Studebaker Electric

The Studebaker Electric was a battery-powered car built by the Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company of South Bend, Indiana, a forerunner of the Studebaker Corporation, and sold from 1902 to 1912. Studebaker had funded a one-car electric project in 1898 and had supplied bodies for electric taxis of the Electric Vehicle Company, then began production in earnest in 1902 because electrics were clean, easily recharged and well suited to cities with no refuelling stations. The cars came in body styles drawn from the firm carriage line, including the Stanhope, Victoria and Surrey, and a four-passenger model arrived in 1904. Studebaker future lay in gasoline cars, which led to the Studebaker-Garford of 1904 and the E-M-F arrangement of 1909 and 1910. Electric production ended in 1912, when the company judged the gasoline car plainly superior.