EDISON'S NEW MARVEL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 61, 14 December 1907, Page 3

EDISON'S NEW MARVEL.

SECRET OF ELECTRIC STORAGE NOW SOLVED. MOTOR CARS FOR ALL. New York, Oct. 20. Mr. Thomas A. Edison announces that ho has perfected the electric storage battery upon which he has been working for years. If Mr .Edison's enthusiastic predictions are realised, horses will lie banished from the streets of New lork in three years. He declares t.nt his nev accumulator has been reduced in weight and increased in capacity, so that it now offers the solution of the great traffic problem.

Vehicles of all kinds will be able to adopt electricity as motive power, by using the Edison accumulator, which will only have to be re-charged at long intervals. Hitherto it has been impossible to store electricity in bulk without involving great weight, and consequently reducing carrying capacity. Three yea.'s ago Mr. Edison succeeded in constructing an accumulator which drove a niolo!' car for liiO miles on one charge, but it was cumbrous as well as costly. Mr. Kdison now claims that he has overcome all obstacles, and that motor cars will soon be so cheap at to be within tl» reach of every man who can now ;Anl to own a horse. have at last suco'cde-l in placing the electric storage buitry on an economical basis," said .Mr. Edison yesterday. "1 am now turning out 300 batteries a week. FOl! :li),(ll)0 MILES. "After experimenting for three years I realised that a battery, capable of furnishing power for 12,000 miles licfore being re-charged was not superior to the horse. Thereforo I made a battery with a capacity of 50,000 miles before being re-charged—so the horse is doomed,

"[ expect to have tlic batteries ready ' for the market l.y the end of December." Mr. Edison has devoted all his time to the perfection of the storage battery. Aluminium is the chief material used. The inventor made the first, announcement Of his sucr-vs at >i meeting of the American Kle; ".n-Ohe ■ ' ' "■ i-iety | on Friday night, lie also deseriln'il an invention which he thinks will revolutionise the method of constructing cheap dwelling for workmen. Mr. Edison's plan is to prepare iron moulds, and then fill them with concrete. By working in sections, it would he possible, lie said, lo complete a four-roomed dwelling in a day, and in another week the cement would bo dry, and the house practically indestructible. A specimen house- i* to be erected on Mr. Edison's estate in New Jersey. Mr. Edison praised Mr. Marconi for his achievements in wireless telegraphy, and declared that it would be possible to send 1000 words a minute by the Transatlantic wireless system in ten veara.

Mr. fidison has been endeavouring to solve the storage battery problem for nearly ten years. Tn 1002 he_ succeeded in devising a battery with which he drove a motor car over sixty-five miles of rough roads, and at the finish had still 83 per cent, of the stored energy. The groat cost of the battery prevented Jt from being a auqeess,