far ahead of its time.

The 1893 Still/Fetherstonhaugh car; not merely an electrical innovator, but the owner’s daily driver for 15 years. Collection of the City of Toronto Archives.

Fitted with 12 Still lead-acid batteries driving a 4-horsepower DC motor, the Fetherstonhaugh could manage an hour of driving at a respectable 24 kilometres an hour. It weighed 700 pounds, slightly heavier than contemporary gas cars, with just over half the weight being occupied by its power system. Its designer wanted all the cutting-edge comforts and got them. The Fetherstonhaugh had a full set of electric lights, a folding top, and wire-spoke pneumatic wheels at a time when most electric vehicles still used wooden wagon wheels. By all accounts, it was exactly the smooth, speedy, and whisper-quiet ride Fetherstonhaugh had wanted.

Canada’s first electric auto was in use for more than a decade. Fetherstonhaugh’s house was one of the first fully electrified homes in Toronto, which meant that he had no trouble keeping the vehicle charged. He could power it either directly off the local electric streetcar line or through a home generator that Still eventually designed for him.

Fetherstonhaugh’s car got noticed, and fast. It was briefly shown at the 1893 Canadian National Exhibition, publicly demonstrated in 1896, and returned to the CNE in 1906. By then, Fetherstonhaugh had added a glass windshield, one of the first on a car in North America. Several local clients called on Still to build more electric cars, and the beginnings of a Toronto electric car industry began to take shape. Despite that early success, the Fetherstonhaugh car disappears from the historical record after 1912; its final fate is unknown.

By the late 1890s, electric cars had found a foothold in the popular consciousness. New York and London, England, had more than a dozen electric cabs in service each, and there was growing public awareness of how useful electrics could be in an urban setting. In 1899, the electric car made global headlines when Camille Jenatzy of Belgium broke the world land speed record in his Jamais Contente, hitting 106 km/h.

All over the world, people were clamouring for more electric cars, and Canada was no exception. William Still’s Canadian Motor Syndicate (CMS) was formed in 1897 to license, manufacture, and sell his electric car designs.

In their first showing at the 1898 Canadian National Exhibition, CMS exhibited a three-wheeled electric delivery tricycle that was ready for sale. Later that year, CMS marketed its first passenger vehicle, a two-seater tricycle resembling a couch on wheels. The wicker-bodied vehicle failed to sell, convincing Still that bigger projects were in order.

By 1899, Still had invented a much larger and more efficient electric motor, one better suited for transport vehicles. CMS was reorganized as the Still Motor Company Limited (SMC) and began selling commercial and passenger vehicles in earnest. Its factory on Yonge Street was a veritable hive of activity; orders came in so fast that the firm had to install one of the City of Toronto’s first telephone lines.

SMC commercial electrics built for Parker’s Dye Works in Toronto, 1903. Collection of the Canadian Automotive Museum.

SMC generally did not build vehicles from scratch; clients brought them commercial carriages, which the works retrofitted with Still motors and batteries. Early clients included the neighbouring Parker’s Dye Works, and by 1900 many of Toronto’s biggest industrial and commercial concerns had at least one or two SMC vehicles in their fleets. By all accounts, the SMC electrics were light, reasonably fast, and easy to control, but almost all of them were custom jobs, resulting in high costs and low profits for the company.

SMC was in the red, but help came in the form of a buyout from a group of British investors, who renamed the company Canadian Motors Limited (CML). In late 1899, Still had developed a moderately successful line of two-seater and four-seater electrics, the Ivanhoes and the Oxfords. Tasked with selling them not in Canada, but in England, CML thus became not only the first British-owned car company in Canada but also Canada’s first car exporter. It sent dozens of vehicles to England in late 1900 and early 1901.

The CML factory, with a full lineup of their delivery, passenger and commuter vehicles, 1900. Collection of the Canadian Automotive Museum.

Still moved away from the auto industry and on to more lucrative engineering projects, but his legacy continued. In 1903, the Canadian Cycle & Motor Company bought the old CMS factory and used it to produce its own electric, an American design also called the Ivanhoe. While Canada’s first attempts at a commercial electric had failed, the electric car had undoubtedly found a market, and its popularity would continue to grow until the economic turmoil of the First World War.

Gas Vs. Electric

Looking back, it can often be hard to imagine why electric vehicles succeeded so well in the early automotive market. Not only were they expensive, slow, and short-ranged, but their batteries required constant maintenance. In 1900, steam cars dominated the North American motor vehicle landscape; electrics took second place with 38 percent of the market share; and gasoline cars were a distant third. There are a few important reasons why.

Fashion

Simply put, electricity was fashionable in the early days of the 20th century. The world had been swept by the Second Industrial Revolution, as industry and commerce alike adopted the new technologies of electric lighting, telephones, radio, and the phonograph. Many major cities had well-established electric streetcar networks; electric cars were seen as the next logical step from the streetcar. Indeed, many early North American electrics were built around streetcar motors and batteries. Electricity was modern. Electricity was stylish.

Hygiene

As large cities linked by horse-drawn carriages and steam-powered trains grew, so too did issues with cleanliness. City air had its soot, and city streets had their slush of wastewater and horse manure that could be knee deep on bad days. Unlike gasoline cars, which leaked oil and spewed smoke, or the slightly cleaner steam cars, electrics had no obvious emissions. Most still drew their power from coal power plants, but in an era before urban sprawl and environmentalism, this pollution was out of sight, and out of mind.

Messy, muddy, loud and foul-smelling: pedestrian, horse and gas automobile traffic on the way to the Oakville Fall Fair, 1909. Collection of the City of Toronto Archives.

Maintenance, sort of

Electrics had relatively few moving parts, a huge advantage for consumers who were still learning how to take care of their cars. There was no gearbox or transmission to keep oiled, no sparkplugs to change, nothing to become sooty or muddy. Battery maintenance was a great deal of work, and it was often compared to ministering to a sick patient rather than fixing a broken machine. In an era before home garages, most electric car owners paid to have their cars maintained and charged at large central garages.

Fuel and charging

Before the invention of what we would now call the gas station (Canada’s first opened in 1907 in Vancouver), gasoline could only be purchased from drug stores (it was a common glass-cleaning chemical). Without any certainty that they would be able to find any gasoline on their trips here and there, drivers often had to lug around huge drums of spare gas. Although electrics suffered from much shorter ranges, they were usually used in cities, where electrical sources were plentiful and garage charging stations easily accessible. Plus, current electricity was substantially less expensive than gasoline.

Easy to start and safe to drive, early electrics were perfect for novice or inexperienced drivers, like these teenagers. Collection of Charlie Beesley.

Starting

One of the great flaws of most early automobile designs was the starting process. Only electrics could be quickly started up and driven off; the process usually consisted of flipping a switch and stepping on a pedal or pulling a hand throttle. The competition, by contrast, was not quite so easy. Starting up a steam car was time-consuming; pressure had to build in the boiler, and it could be difficult to achieve in bad weather. Starting gasoline cars was dangerous; they had to be cranked by hand, and an unaware driver starting a gas car improperly risked bruises, broken limbs – sometimes nicknamed “Ford fractures” – or worse.

Comfort

Everyone likes to drive in style and comfort, and electrics offered the most comfortable ride around. They were quiet – early New York cabs were nicknamed “Hummingbirds” because of their soft sound, with none of the hissing valves or rattling, roaring engines of steam or gas cars. Canadian newspapers reported on the “silvery” sounds of electric vans and broughams transporting goods through the streets of Toronto. On the move, electrics delivered power directly to their wheels, with no need to shift gears, so there was never any risk of stalling or being jostled by a novice driver in an electric.

All of these factors led to the popularity of electric autos in the big cities. Private and business customers alike, eager to appear forward-thinking and get in on the ground floor of the next big thing, flocked to the electric vehicle, leading to a sudden growth in Canadian electric car companies that would last up until the beginning of the First World War.

Conclusion

The dawn of the automobile age was an unpredictable period of technological innovation. While gasoline eventually came to dominate, it was not a foregone conclusion. The novelty, safety and ease of use of electric vehicles would keep them relevant on the automotive scene for long after gasoline technology had become universal. The role of electric technology in aiding Canada’s transition from a horse-drawn society to an automotive one is vital; it was pioneering electric mobility that inspired the kind of urban transit systems, commercial and personal transportation and global automotive industry the country depends on today.

Canadians who buy and use electric vehicles today do so for many of the same reasons they did more than a century ago. They want to drive more safely, with less of an impact on their environment. They want to be able to supply their vehicles in their own homes, with cutting-edge technology. Unlike the dawn of the automotive age, however, modern electric vehicle technology allows these dreams to be practical.

From Hoof to Coil: The Rise of Electric Mobility in Canada

Table of Contents

Introduction

Canada Before Cars

A Society on Horseback

By Rail and Sea

The Next Big Thing

The Bicycle Craze

The Electric Age

Gas Vs. Electric

Fashion

Hygiene

Maintenance, sort of

Fuel and charging

Starting

Comfort

Conclusion

Further Reading