It seemed like a good idea at the time: 9 car designs that went nowhere

Published

1 year ago

October 6, 2023

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please no — It seemed like a good idea at the time: 9 car designs that went nowhere Flying cars, amphicars, two-engined cars, steam carsnot every idea is a good one.

Larry Printz – Oct 4, 2023 11:35 am UTC EnlargeMichael Reinhard | Getty Images reader comments 139 with

Ford Motor Company had a better idea, as it once advertised, producing such iconic cars as the Mustang, Bronco, Thunderbird, and Model T. But it also built the ill-fated Edsel. Ford wasn’t alone, either; many inventors and engineers have produced cars that seemed like a good idea until they actually acted on it. Here are a few examples. 1899 Horsey Horseless

Kellogg’s cereal wasn’t the only product to emanate from Battle Creek, Michigan. The Horsey Horseless also came from there, although it’s unknown whether this vehicle was ever actually built. Still, it was a solution to a common problem in the early days of motoring, when automobiles were still uncommon and scared horses. Uriah Smith thought that sticking a horse head on the front of a horseless carriage would prevent horses from getting upset upon seeing one.

“It would have all the appearance of a horse and carriage and hence raise no fears in any skittish animal,” he wrote. “Before he could discover his error and see that he had been fooled, the strange carriage would be passed, and then it would be too late to grow frantic and fractious.”

He also recommended making the horse head hollow so it could also serve as a fuel tank. A patent drawing of the Horsey Horseless.Public Domain

It also made one hell of a hood ornament. 1902 Stanley Steamer

When the car was first invented, it was powered by gasoline. But gasoline-powered cars were noisy and smelly, and they had to be hand-cranked to be started, which frequently caused injuries or even death. Then there were electric cars, which had limited range due to their lead acid batteries. Steam was familiar, having powered American industry for the better part of the 19th century.

Cars built with steam power proved popular, but they were complex, as they had three tanks. One contained water for the boiler, another held kerosene or home heating oil to heat the water, and a third usually held gasoline to keep the pilot light burning. Finally, an acetylene torch was needed to light the pilot light. Advertisement

And you had to wait for the water to boil and create steam before you could drive anywhere. Also, these were not intuitive machines, as they had copper tubes and pipes, boilers, condensers, valves, and gauges. And if they backfired, they could seriously scald the driver. Finally, the Stanley Steamer’s water tank had to be refilled every 3050 miles (4880 km), but the company felt drivers could refill their water tanks at any brook, pond, or horse trough. Enlarge / Photograph of a Stanley Steamer, ca. 1902.Bettmann/Getty Images

Ultimately, it was the electric starter that doomed steam cars. First seen on the 1912 Cadillac Model 30, it allowed drivers to take off without waiting anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes to get started. It was also far cheaper to run.

But the company survived until 1927. The last steam car was built in 1931. 1907 Carter Two-Engine

When the engine in the car that Howard O. Carter was driving developed mechanical problems many miles from home, Carter did what anybody in his situation would do in the early days of the automobile: He built his own car, albeit with a spare four-cylinder engine.

Dubbed the Carter Two Engine, it also had two radiators, two ignitions, and two exhaust systems. The engines were mounted side-by-side and were connected, according to a contemporary account in the Smithsonian Magazine, “through cone clutches in the flywheels and by Morse silent chains, to a single three-speed transmission placed in the center of the car.”

Once started, one four-cylinder engine was used until the driver needed more power. The driver then engaged the second engine’s clutch, which started the second powerplant, thereby doubling the vehicle’s horsepower to 40 ponies, allowing the car to power onward without having to downshift.

But the second engine wasn’t merely there to add power; it was also an insurance policy in case the first engine broke down.

The car was priced at $2,250, or $70,185 adjusted for inflation, and Carter trumpeted the vehicle’s introduction as “the birth of an epoch of transportation unparalleled in the history of the world.” Few customers agreed. Within a year, the company’s factory in Hyattsville, Maryland, was building a car called the Washington, which proved somewhat more successful. It lasted until 1912, albeit with one engine rather than two. Page: 1 2 3 Next → reader comments 139 with Advertisement Promoted Comments jlredford I’ve been in an Amphicar! There’s a classic car show every summer in Naples, Maine that has several of them. You can hop in and go cruising around Long Lake. The freeboard is pretty low, so you really want to do this on a calm day, and you don’t go faster than walking pace, but it’s a lot of fun. It’s more proof that fans will keep cool things working forever. October 4, 2023 at 12:36 pm IncreaseMather And you had to wait for the water to boil and create steam before you could drive anywhere. Also, these were not intuitive machines, as they had copper tubes and pipes, boilers, condensers, valves, and gauges. And if they backfired, they could seriously scald the driver. Finally, the Stanley Steamer’s water tank had to be refilled every 3050 miles (4880 km), but the company felt drivers could refill their water tanks at any brook, pond, or horse trough.So as the proud owner of 1904 and a 1912 Stanleys, I will tell you the progress in steam technology is almost as obvious as that of internal combustion engines of the same era. And in the era, you didn’t start steam cars from cold everyday, you left the pilot light burning overnight or while stopped. And you rarely blew off the boiler. Great advances were being made very year, and comparisons to a 1902 Stanley should be done with a car from 1902. If you ever want to see proof of how far ahead steam cars were then, just watch London to Brighton. Or read about how steam cars had to be banned from the Vanderbilt Cup Race.

***Edit to add: Steamers in 1902 typically did not have condensers, I am unaware of any steam car from that vintage with one.

This is somewhere between excessively harsh and just plain wrong on the Stanley Steamer.

Later steamers used oil-fired flash boilers that could produce enough steam to get moving within seconds of firing upif you ever drove a diesel car with glow plugs (back in the 80s) the experience would be not unfamiliar. (Turn key, wait for "glow plugs warming" light to go out, then hit the starter motor …)

And the steamers had a couple of huge advantages over early gas/diesel vehicles. They had no gearboxjust a simple reversermaking them mechanically simpler, and produced immense low-end torque. They eren’t slow, either, and for a number of years held the automobile land speed record. Steam persisted in heavy trucks for some time after it became unpopular for cars for precisely that reason. (As for why it went out of favour with cars: you needed to load water as well as fuel oil, and there was a secondary problem of oil leaking into the steam side of the circuit, necessitating a tear-down and deep clean of the flash boiler.)Thank you for this.
Jay Leno has a couple of videos featuring his collection of steam-powered cars like the 1922 Stanley, but also the 1925 Doble E Series. That one used superheated steam and could be warmed up enough to go in 2 minutes after starting.

While everyone likes to quote Jay Leno’s Doble’s, these were practically one off, highly engineered super cars. Very few made, even fewer used to any significant degree (do not get me wrong, marvels of engineering and very cool cars). What people should be pointing out are White steam cars with flash boilers, under ten minutes to get running and an order of magnitude more efficient than Stanley’s (they used condensers, looked like radiators, to recycle steam exhaust). October 4, 2023 at 1:25 pm Channel Ars Technica ← Previous story Next story → Related Stories Today on Ars

World

US joins Russia, North Korea and Belarus to vote against UN resolution on Ukraine war

Published

47 mins ago

February 25, 2025

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US joins Russia, North Korea and Belarus to vote against UN resolution on Ukraine war

The US joined Russia to vote against a UN resolution on the Ukraine war – and abstained from voting on one it drafted after amendments proposed by European countries were added.

The 193-member assembly approved a US-drafted resolution, marking the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which had originally called for an end to the conflict but did not mention Moscow’s aggression.

It also made no mention of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

However, it was amended after European nations said that it should include references to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the need for a lasting peace in line with the UN Charter.

It was also amended to include references to Ukraine’s sovereignty.

Follow latest: Ukraine war live updates

The amended US-drafted resolution won 93 votes in favour, while 73 states abstained – including the US – and eight – including Russia – voted no.

On the same day, the UN General Assembly approved a European-backed resolution from Ukraine which demanded Russia immediately withdraw from the country.

There were also 93 votes in favour of this resolution, while 65 abstained and 18 voted against it.

The UK, France and Germany were among the countries that voted in favour of the Ukraine-backed resolution, which called for a “comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine”.

The US, Russia, Belarus and North Korea were among those that opposed it.

The duelling proposals reflect the tensions that have emerged between the US and Ukraine after Donald Trump suddenly opened negotiations with Russia in a bid to quickly resolve the conflict.

It also underscores the strain in the US’ relationship with Europe over the Trump administration’s decision to engage with Moscow.

The outcome marks a setback for the Trump administration in the UN General Assembly, whose resolutions are not legally binding but are seen as a barometer of world opinion.

However, later in the day, the UN Security Council approved the US resolution calling for an end to war in Ukraine – but without mentioning Russia’s aggression. The resolution received 10 votes in favour, while the remaining five members – including France and the UK – abstained.

Dame Barbara Woodward, the UK’s ambassador to the United Nations, said after the UN Security Council approved the motion: “What, how and on what terms this war ends can only be decided by negotiations with Ukraine.

“No peace will be sustainable without Ukraine’s consent.

“We regret that our proposals making these points clear were not taken on board, and as such we could not support this resolution.

“But we share the ambition to find a lasting end to this war, supported by robust security arrangements that ensure Ukraine never again has to face Russia’s attack.”

It came after the results in the General Assembly had showed some diminished support for Ukraine – as more than 140 nations had voted to condemn Russia’s aggression in previous votes.

The United States had tried to pressure the Ukrainians to withdraw their resolution in favour of its proposal, according to a US official and a European diplomat.

US deputy ambassador Dorothy Shea, meanwhile, said multiple previous UN resolutions condemning Russia and demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops “have failed to stop the war,” which “has now dragged on for far too long and at far too terrible a cost to the people in Ukraine and Russia and beyond”.

“What we need is a resolution marking the commitment from all UN member states to bring a durable end to the war,” Ms Shea said.

The world is marking the third anniversary of Russia’s war in Ukraine as America’s allies try to navigate a new reality as Washington’s stance appears to favour Moscow.

European leaders were dismayed last week when they and Ukraine were left out of preliminary talks on ending the conflict.

Mr Trump has called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “dictator,” falsely accused Kyiv of starting the war and warned that he “better move fast or he is not going to have a country left”.

Mr Zelenskyy responded by saying the US president was living in a Russian-made “disinformation space”.

Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron is at the White House holding talks with Mr Trump to discuss a peace plan for Ukraine.

At the start of the meeting, Mr Trump told reporters Russian President Vladimir Putin will accept European peacekeepers in Ukraine as part of a potential deal to end the war in the country.

Mr Trump and Mr Macron have been meeting after the pair had earlier joined a call between G7 leaders.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who will meet with Mr Trump at the White House on Thursday, appeared virtually and said G7 nations should be ready to “take on more risk”.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was in Kyiv, called Russia’s aggression a war on “our way of life”.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said Europe’s “first priority” is to strengthen Ukraine’s resistance.

She said this includes speeding up the delivery of weapons and increasing investment, announcing a further €3.5bn (about £3bn) in aid for Ukraine.

Environment

Zevtron, ParkMobile to support discontinued Shell Recharge EV chargers

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1 hour ago

February 24, 2025

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Zevtron, ParkMobile to support discontinued Shell Recharge EV chargers

Zevtron, ParkMobile, and Athena Partners Strategy Group are together supporting charging site owners and EV drivers affected by Shell Recharge’s shutdown of its EV charger software.

Shell Recharge is discontinuing its Shell Sky software in third-party commercial EV chargers in the US and Canada. It will service third-party commercial fleet EV chargers until April 30; after that, it’s lights out, leaving hundreds of EV charging stations across the US inoperable.

Zevtron, ParkMobile, and Athena Partners Strategy Group is deploying Zevtron’s white-label EV charging software across the former Shell Recharge network to restore full operational capacity to these chargers.

“Shell’s exit has left hundreds of chargers effectively stranded,” said Chris Mckenty, SVP of sales & marketing at Zevtron. “Our goal is to rapidly restore these stations to full functionality while enhancing their capabilities with flexible branding, seamless payment options, and improved management tools.”

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ParkMobile will extend its capabilities to process EV charging sessions so users can both park and charge. “Integrating EV charging parking sessions into ParkMobile simplifies access for millions of drivers who already rely on our platform,” said Andy Harman, vice president of sales at ParkMobile.

Athena Partners Strategy Group will work closely with cities, businesses, and property owners to deploy the new solution efficiently. “We see this as a major opportunity to not only restore EV charging infrastructure but also improve it for the long term,” said Nick Stanton, managing partner of Athena Partners Strategy Group.

The partnership says it’s a “turnkey solution to ensure uninterrupted service, enhanced user experience, and improved revenue potential.”

For more information on transitioning Shell Recharge EV chargers to the Zevtron-powered network,
contact Chris Mckenty at cmckenty@zevtron.com

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Environment

Volkswagen ID.4 breaks into the top 5 best-selling EVs in the US after sales surged in January

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2 hours ago

February 24, 2025

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Volkswagen ID.4 breaks into the top 5 best-selling EVs in the US after sales surged in January

The Volkswagen ID.4 was the third best-selling EV in the US last month, trailing only the Tesla Model Y and Model 3. Volkswagen’s electric SUV made a comeback after sales surged over 650% in January.

Volkswagen ID.4 was the third best-selling EV in January

Although ID.4 sales fell by 55% last year after Volkswagen halted production and deliveries in September due to a recall over faulty door handles, the EV made a triumphant return in 2025.

Volkswagen sold 4,979 ID.4’s in the US last month, up 653% from January 2024. To put it in perspective, VW only sold 646 ID.4 models in the fourth quarter and just over 17,000 in 2024. At this rate, ID.4 sales are on pace to reach nearly 60,000 by the end of 2025.

According to Cox Automotive’s latest EV Market Monitor report, the ID.4 was the third best-selling EV in the US last month, behind the Tesla Model Y and Model 3.

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The Honda Prologue and Tesla Cybertruck rounded out the top five. Combined, the top five selling EV models accounted for 54% of total sales in the US last month.

Rank	Model
1.	Tesla Model Y
2.	Tesla Model 3
3.	Volkswagen ID.4
4.	Tesla Cybertruck
5.	Honda Prologue

Top-selling EVs in the US in January 2025 (Cox Automotive)

Over 102,200 electric vehicles were sold in the US in January, up nearly 30% from January 2024. Although sales were down from the record 132,392 sold in December 2024, a drop was expected over typical seasonal trends.

Tesla doesn’t provide a breakdown of US sales, so we will not know exact sales numbers until registration data is released.

Honda-Prologue-best-selling-EV — 2024 Honda Prologue Elite (Source: Honda)

Honda’s electric SUV continues to take the market by storm, with 3,744 Prologues sold in January. After delivering the first models last March, the Honda Prologue became the seventh best-selling EV in the US last year, with over 33,000 models sold.

Volkswagen announced the ID.4 was back on sale last month, with the “aim of re-instating the ID.4 to its prior position as one of the best-selling electric vehicles in the US and Canada.” It looks like it’s happening quicker than expected.

Volkswagen-ID.4-best-selling — Volkswagen ID.4 (Source: Volkswagen)

The new entry-level 2025 Volkswagen ID.4 RWD Pro model starts at $45,095, while the AWD Pro costs $48,995. Both are powered by an 82 kWh battery. Volkswagen said the 62 kWh battery will be available later this year. The larger battery provides an EPA-estimated range of up to 291 miles.

VW’s base models feature a gloss black grille, black roof rails, and a 12.9″ infotainment system with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay support. The AWD version has 20″ wheels, a heated windshield, and a tow hitch.

The ID.4 Pro S RWD starts at $50,195, and the AWD model has a sticker price of $54,095. It gets an added illuminated VW logo at the front and rear, premium LED projector headlights, a panoramic fixed glass roof, power tailgate, and more.

Volkswagen’s range-topping 2025 ID.4 Pro S Plus is only available in AWD and starts at $57,295. The Plus trim features 21-inch wheels, added exterior design elements, heated rear seats, a premium Harman Kardon audio system, and an Area View (an overhead view camera).

Both electric SUVs feature some of the biggest discounts on the market right now. To make room for 2025 models, VW is offering close-out prices on the 2024 ID.4, with leases starting as low as $189 per month. However, the Honda Prologue is hard to pass up, starting at just $209 per month. Ready to check them out for yourself? You can use our links below to find deals on the Volkswagen ID.4 and Honda Prologue in your area today.

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