EDISON'S LATEST INVENTION

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 57, 12 March 1907, Page 4

EDISON'S LATEST INVENTION

Another marvellous invention by Mr i Edii>on is reported, which it is claimed will revolutionist; th<\ motor-car industry, by solving the difficult storage battery problem. An account of the invention is given in an interview with the wellknown electrician, a rqxxrt of which appears in the New York Times. Wo make tue following extracts:— Mr Edison says that he wiJl be able to s?ll at the cost of lQdol. a cell, a storage battery that is almost indestructible. It will travel a hundred thousand miles before it ie worn out. Twenty cells will be all that is needed for a runabout or br./tiL'bam, and 60 cells will be enough for the largest and heaviest truck used. For kuGdol. (£4O) one will be equipped with • motive power that will need no renewal for 15 years. "Now, it Ike with rubber lyre manufacturers to meet this commercial reduction of rnotivo power," said Mt Edison, gaily. " Can they do it?"

"They have been getting Tead y for quite a while. A lot of tto-m are. working at it qui-etly; That will come, of course."

j.'or three years 25,000 storage b;itU\ri:t> have been constantly at work in the test shops of the Edison plant at Orange, N.J.

"I never believed that Nature, so prolific of resoun-es, could provide only lead as a material ingr. dient of the bait- ry, said Mr Edison. "I have always found lier ready for any emergency, and, based on this confidence that she has never betrayed, I communed diligently with her. One day I discovered that nickel rust was ,as good as lead. Then I thought I had accomplished the task." But he hadn't, to the satisfaction of his commercial instinct. The question of the weight of the battery was most important, as was that of its durability.

"You see, it takes about 11 months in experimenting with a battery to be prepared for surprises in the phenomena of l\ature," he continued; "sometimes longer. A very promising battery would work all right that long, and then something would go wrong. The public do not understand thes» things, and they get impatient, as if it was only a matter of experiment, and I could hurry it. Well, nickel rust failed, other things (ailed, everything the .ingenious Edison could,' with his trained scientific mind, conceive, failed. "Then I tried cobalt, and it worked; but cobalt being one of the rare metals, the problem was not solved. I scoured the country to find cobalt in sufficient quantities to warrant its use, and discovered lots of it in Canada, in Wisconsin, in Oregon, in Kentucky. Then I knew that I was all right." "What are you working at now in connection with this pkise of the discovery?' "One of the most difficult problems in

metallurgy is to separate cobalt from the otcs with which "it is associated. At present it is done only at expense, and so, for the last few months, we have been devising a plan of getting cobalt out of tlie'ore cheaply, within a ratio of cost already calculated for the price of cacti cell."

"And you have succeeded?" "Completely. I can positively promise that the new battery wll be on the market in the spring. The factory buildings are TCady, and the machinery is being installed."

"But there may be some surprise that nature is holding back that will interfere." "Absolutely none. I haven't kept 25,000 batteries working for three yeare, without discounting all chances of failure." The actual cost of recharging the new battery is ft matter of a few cents peT cell, L h' greatest achievement, being in making a motive power of light weight, in compact shape, and, above all, endurable. Speed is not the purpose that Edison had in mind. ' I am a commercial inventor, strictly commercial," he said. l'ar more important, to Edison's mind, was an operative .'torage battery that would be within the reach of evtTy busings man. Thirty miles an hour is fast enough for any ordinary purpose, and if speed is des : red there are the "fliers" on trno rai'roads. The new storage batteTy is not designed to be of any use to the automobile. A friend of Mr Edison'.s tried a. few cells on a two-ton machine a while ago, and found that as motive-power it was reasonably successful, although in no competition with speed. "But I am not an automobile manufacturer, and I have thought only of solving the problem of street traffic, which is serious in all the great cities of the world," says Edison.