How did electric vehicles work in the early 1900s?

I hope this isn’t a dumb question, but I’m really curious about how early electric vehicles functioned without modern computers. I know computers weren’t around until at least the 1950s, so how did they manage to power those early EVs? Thanks for any info!

Edit: Thanks, everyone, for your help!

It’s actually pretty simple. The battery provides the current, a resistor limits the current, and the motor (not a dynamo, though) converts electrical energy into kinetic energy, which makes the axles turn. No computers needed!

@Imani
Just a couple of corrections: there wasn’t a resistor to throttle power because that would waste a lot of energy. It was probably an all-or-nothing type of control, or they used a regulator to control how many batteries were connected to the motor. Also, a dynamo generates electricity from mechanical energy, not the other way around.

@Kenneth
They might have used a potentiometer to vary the speed of the motor. Electric motors had been around for a while by then, and potentiometers were invented in the 1840s. Early EVs before that time were probably pretty basic.

@Randy
Yep, early speed control for electric motors was likely done with rheostats to increase resistance and lower current.

@Randy
Exactly. It wasn’t fancy but it worked. The biggest challenge was probably the size and capacity of the batteries.

@Kenneth
Actually, resistors were used to throttle power, but yeah, it was inefficient. Early EVs also used non-rechargeable batteries in some cases.

chozen said:
@Kenneth
Actually, resistors were used to throttle power, but yeah, it was inefficient. Early EVs also used non-rechargeable batteries in some cases.

Do you have a source for that? Running a vehicle at 10% power with a resistor would waste 90% of the energy as heat. It makes more sense that they switched batteries instead of using resistors for power control.

@Kenneth
Here’s a reference from an EV engineering course at Stanford: https://imgur.com/a/r1Jbgd3. It briefly mentions resistor use but doesn’t go into much detail.

chozen said:
@Kenneth
Here’s a reference from an EV engineering course at Stanford: https://imgur.com/a/r1Jbgd3. It briefly mentions resistor use but doesn’t go into much detail.

Thanks for the info! Looks like resistors were indeed used in some early designs.

Think about your desk fan—no computer needed there! It’s the same for early electric cars. The motor just speeds up or slows down based on how much power it gets. Modern EVs use computers for things like safety, regenerative braking, and one-pedal driving, but basic motor control doesn’t need that.

@zendaya
True, but these days even fans have microcontrollers. Unless it’s a brushed motor, which are generally less efficient.

Thomas said:
@zendaya
True, but these days even fans have microcontrollers. Unless it’s a brushed motor, which are generally less efficient.

Fans might suck, but technically, they blow! :laughing:

@jabali
Haha, depends on how you look at it!

@zendaya
Look at an RC car with a brushless motor—those need embedded controllers to function. So, electric cars today have a lot of computing going on just to manage the motors efficiently.

martin said:
@zendaya
Look at an RC car with a brushless motor—those need embedded controllers to function. So, electric cars today have a lot of computing going on just to manage the motors efficiently.

Brushless motors, yes. But brushed motors only need a basic power source and a potentiometer for speed control.

@Ronald
Brushless motors need a controller because otherwise, they just align to one position and stop moving. But brushed motors are simpler.

Thomas said:
@Ronald
Brushless motors need a controller because otherwise, they just align to one position and stop moving. But brushed motors are simpler.

Yeah, I get that, but my comment was about brushed motors specifically, not brushless ones.

Thomas said:
@Ronald
Brushless motors need a controller because otherwise, they just align to one position and stop moving. But brushed motors are simpler.

Brushed motors can run with just a rheostat. I remember building a toy electric car from scratch as a kid—it was pretty basic but worked fine.

Electric motors and lead-acid batteries existed back then, but the range was terrible compared to today’s standards. Modern computers help optimize charging and battery management, which wasn’t possible in the early 1900s.