Its Electric!’ is to be a temporary exhibition opening on March 30, at the Grampian Transport Museum near Aberdeen, Scotland.
The show will detail the stop start story of the electric car from the very start to the present and importantly, probe the future. ‘From the very start’, yes but when was that and who, why and where?
Well of course it has to be in Scotland and yes in Aberdeen! The date was 1839 and the maker was Robert Davidson a chemist at Aberdeen University. Robert demonstrated a small carriage that carried two people in Aberdeen, then Edinburgh, then London that was powered by ‘electro-magnetism’. This was at the height of the stage and mail coach era!
Little has been published about the work of Robert Davidson but the new exhibition will change that. We at GTM feel its time to bring him out of the wings to centre stage. A book detailing his work is to be launched at the exhibition opening. We are also making faithful full size working replicas of his 20 cell battery and reluctance motor. Not simple tasks; the motor is large and heavy with a five foot diameter flywheel! Davidson was known to Faraday and is thought to have inspired a young James Clerk Maxwell but gave up electro magnetism following the destruction by ‘railway company employees’ of his second pioneering EV, the world’s first electric loco, christened ‘Galvani’ that he successfully demonstrated on the new Glasgow to Edinburgh railway in 1842. A model of this 16ton vehicle and the passenger coach it pulled will be displayed.
At the other end of the chronology…..well who really knows? We will be content to display and interpret the latest technology but probing the future……better leave that to the experts and stake holders. We are gathering opinion and quotations to that end. What is surprising is how relaxed about the coming significant social change we all are. Are we in denial? ‘Bye Bye GTi has a new ring to it.
