Open Access Article Originally Published: April 30, 2007
Thomas Edison had spent $3.5 million between 1903 and 1910 (equivalent to $71 million today) perfecting his nickel iron battery. He claimed it was half the weight of lead acid and had twice the energy density. His electric cars were demonstrably superior to the competition that were powered at the time by what we today know as Exide batteries, then controlled by a group of cartels. Those cartels sought to monopolize all forms of automotive transportation from bicycles to automobiles, gasoline and electric.
Just as Edison and Henry Ford were about to go into business together to offer a low cost electric car comparable to the Model T, a suspicious fire destroyed nearly all of Edison's West Orange, New Jersey research facility, curiously bypassing areas where the most flammable chemicals had been stored. Within months World War I would engulf Europe and eventually America and the dream of the electric car would fade into obscurity, a curious, forgotten footnote of history.
It would be Edwin Black, a best selling author whose works include IBM and the Holocaust, Banking on Baghdad and War Against the Week, who would exhume the forgotten footnote and the overlooked collaboration between Edison and Ford in his 2006 investigative history into the conspiracy to kill the electric car nearly a century ago.
Black, who is as outspoken and unapologetic as his books, makes no bones about what attracted him to this story of turn of the 19th century avarice and corruption.
"Petro-terrorism".
He defines petro-terrorism as a movement whose intention is to "breakdown our society based on our addiction to oil." And while this particular form of coercion may seem like a relatively new phenomenon of the age of oil, Black asserts in Internal Combustion that it's as old as history, beginning with kingly control of the forests to monopolistic control of coal mines to today's modern oil cartels. The control of energy has been, in his words, the pursuit of monarchs, monopolists and manipulators from time immemorial.
Black takes pains to point out that his focus as an author is on exposing the grimy underbelly of society from IBM, Ford and General Motor's involvement in the rise of the Nazi Third Reich to the eugenics movement of early 20th century.
"I have a history of investigating genocide, oppression, corporate misconduct and governmental corruption", he emphasized.
For him the never-solved, long-ignored fire in West Orange only serves to underscore his view that some conspiracies are quite real and in the case of the destruction of Edison's laboratory, the linchpin of a concerted effort to destroy the inventor's reputation in order to keep his battery off the market, while crushing Henry Ford at the same time.
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6 comments so far...
19-May-2007
56264
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I'm not quite sure how to "clarify" my comment "What a looney!" But I do agree that it is not a particularly helpful remark. (Although I have seen many similar comments on this website - such as "corporate whore" referring to a GM official - that went unedited.) So let me expand on my comment.
Last October I saw a reference to Edwin Black's book on the Internet. On my next trip to the bookstore, I bought a copy. The book had just been delivered, and they had to dig it out of the box in back to sell it to me. I eagerly took it home, and read it in one sitting.
I was disappointed. Not in the research and writing. Both I found excellent. The book is very well-written, and contains a great deal of historical detail. No complaints there.
But the conclusions Black draws from the historical facts are both flamboyant and unsupported. He hints that some conspiracy against Henry Ford and Thomas Edison kept them from turning the world away from gasoline cars to electric cars. He hints, although never says, that the members of this conspiracy burned down Edison's laboratory and sabotaged his prototype batteries as they were sent from New Jersey to Michigan.
Who were these clever conspirators? Black never says. And he gives no evidence of this conspiracy, other than the fact that Edison's laboratory burned down and the batteries arrived at Ford in Michigan in worse shape than they left Edison in New Jersey.
Ford and Edison did have an interest in electric cars. But were they kept from moving Americans from gasoline cars to electrics by some government and corporate conspiracy? That's an extraordinary claim. Does anyone who has studied this historical period believe it? As far as I can tell, only Black. And Black has no real evidence to support his claim.
Similarly, in Black's mind Thomas Watson and IBM aided and abetted the Holocaust, Alfred Sloan and GM aided and abetted the Third Reich, and Herbert Spencer provided the philosophical basis for the eugenics movement. Not to mention GM being guilty of criminal conspiracy for destroying American mass transit. No scholars that have studied these periods agree with him.
As mentioned, Black's book is impressive in both expression and content. And there is a grain of truth in what Black says.
But Black thinks he knows all about the past of the automobile, and has all the answers for the future. Does he really? Look carefully at what he says in his book. And what he proposes as solutions. Does any of that make any sense to you?
Some of his solutions: Hire a staff of six to call all fleet managaers to ask them why the next cars they buy are not going to be alternative fuel cars. Everybody buy home hydrogen stations from Honda. Talk to our legislators (after he had just said that no government for 5,000 years has ever helped solve the energy problems).
These solutions seem simplistic and naive to me.
Frankly, I just don't like Edwin Black's approach in his books. In my mind, he takes a sensationalist view of a controversial issue, and gives only the facts that support his view. That approach provides little help in solving problems like peak oil and global warming, although it might sell books.
And while I usually focus on views and not the people who hold them, I just don't like Edwin Black. I heard him speak. He was profane, argumentative, and intolerant. His speeches are rants. Listen to his interview here on EVWorld. And look on the Internet, at places like www.1134.org/blog/?p=682 to see how he treats his critics.
Maybe Edwin Black is the rational one and I am the one living in a dream world. Who knows. All I know is that one of us is.
Posted by: john
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18-May-2007
56253
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Steve M... while we appreciate your views regarding Iran's use of natural gas -- which I think are valid -- you're use of derrogatory language in your reference to Mr. Black, is not appreciated. I am going to delete you comments and those of 'John' who chose not to clarify his views. Please feel free to restate your comments, but in a less denigrating manner.
Posted by: Bill Moore
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27-May-2007
56369
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In spite of my criticisms, I should say that Edwin Black does bring out some interesting stories from early automotive history, including the story of the Selden patent. My understanding of the Selden patent is a little different, though.
Black and others say that Henry Ford refused to pay the royalty demanded by the owners of the Selden patent. That does not appear to be true. Instead, Ford applied for a license under the patent, but was refused. The owners of the Selden patent were refusing to give licenses to the many small car manufacturers who, they claimed, were ruining the industry with their unreliable products. Because Ford had not yet built many cars, they put him in that category.
Ford, of course, did not take that refusal lying down. Instead of just going ahead without a license, as some others did, and then get a license later, Ford took on the Selden patent owners. If Ford had been in financial trouble, he could have backed down and taken a license. The license fee was steadily decreasing, from 5% which no one paid to 1.25%, and then apparently to a fraction of one percent. Nothing Ford would have been hard-pressed to pay.
But Ford quickly took the offensive. And that paid off. The owners of the Selden patent (interestingly, they had begun as the "Electric Vehicle Company") lost well before their patent was invalidated. Their enforcement of the Selden patent may have had some influence on the small but growing car industry, but it appears to be minimal. Far from being a dominant force in carmaking, they were bumblers who spent more on litigation and other expenses than they took in from royalties. And Ford, as in the advertisement Bill Moore displays above, cleverly turned things around and took full advantage of the basic distrust people had of monopolies and trusts (then as now) to win in the court of public opinion as well as in the appeals court.
An interesting, in-depth article on the history of the Selden patent is at sloan.stanford.edu/EVehicle/text/rae.htm
Posted by: john
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30-Apr-2007
56022
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This is a very good story , but readers need to know about the grants given to H2 , biofuels and other non-battery electric vehicle reasearch is all for the oil industry - government colusion of monetary resouces to curtail battery electric vehicle development . All anyone has to do is follow the bev battery patents lawsuits and see the monopoly and greed . If the EV-1 BEV car program was still in place the NiMH battery would have morphed into a very usable mainstream power source . Instead , it was poured down the grease trap of the oil companies and sold out . It is very unfortunate that we have a government that perpetuates this kind of scullduggery to the point of bankruptcy of alternative energies .
Posted by: John Hurt
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30-Apr-2007
56027
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I am soooooo glad you gave this author some space! His book really opened my eyes and even makes me view the current EV vaporware with an incisive sense of history..We really can't afford to repeat mistakes made at every round of EV development at this time in global & national history, Eyes wide, folks!!
Posted by: tina juarez
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22-Apr-2008
61297
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John's mischaracterizations of my portrayal of the Ford-Edison project are striking and not supported by anything I wrote or said. Rather, I simply quoted the documents and statements of the day made by Edison and others. I never saw the word "conspiracy" in anything I wrote about the Ford-Edison project. I did quote the Department of Justice and the Supreme Court and the Congress regarding GM's indictment and conviction decades later on criminal conspiracy involving trolleys. Those were the formal charges and the terms used. John's understanding of the Selden patent differs from any I have ever seen and are not supported by the thousands of documents I have access to. John might want to do some research before he makes further wild claims. Internal Combustion did win four major editorial awards and was publicly endorsed by numerous historians, experts and energy authorities. Further information is and the public endorsements are obtainable at www.internalcombustionbook.com.
Posted by: Edwin Black
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