Int. J. Automotive Technology and Management, Vol. 15, No.

1, 2015 43

The world that chose the machine: an evolutionary

view of the technological race in the history of
the automobile

Marcos Amatucci
ESPM – International Management Programme,
Sao Paulo, Brazil
Email: marcosamatucci@espm.br

Abstract: The lock-in escape of a carbon-dependent transportation technology

requires the full understanding of the factors that caused the lock-in at the turn
of the 20th century. Most literature about the phenomenon is descriptive and
lacks theoretical strength. An evolutionary view based on Darwin’s concepts
of variety generation, the struggle for existence, coevolution and natural
selection is offered as a theoretical framework to address the lock-in, which
can be generalised to other types of innovation in the presence technological
competition. This study uses a historical methodology to analyse and interpret
narrative sources. Evidence suggests that the competing technologies were not
‘better’ or ‘worse’ per se, but environmental changes transformed technological
varieties into advantages or disadvantages in the technological race and
selected a prevailing standard.

Keywords: lock-in; evolutionary approach; internal combustion engine; ICE;

sustainability; electric car; technology; technology competition; innovation;
automobile industry.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Amatucci, M. (2015)

‘The world that chose the machine: an evolutionary view of the technological
race in the history of the automobile’, Int. J. Automotive Technology and
Management, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp.43–62.

Biographical notes: Marcos Amatucci is an Associate Dean of Research and

Graduate Studies, and a Professor of the International Business Programme at
ESPM, Sao Paulo, Brazil. His areas of interest are innovation, sustainability,
internationalisation and epistemology.

This paper is a revised and expanded version of a paper entitled ‘The world that
chose the machine: an evolutionary view of the technological race in the
automobile history’ presented at 21st Gerpisa International Colloquium, Paris,
12–14 June 2013.

1 Introduction

The current consensus in the literature is that world mobility suffers from a carbon
lock-in that makes the main modes of transportation, mainly individual transportation,
highly dependent on fossil oil (Åhman and Nilsson, 2008; Cowan and Hultén, 1996;
Unruh, 2000). With the recent global concern about carbon emissions and sustainability,

Copyright © 2015 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

44 M. Amatucci

the means to lock-out mobility from this dependency have been studied, particularly in
the business management and engineering literature (Amatucci and Spers, 2010;
Calabrese, 2012; Elzen et al., 2002; Freyssenet, 2011a, 2011b; Geels, 2005b; Genus and
Coles, 2008).
To best understand the conditions necessary to develop alternative energy sources to
propel our vehicles (to lock-out or escape lock-in), it is necessary to explain the factors
that led to the lock-in in the first place.
There is a large literature on the history of the prevalence of the internal combustion
engine (ICE) as the dominant standard of motorisation (Anderson and Anderson, 2005;
Cowan and Hultén, 1996; Flink, 1990; Freyssenet, 2011a, 2011b; Hoyer, 2008; Hylton,
2009; Kimes, 2005; Kirsch, 2000; Serra, 2012; Wakefield, 1998; Westbrook, 2001).
Nevertheless, this literature is mainly descriptive (and in this sense, there are various
histories of the ICE vehicle but not different theories), and the field is left without a
common theoretical framework to understand the chain of events.
Cowan and Hultén (1996) clearly state that path dependence, path inter-dependence
and path independence approaches do not account for the complexity of the lock-in
problem. These three theoretical choices currently cover nearly all known economic
approaches to the phenomenon. Therefore, we need a new comprehensive approach to
understand the lock-in establishment in general.
The struggle for technological dominance in the automotive propulsion field can
serve as an important case study for this purpose. It fills all the complexity requirements
for such: it broke a previous lock-in (the horse system), it held fierce competition among
several very different technological paradigms (the most important of them being stem,
electricity and internal combustion), and it ended with the establishment of a new lock-in
in the form of a whole socio-technical system.
Other peculiarities of the automobile engine case propitious for generalisation are the
facts that the prevailing ICE technology was not the pioneer technology and the fact of it
being ‘the best’ technology is disputed.
Therefore, this discussion is important to the field of innovation because it raises
fundamental questions such as whether there is a best technology ‘per se’, i.e., a
technology that can be chosen considering its inner features alone. Even accepting a
technology-driven process of innovation (Sahal, 1985; Suarez, 2004; Suárez and
Utterback, 1995), do environmental conditions play a role in the competition for
dominance?
These questions constitute the matter of a theoretical framework to explain social
phenomena such as the universal adoption of a technological system in the face of
competition and its consequences.

2 Literature review

Because the mobility technology is responsible for the entire social function of
transportation, it is a complex phenomenon, and it is not surprising that various authors
have organised the facts in various narratives by putting emphasis and landmarks in
various places. The current conditions of the events were established through a social
process 100 years ago, and these conditions have been investigated by modern research
now that society is aware of the emissions issue. Nevertheless, historical analysis has a
 The world that chose the machine 45

set of criteria (discussed further in the methodology section) that must be applied to
establish the best explanation argument.

2.1 The consensual history

There is little controversy about what happened. First, there was the crisis of the horse
system: with the industrialisation process of the 19th century, transportation demands
skyrocketed, and horse food began to compete with human food for cultivable lands. This
caused the cost of horse maintenance to increase (Freyssenet, 2011a, 2011b; Geels,
2005a).
Second, several types of motion technology emerged and competed with each other
for general adoption in society, which had origins in several innovations in other
industries and sciences in the late 18th and 19th century, but this did not lead to the
domination of one technology over the others (Cowan and Hultén, 1996; Freyssenet,
2011a, 2011b).
Third, there was the establishment of ICE dominance, the mass production of ICE
engines, and the formation of socio-economic-political coalitions around one value-chain
that fostered the petrol technology. The fourth step was the establishment of
governmental policies that consolidated that dominance (Cowan and Hultén, 1996;
Freyssenet, 2011a, 2011b).

2.2 A theory to make sense of the facts

The problem is not at the factual level but at the theoretical one. The ICE prevailing over
other technologies is often attributed to technical superiority. In Economics, the lock-in
establishment of a technology is seen as a result of a path dependence mechanism.

2.2.1 The technical superiority argument

Most of the literature on the beginning of the automobile industry focuses on technical
aspects of the competing technologies and argues that technical superiority was
responsible for the resulting dominance of the ICE technology whether in the inner
aspects of the engine itself (Hoyer, 2008; Wakefield, 1998; Westbrook, 2001) or the ICE
engine’s entrepreneurs (Kimes, 2005; Serra, 2012).
In summary, the technical view argues, on one hand, that each technology had
positive characteristics and drawbacks and that the positive characteristics of the ICE
prevailed with the development of the transportation industry, and on the other hand, the
ICE providers were more rapid in fixing the problems of this technology than
were their competitors, which mainly concerns the starting issues and the speed/range of
operation.
The technical superiority argument does not stand up to investigation. Table 1 is a
common comparison of the technological features of the vehicles at the turn of the 20th
century; Table 1A is a descriptive comparison from a technical handbook from that
period. None of the competing technologies presented a clear superiority over the others
in their performance attributes as evaluated at the time.
 46

Table 1
M. Amatucci

Vehicle Fuel for 1 Weight/hp in System Efficiency Range Start-up Speed

Control Maintenance Noise Fumes
type hp-hr pounds durability source miles time mph
Steam 6# Coal 200 Steam valve Good 10% Modest 10 Water 2 Minutes Little Little 40
40# Water
Gasoline 1 Ounce 185 Carburettor Fair 15% Modest 150 5 Minutes Very Much 20
gasoline Gasoline cranking noisy
Electric 220# 70 Voltage Excellent 50% With Little 30 Charge Immediate Almost None 25
Batteries switching battery none
Horse 12# Oats 1,000 Bridle Good 70% Considerable 15 With 15–30 Little Much Walk
buggy Minutes
Source: Wakefield (1994, p.37)
Categories that compare types of road transportation in 1895
 The world that chose the machine 47

Table 1A ‘The Autocar Handbook’ qualitative comparison between automobile technologies

in 1906

Petrol cars Steam vehicles Electric vehicles

Advantages Capable of running Great range of power Quietness.
long distances that is easily Absence of vibration.
without replenishing controlled.
supplies. Simple and efficient
Quietness. gearing.
Large range of Freedom from
choice. Facility of control.
vibration.
Wide dissemination Cleanliness.
Easy starting.
of expert knowledge. Easy starting.

Disadvantages Occasional Limited number of Expense of running, owing,

unpleasant exhaust if makers to select from. which is partly related to the
driver is careless. Delay in starting. great weight to be driven.
Physical starting. Close attention Limited range: from twenty
Gear changing required to indicators. to fifty miles.
(scarcely worth Frequently visible Great weight due to the
mentioning on a exhaust. batteries.
good car). Time taken to recharge.
Small number of charging
stations.
Liability of the batteries to
injury.
Slow speed for sustained
running.
High initial cost.
Source: Authors with data from Leechman (1906, p.25)

2.2.2 Path dependence

In theory, the establishment of lock-in is usually related to path dependence mechanisms.
Path dependence was introduced in Economics by Arthur (1989, 1996) and David (1985,
2007). This theoretical view says that an initial advantage of one technology snowballs to
overcome all the others in an economy of increasing returns to scale. David (1989)
compares the process with the Polya’s Urn: in the usual probabilistic urn, when a raffled
ball colour is replaced (so that in the next sweepstakes the odds are the same) or not
replaced (so that the next sweepstakes penalises the first raffled colour), but in the
Polya’s Urn, the raffled colour is replaced by n balls of the same colour, which enhances
the future odds for that particular colour. In the long run, the advantage of that colour
tends to 100%. Once the advantage of the technology is established, the economic agents
involved have a lock-in with that technology, which is very costly or impossible to
lock-out.
A very important aspect of the path dependence explanation of technology adoption is
that ‘the best’ technology will not necessarily win; David (1989) gives the example of the
QWERTY keyboard: competing keyboards such as Dvorak’s were not able to surpass the
initial advantage of QWERTY despite Dvorak’s more efficient design.
48 M. Amatucci

The problem with the explanation in this case is the determination of the initial
advantage of the ICE technology in the first place. It would have to be technical, but it is
evident that there were no clear technical advantages for a large period of automobile
history.
As discussed in the introduction section, Cowan and Hultén (1996) examined the path
dependent, path interdependent and path independent approaches. They were dissatisfied
with them and concluded that
“Technological lock-in has roots both within and outside the industry in which
the technology operates. This suggests that the problem of lock-in may be even
more serious than is suggested by the competing technologies literature. Thus,
to examine the possibility of escaping lock-in, we must look outside the
industry, beyond the technologies themselves, to address other factors that may
impinge.” [Cowan and Hultén, (1996), p.65]
This study resumes from this point to propose an evolutionary view of the establishment
of ICE dominance as a theoretical perspective to explain the mechanisms of that
dominance.

2.3 Elements of an evolutionary view

Darwin’s evolutionary theory has been adapted to Economics in a non-orthodox way, and
the evolution mechanisms have therefore been ‘translated’ to economic and managerial
elements; for instance, the routines of the firm are seen as the genetic inheritance content
(or parent’s resemblance), and competition is seen as the struggle for existence (Nelson
and Winter, 1982; Nelson, 1995).
In turn, the work of Darwin is considered by some authors to have been influenced by
some ideas that originated in economics; these include mainly the population principles
of Malthus, which supposedly gave rise to Darwin’s struggle for life idea in the evolution
process (Bowler, 1976; Kutschera, 2003; Marciano, 2007).
In biology, Darwin stated that natural selection’s main elements are the struggle for
existence, the variability of individuals of the same species, and the tendency of offspring
to resemble their parents (Bowler, 1974, 1976; Darwin, 1859).
The concept of variation is complex and not free from debate (Bowler, 1974, 1976a).
For our purposes, it is enough to consider that individuals of a population exhibit an
individual variation that defines and assures their very individuality and share some
features with other individuals of the population (other types of variation are not of
interest here). For each feature in the phenotype, the variation occurs around an average
value (today we know that this spread is a normal distribution, but Darwin did not know
this), and changes in the environment turn some varieties into advantages in the struggle
for existence. Therefore, individuals in this advantaged part of the distribution are more
likely to survive and spread such variety to their offspring. The opposite occurs with the
varieties turned into disadvantages by changes in the environment; individuals penalised
in this way are less prone to survive and spread their variety. The changes in the
environment are the main causes of variation in nature; Darwin also discusses variation
under domestication, where the variations may be induced by the human hand (Darwin,
1859; Winther, 2000). Hence, there are ‘favourable variations’ and ‘unfavourable
variations’, the former are those that help individuals to adapt to environmental changes,
obtain more food, be healthier, breed more, have more offspring and spread their
particular character (Bowler, 1976).
 The world that chose the machine 49

The concept of struggle for life is no less problematic. Bowler (1976) tries to differ
‘Darwin’s struggle’ from ‘Malthus’ struggle’, with the former being much more complex,
and uses the term ‘struggle (a)’ for the competition of individuals of the same species to
survive in the face of an environmental change – for instance, a sudden chase from
predators that previously ate something else but changed their habits due to the
circumstance. Some individuals will be favoured in the struggle for life due to some
characteristics (colour, speed, etc.) and others will be disfavoured. The struggle of the
predator trying to survive by altering its prey and chasing the new and unknown prey is
an inter-species struggle and (Bowler, 1976) calls it ‘struggle (b)’. By the same token,
various species of plants will ‘struggle (b)’ for space to grow, and the Malthusian
struggle of a population for food and space is also of this type. However, this is enough
debate for the sake of the present paper.
Darwin stated the inheritance of genetic characteristics was the tendency of offspring
to resemble their parents. Although Darwin might have had contact with Mendel’s
papers, science was not aware of the consequences of Mendel’s work at the time. In fact,
Darwin followed the long British intellectual tradition of ‘externalism’, which explained
variations in organisms, adaptation and natural selection by what happened outside the
organisms, i.e., in the environment (Winther, 2000).
Finally, the concept of natural selection was developed in opposition to selection
under domestication in which the breeder chooses the individuals with the character he or
she wants to develop, breeds these individuals, and then selects from its offspring and so
on, which promotes the hyper-development of the desired characteristic. In natural
selection, the role of the breeder is played by nature through changes in the environment
(Darwin, 1859; Kutschera, 2003).
These are the mains concepts of an evolutionary view. A ‘subsidiary’ concept
regarding coevolution is worth mentioning. Darwin discusses the relationship of insects
and the morphology of orchids (Darwin, 1877), in which the evolution of moths are
parallel with the evolution of the orchids (Thompson, 1994). According to Darwin’s
observations, organisms living in symbiosis develop mutual specialisation, “decreasing
competitive interactions” [Thompson, (2001), p.1] in the struggle for life.

3 Methodology considerations

This is documental and bibliographic research that follows a historical research and
discussion methodology to the best of our understanding and efforts. In terms of
historical research methodology, these documents and books are testimonial artefacts (in
contrast with relics and remains) and constitute narrative sources (in contrast with
juridical or social documents sources). The documents and books used are as direct and
indirect narrative sources, respectively. The direct sources comprise newspaper and
magazines of the considered period (the last decades of 19th century and first decades of
20th century), brochures from vehicle manufacturers, technical publications and
advertising messages. The indirect sources are books that brought other documentary
sources to light and report the history of the technologies (Howell and Prevenier, 2001).
These are our primary sources of data. Complementarily, there was direct observation of
relics (early ICE, vapour and electric vehicles) in The Henry Ford (museum) at Dearborn,
Michigan and interviews with practitioners in the automobile industry, when some
50 M. Amatucci

aspects of the problem were discussed to gather supporting information and explanations
of the data. Nonetheless, the main sources of information are the historical documents
and bibliography.
The narrative sources are listed in the Bibliographical References with the titles used
in the literature review, which address the theoretical aspects of the phenomenon.
However, some books and papers met both functions because they included theoretical
explanations of their data.
The sources were analysed to seek elements that meet the research problem. The
historical interpretation of the data resulted in a new historical narrative (shown in the
‘brief history and discussion’ section) to meet the research problem. The causes and
effects relationships (hypotheses) implied by this narrative followed a ‘best explanation’
argument. This requires that the hypothesis statements imply the observable statements
and that the hypotheses be of greater explanatory scope, greater explanatory power, less
ad hoc (i.e., include fewer suppositions), more plausible and disconfirmed by fewer
accepted beliefs than any incompatible hypotheses about the same subject (McCullagh,
1984).

4 Facts revisited and discussion

Because the facts of the history of the automobile are already well known and have been
expressed in many books and papers (Anderson and Anderson, 2005; Flink, 1990; Hoyer,
2008; Hylton, 2009; Kimes, 2005; Kirsch, 2000; Serra, 2012; Vieira, 2008a, 2008b;
Wakefield, 1994, 1998; Westbrook, 2001), we will proceed with the discussion as we
briefly resume the historical line.
The project of a self-propelled vehicle can be traced back as far as the fourteenth
century with the drawings of a windmill-propelled car by the Italian Guido da Vigevano
(Genta, 1997; Lefèvre, 2004), who is considered by some of my colleagues to be the
inventor of the ‘automobile’ (although the word ‘automobile’ would be coined only
centuries later).
Most of the literature begins history of automobile in the eighteenth century, when
mobility is but one of the applications of steam power. Nicolas Joseph Cugnot’s Fardier
is generally consider the first automobile; it was developed between 1763 and 1769 but
was more of an experiment than a working vehicle (Feldhaus, 1906; Hiscox, 1900, 1906;
Hylton, 2009; Vieira, 2008a).
In England, Richard Trevithick built his steam carriage in 1801 (Foster, 1975; Serra,
2012), exactly 80 years before the first fully functional electric car was developed in
France by Trouvé; this electric car was powered by a secondary (rechargeable) Planté
type battery (Westbrook, 2001). However, primitive electric models can be traced back to
the 1830s (Hylton, 2009).
The historical context behind the development of automobile technology during the
17th and 18th centuries is the advance of science, particularly physics and chemistry.
Newton was responsible for the new ideas and developments in physics (Newton himself
has a draft of a steam ‘jet’ propelled car that was based on the action and reaction
principium), and the developments in chemistry were due to Boyle, Lavoisier, Carnot and
others. These scientific principia were being applied to technical affairs and economic
production.
 The world that chose the machine 51

This same context and the same steam power gave birth to the Industrial Revolution,
which in turn popularised the steam engine and dramatically increased the demand for all
types of transportation in terms of volume, speed, cargo capacity and autonomy.

4.1 Crisis
As Freyssenet (2011a, 2011b) showed, this increase of volume, due to improvements in
the production process, brought a crisis to the horse transportation industry that provoked
an opportunity for the creation of variety. As the price of a regular horse carriage
increased, especially as a business means of transportation, a number of experiments with
self-propelled vehicles that were pushed by scientific advances were made economically
viable.
Although there has been much emphasis on the costs of horse food (Freyssenet,
2011a, 2011b), these costs, although increased, were still a fraction of the total costs, and
compared to the costs of power, horse transportation was indeed less expensive.
However, the total costs of maintaining a pair of horses was no longer compatible with
the rest of the cost structure of business logistics. Table 2 offers a comparison between
horse-driven carriages and an electrical carriage for delivery services in New York City
in 1896.
The crisis of the ‘old system’ configures an environmental change that will induce
variety generation.
Table 2 Horse and electricity in urban delivery services in New York City in 1896

Cost of delivery services Cost of delivery services

in NYC per day – HORSE in NYC per day – ELECTRIC
Item US$ cents Item US$ cents
1 Food for two horses 64.00 1 Cost of power 71.28
2 Interest on cost for two 4.12 2 Interest on wagon per 21.4
horses day
3 Interest on cost of wagon 5.13 3 Interest on stable rent 9.39
for wagon
4 Interest on cost of one set 0.09 4 Driver 171.42
of harness
5 Stable rent chargeable to 18.78 5 Boy 114.28
two horses
6 Stable rent chargeable to 9.39
wagon
7 Attendance on two horses 27.32
8 Shoeing two horses 13.20
9 Driver 171.42
10 Boy 114.28
Total 428.64 Total 387.77
Source: Authors, with data from Sever and Fliess (1896, pp.19703–19705)
52 M. Amatucci

4.2 Variety generation and technical characteristics

Pulled by the economic opportunity created by the crisis of the horse system and by the
scientific developments of the 17th and 18th centuries, several inventions and
experiments led to commercial business. In fact, the variety of technologies that emerged
in the nineteenth century is surprising to the current observer, born and raised in a
mobility technology monopoly. Side by side with entire automobile manufacturers,
assemblers bought their engines from one of the several engine suppliers available at the
time. In the early stages, most of the experiments were carried out with light bicycles and
tricycles, but many of the successful businesses began with heavy wagons.
Table 3 shows a sample of companies and inventors who offered various technologies
in 1895 in the USA.
These facts are eloquent. There were many more examples of technology and models
than could have survived into the present. Even the ICE design, which is currently
predominant, showed enormous variation that was not confined to the Otto Cycle of four
cycles and one action. Then, mechanisms such as the struggle for existence and some
type of selection were in place, which turned some of the performance characteristics into
advantages and others into disadvantages.
As for the technical characteristics, the main features of each model are shown in
Table 1 and Table 1A. We are going to work with those data except for the weight. The
weight data found in the references of Table 3 differs significantly from those of
Table 1. Because THA (1895) shows individual data from each manufacturer
and model, it seems to be more accurate than the averages used by Wakefield (1994).
Additionally, the electric wagon used for the cost comparison shown in Table 2 weighted
3,750 lb empty and 4,200 lb with passengers and instruments (Sever and Fliess, 1896),
which is much closer to the 3,000 lb of the Baker and Elberg (electric) wagon as
described by THA (1895). The descriptions of Leechman (1906) in Table 1A corroborate
this.
The nature (and therefore the size) of the vehicle is also a crucial factor for
weight considerations because the weight of tricycles, surreys and wagons are very
different. Therefore, we selected some of the models of Table 3 for a closer look
at the gasoline, electric and steam models. The criteria were the commercial stage
of the model (in opposition to the invention stage), the importance of the models
measured by its presence in the literature and the availability of data. The results are
shown in Table 4.
As can be observed in this data, the weight per person of an electrical vehicle is
greater than that of its gasoline and steam counterparts. The steam vehicles were
mostly likely lighter because this was a more mature technology; because weight was
always an engineering concern, this issue could be more fully addressed in the steam
vehicles:
“Mr. Roper has furnished engines for many of the fastest steam yachts in
Boston Harbor, and incidentally for thirty-five years, has experimented to
reduce the weight and increase the efficiency of the steam engine for road
vehicles (…) The first four-wheeler which he construted weighted about 800
pounds and the last, completed in 1894 (…) weighted only about 325 pounds.”
[THA, (1895), p.21]
 The world that chose the machine 53

Table 3 Variety of models, technology, fuel and Companies in the USA in 1895

Technology Fuels Model (company or inventor)

Compressed Air Compressed Air Bicycle (Lewis B. White); MacKenzie &
air McArthur (MacKenzie & McArthur); M.B. Mills Storage System
(M.B. Mills) (Air or Gas)
Electric Electricity Arnold Electric Carriage (B.J. Arnold); Baker and Elberg Wagon
(H.C. Baker and J.R. Elberg); Barrows Electric Vehicle (Charles
H. Barrows); Carpenter Electric Vehicle (H.H. Carpenter);
Columbia P. Electric Wagon (Columbia Perambulator Co.);
Conklin Electric Tricycle (Oliver F. Conklin); Dey System of
Propelling (Harry P. Dey); Electrobat (Electric Wagon) (Morris
& Salom); Holtzer Electric Wagon (Holtzer-Cabot Electric Co.);
Perry Lewis Electric Wagon (J.D. Perry Lewis); Sturges Electric
Motocycle (Sturges Electric Motocycle Co.)
Gas engine Gasoline; King’ Gas Engines (Charles B. King); Lewis Motorcycle
naphta; (George W. Lewis); Mann Gasoline Carriage (Mann Press Co.);
proprietary Sintz Gas Engine (Sintz Gas Engine Co.); Wing Work Wagon
gas; city gas (L.J. Wing and Co.)
Hot air Gasoline or Kane-Pennington Hot Air Engine (Banker Bros.; Racine Motor
kerosene Vehicle Co.; R.W. Elston)
ICE Gasoline; Buckeye Gasoline Buggy (Buckeye Mfg. Co. (Lambert
kerosene stationary); D.J. Ames Gasoline Phaeton (Owatonna Mfg. Co.)(2);
Daley Gasoline Vehicle (M.H. Daley)(3,5); Duryea Motor Wagon
(Charles E. Duryea)(4); Elrick Gasoline Vehicle (George
Elrick)(1); Gawley Gasoline Carriage (T.R. Gawley)(2); Hill’s
Locomotor (Hill & Cummins)(1); J.B. West Gasoline Vehicle
(J.B. West)(2); Lawson Kerosene Motor (Samuel Lawson)(2);
Maxim Motor Tricycle (Hiram Percy Maxim)(4); Moehn Gasoline
Wagon (J.N. Mohen)(1,3); Praul Rotary Gasoline Motor (John E.
Praul)(5); Riotte Kerosene Bicycle (Riotte & Hadden Mfg. Co.)(2);
Roger Petroleum Carriage (Roger American Mech. Carr. Co.)(2);
Salisbury Motorcycle (W.I. Salisbury)(3);Schoening Kerosene
Carriage (C.J. & J.W. Schoening)(1); Sprage Motor Vehicle
(H.A. Sprage)(4); Tower Gasoline Bicycle (Clinton A. Tower)(2)
Spring - Andrews Spring Motor (A.B. Andrews); Burdick Spring Motor
action (A. Burdick); Ingersoll Moore Spring (Ingersoll Moore); Lybe
Spring Motor (D.I. Lybe); Smith’s Spring Motor (Otis E. Smith)
Steam Water and: Bundy Wagon (Bundy Co. (for self-use); C.L. Simonds Steam
crude oil; Wagon (Clarence L. Simonds); Hartley Motor (Hartley Power
ether; Supply); Co.)(5); Ingersoll Moore Steam (Ingersoll Moore);
gasoline; Joseph Saver’s Steam Buggy (Joseph Shaver); Pierce Steam
kerosene; Tricycle (W.A. Pierce); Roper Steam Vehicles (Stephen H.
naphta Roper); Sweany Steam Carriage (F.L. Sweany/Chas F. Caffrey
Co.); Twombly’s Ether Motor (Willard J. Twombly); Vanell
Steam Carriage (Frank Vanell)
Notes: (1)Proprietary cycle, (2)not specified (cycle or fuel), (3)double action (one explosion
each cylinder revolution), (4)Otto cycle, (5)rotary engine.
Source: Authors, with data from Hiscox (1906) and THA (1895)
54 M. Amatucci

Table 4 Electric, ICE and Steam models’ weights in 1890–1895

Capacity Weight Weight/person Average(**)

Model Technology
(people) (pounds) (pounds) lb/person
Baker and Elberg Electric 3 3,000 1,000 971
Wagon(1)
Holtzer Wagon(1) 6 5,100 850
Electrobat(1) 4 4,250 1,063
Lewis ICE 3 1,200 400 480
Motorcycle(1)
Howard Wagon(1) 5 1,700 340
Duryea Motor 1 700 700
Wagon(1)
Bundy Steam 25 eq.(*) 1,500 60
(Democrat)
Wagon(1)
S.H. Roper Steam 2 325 163 98
Vehicle(1,3)
Phaeton Moto- 3 220 73
Cycle(2)
Notes: (*)2 tons. (**)Averages of this sample given for illustrative purposes only.
Source: Authors with data from (1)THA (1895), (2)THF85137 (1890) and
(3)
THF91158 (1865)
However, weight did not seem to be a problem for the public by the turn of the century, if
the weights are to be compared with the weight of the former ‘dominant’ horse
technology. In fact, the public seemed to be very satisfied with the general conditions of
the performance of the models, as shown in Table 1. This journalist testimony shows a
firm that used an electric car fleet to make deliveries and faced the main problem of the
electric car: the recharging. The document shows a photograph of the charging room and
a large wagon after the recharging, and the comments are
“… as the batteries require to be charged after the early afternoon trip, that is,
between three and six in the afternoon, when, as stated above, the current
consumption is already at its maximum. The batteries consume about 600
ampere hours which forced the firm to install the 216-kw unit, a step which, it
is confidently hoped, will warranted by the greater efficiency of the delivery
service. (…) One thing, however, the above described installation has already
shown, namely that when ‘properly handled and cared for’, the electric
automobile is a successful delivery vehicle.” (THF85145, 1900)
In 1900, experts did not seem to consider one technology superior to the others. At a
symposium at the New York Electrical Society, where three speakers were invited to
expatiate about electric, gasoline and steam vehicles, the gasoline speaker, Mr. C.J. Field,
explains his view on the performance issues of the models:
“In his opinion, no one type of automobile could meet all the conditions of
practice. Each has its place, and it would be gratuitous to say that any one was
better than the others or that any one could meet all the requirements demanded
of an automobile vehicle. He thought that the gasoline type as between the
electricity on the one hand and steam on the other. He felt that the electric
vehicle was best fitted for purposes of pleasure and of city travel, but that the
 The world that chose the machine 55

gasoline vehicle showed the most adaptation for touring, for commercial
trucking and for general pleasure purposes where these involved excursions
into the country remote from charging stations…” [Electrical Review, (1900),
p.328]
This opinion agrees with the Leechman’s Autocar Handbook, which provides
information to potential buyers and is cited in Table 1A. In fact, Leechman’s comparison
continues with the remarks
“The electric car is, therefore, not suitable for touring purposes, but for town
work, such as professional calls, attending theatres and the like. Indeed, where
cost is not all-important, the electric car is very suitable, and is being
appreciated. Electric cars have special privileges as to running in the parks
during the season.” [Leechman, (1906), p.26]
By the turn of the 20th century, the US market was fairly divided among the three
technologies and some horse pulled carriages (Anderson and Anderson, 2005; Hoyer,
2008; NYES, 1900; Review, 1900). This is when the technological race really begins.
The car history before this period is important only to note the relationship among the
technologies and their environment, which is here considered to be the dynamics of road
development and legislation development or infrastructure and institutions in general.

4.3 Environmental influences over technology performance: terrain and

legislation
Early in the developments of the first prototypes, the relationship of the cars with the
infrastructure and institutions was a determinant of the survival or destruction of the
initiatives.
“Strange carriage: in the year 1504 a citizen constructed a carriage with wheels
and all kinds of springs, which could drive it without a horse (…) He attempted
to drive it two miles towards Dresden but he did not get very far for he stuck in
the mud which was at that time very thick; on the flat and dry he could have
made it.” [Jellinek-Mercédès, (1966), p.31]
This particular event is part of Chronicles of Pirna, and it is also mentioned in Feldhaus
(1906).
Road conditions have always determined the viability of mobility technology. The
electric car was known for speed records in a measured short distance and often on
specially prepared tracks; the most famous of these was the Jamais Contente, which was
an electric aluminium race car driven by the also famous Belgium pilot Camille Jenatzy,
who broke 60 miles an hour in 1898; this was record that held for three years (Hylton,
2009; Westbrook, 2001). Speed records were dominated by electric and steam cars until
1902.
However, long distance races on rough terrains (see Table 5) were won by ICE
vehicles at much lower average speeds (Hylton, 2009).
The same factor may be used to explain why steam locomotives were very successful
in England in the nineteenth century because steam carriage services had a much shorter
life than railroad services. According to Hylton (2009), one reason for the greater success
of the railway in opposition to carriage business was the railway itself, which allowed
more cost-efficient (and reliable) operation despite higher initial costs. Most of these
efficiency gains were caused by the bad conditions of inter-city roads. Additionally,
56 M. Amatucci

Europe favoured the ICE vehicle earlier because of the heritage of Roman roads that
linked cities and the more well maintained highways (Wakefield, 1998).
Table 5 Early long distance races in Europe, 1894–1898

Distance Avg. speed

Race Year First to arrive(*) Technology
(miles) (mph)
Paris-Rouen 1894 78 De Dion Steam 11.6
Paris-Bordeaux-Paris 1895 732 Emile Levassor ICE 15
Paris-Marseilles-Paris 1896 1,163 Mayade ICE 15+
London to Brighton 1896 56(**) Leon Bollee ICE 15.7
Paris-Amsterdam-Paris 1898 889 Fernand Charron ICE 26.9
(*)
Notes: For several reasons not related to performance, both De Dion and Levassor were
not declared winners. History gave them what the organisers denied. (**)Current
driving distance for reference.
Source: Authors, with data from Hylton (2009)
Therefore, ICE vehicles had a larger range of operation and performed better on long
distance routes. However, again, it was not a disadvantage to the other technologies
because cars were mainly used within city limits due to the poor road conditions in the
USA (where the electric cars were more widespread):

“… so long as the only decent roads in America were largely confined to urban
areas, and inter-city travel by car was not a realistic prospect, at least the
electric car’s relative lack of range and low speed were less than an issue. This
was particularly the case when we consider that most cities at the turn of the
century were subject to an 8mph speed limit.” [Hylton, (2009), p.117]

The poor conditions of US roads at the turn of the 20th century are richly documented
both in literature and in audio-visual documents.

“Until the late 1920, however, automobile touring, especially to remote western
parks, was severely limited by poor roads. (…) Roads meandered from town to
town without forming a system of interconnected highways. They were poorly
marked when marked at all. Roadside services for tourists were virtually non-
existent. Over 90 percent of the roads were unsurfaced, and impassable much
of the year.” [Flink, (1990), p.169]

The road conditions and their effect on technology adoption is also recognised by Kirsch
(2000, pp.169–170):

“Did the state of American roads tilt the playing field for or against the
adoption of the electric passenger vehicle? In the 1890s the quality of the
typical intercity American roadway was, to quote historian Bruce Seely, ‘truly
abysmal – mud holes in spring, dust traps in summer, rutted always.’ Paving of
any sort was rare; many routes were simple trampled earth intermittently
overlaid with loose gravel. Almost any extended overland journey by horse-
drawn vehicle was arduous, slow, and uncertain. (…), getting from town to
town was an adventure.”

The work of the Good Roads Movement was richly documented as well. Colonel Pope’s
(a leading bicycle manufacturer) movement published a magazine, the Good Roads
Magazine. It was suggested (and accomplished) at that time that convicts should work on
 The world that chose the machine 57

the improvement of roads. Whether that polemical measure did or did not improve the
roads, at least it caused a social debate that included the need for road improvements via
turnpikes or other means (Flink, 1990; GRM, 1901, 1901a; Lichtenstein, 1993;
THF103069, 1902; THF200277, 1905).
Car accidents were also a cause of both legislation to reduce speed limits and public
investments in inter-city road improvements:

“New York State believed it could prevent automobile accidents by providing

perfect roads from one end of the state to the other. To accomplish this plan it
appropriated $ 50 million over a ten year period for road improvement to insure
that the state would have the best roads in country. As much as $ 11 million
had been spent on road improvements by cities and counties from 1898 to
1905.” [Anderson and Anderson, (2005), p.60]

By 1911, the American Association for Highway Improvement (formed from the Touring
Club of America and the American Automobile Association) put forward a national
campaign for uniformity in road construction (Anderson and Anderson, 2005).
Both before the improvements, when more horsepower was demanded, and after the
improvements, when touring was fostered, roads and road travel by car favoured the ICE.
The development of a road network in the beginning of the 20th century and the
development of the habit of inter-city touring by individual transportation turned the
electric car’s short range into a disadvantage and the long range of the ICE car into an
advantage in their struggle for existence: “Touring proved a poison to electric vehicles,
and a tonic for gasoline-powered automobiles. For the first time the range of a vehicle
became significant” [Wakefield, (1994), p.128].
The other important environmental influence is the legislation or institutions in
general. In England, the early legislation hit every horseless vehicle equally by
establishing severe conditions to allow drivers to use roads, apparently to protect the
horse carriage as public transportation and its whole value chain (Hylton, 2009). The
most discouraging and impactful legislation came to be known as ‘The Red Flag Act’ of
1865, which required three men operate horseless vehicles, one of them walking on foot
with a red flag ahead of the vehicle (Hylton, 2009; Westbrook, 2001). Side by side with
this regulation, the speed limits also prevented the new technologies from showing all
their advantage over the horses, but they also equalised the performance of the
technologies by postponing the vehicle’s speed from becoming an issue.
The later taxation on vehicles based on weight turned this former neutral
characteristic into another disadvantage for the electric vehicle (see Table 4):

“By 1923 the state of New York passed a law taxing vehicles for wear and tear
the state road system. Electric trucks and some electric pleasure vehicles were
penalized, i.e., taxed at higher rate, because the assumption was made that the
wear and tear of the state highways was proportionate to the additional weight
of the vehicle. Heavy batteries accounted for the increased weight.” [Anderson
and Anderson, (2005), p.64]

This discussion has sought to gather evidence that the crisis in the horse system led to
technological variety and that such variety co-habited the same time and space (mainly in
the USA) during a considerable time span, and later changes in the environment turned
the technological variety into an advantage-disadvantage competitive relationship.
58 M. Amatucci

4.4 Coevolution betrayed: batteries turn sides

This short excerpt exemplifies other uses of the evolutionary metaphor. One of the
natural mechanisms to avoid direct competition for scarce resources is the specialisation
of the organisms in symbiosis during a coevolutionary process. The electric carmakers
did not integrate battery production (which differed from the modern ICE engines, which
were mostly produced by the car assembly companies). Therefore, the electric car makers
were dependent on battery suppliers. In turn, these had a potentially huge market in the
electric car, and the evolution of the battery technology followed the evolution and the
needs of the electric car industry.
“By increasing the storage efficiency of batteries the range of the electric
vehicles was increased from 30 kilometres in 1900 to 80–130 kilometres in
1914. (…) Battery technology did improve at the beginning of the century, but
it took ten years to fulfil the expectations of 1900. It was too late though. In
1910 the performance of the batteries was still uncompetitive because of
advances that had taken place in the gasoline car technology.” [Cowan and
Hultén, (1996), p.9]
These advances in the ICE technology included the perfection of the electric starter by
Charles Kettering in 1912 (Serra, 2012; Wakefield, 1994; Westbrook, 2001), which
solved the main ICE technology problem at the time: the dangerous and strenuous
manual crank starting. Furthermore, the electric starter in ICE vehicles had a side-effect
to the electric symbiosis with the battery industry:
“(…), the SLI concentrated the R&D efforts of battery manufacturers on
mass production techniques for relatively low capacity batteries, rather than
on increasing storage capacity, which would have been necessary for
the competitive position of the electric vehicle.” [Cowan and Hultén,
(1996), p.9]
Therefore, the battery industry’s efforts to improve its technology stopped fertilising the
electric car and moved to a more profitable flower.

5 Final remarks

The transposition of an evolutionary view from biology to the history of technology

innovations as a causal explanation of the predominance of the ICE technology in the
case of the technological race among the various engines of the automobile includes the
following elements:
a The relevant environmental elements of this case are the road conditions and
dynamics and the laws that regulated car use and taxation.
b The generation of variety caused at various times by the crisis of the traditional horse
carriages and by changes in the environment.
c The varieties of the technologies granted each one a set of performance and
operation characteristics, which were their weapons in the struggle for existence.
Each stage of the environmental condition granted advantages or disadvantages to
one set of performance and operation characteristics in the struggle for existence.
The sets of characteristics were not ‘better’ or ‘worse’, per se, but related to the
 The world that chose the machine 59

environmental conditions, which turned those characteristics into advantages or

disadvantages.
In establishing advantages and disadvantages of the performance and operation
characteristics in the struggle for existence of the technology, the environment selected
the surviving technology.
The evolutionary view of the technological race presented here has advantages over
other economic, technical or descriptive explanations, namely: it is not incompatible with
any of these explanation, is not dependent upon them, does not fall into a petitio
principia, provides a theoretical framework and there is a strong base theory that
underlies its assumptions. It also does not take for granted the initial advantage of one of
the technologies to foster increasing returns to scale or any inner superiority of any of the
technologies per se. The current discussion of alternative sources of energy to ICE for
transportation that is concerned with the emissions problem shows that what is ‘superior’
in one environmental set may not be ‘superior’ in another. These attributes of the
proposed model are in accordance with History’s better explanation criteria as discussed
in the methodology section.
The contribution for theory is twofold: on the one hand, the paper suggests that the
evolutionary view has much to offer in terms of explanation of the innovation and
technological competition in both the automobile industry and others; on the other hand,
the paper offers evolutionary studies a particular translation of the evolutionary elements
as applied to the technological race in the automobile case.
The implication for public policy is the understanding that technology adoption in a
competitive environment is sensitive to customers’ use of that technology. In this case,
the change of the pattern from urban use to touring use favoured the ICE engine cars.
Most of these characteristics still remain relevant to the current use of the automobile:
large, powerful and high emission vehicles are used in the city because customers use the
same car to travel interurban distances. Alternatives to touring travel and commuting with
flexible transportation systems for a destination (such as car sharing) could foster the
adoption of alternative urban means of transportation, such as small electric vehicles.
Paradoxically, the solution for urban mobility could mean more cars instead of less cars.

Acknowledgements

The broader research project of which this paper is a part was sponsored by Banco
BRADESCO S.A.

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