Detroit Electric
Version 2.8
For more information about Detroit Electric, please see the C-D webpage
Detroit Electric branded cars were made in Detroit, Michigan from 1907 to 1939; trucks were made from 1911 to 1916. From 1907 to 1911, the manufacturer was called the Anderson Carriage Company. From 1911 to 1929, the name was the Anderson Electric Car Company. After that, several dozen more were made by the Detroit Electric Car Company, and then, the Detroit Electric Vehicle Manufacturing Company.
Making around 12,900 pleasure cars, they were the largest producer of these vehicles in the twentieth century, followed by Baker, Rauch & Lang, and Waverley.
William C. Anderson, a principle owner and company president through the 1920’s (except in 1918 and 1919) founded the company. William Anderson was born in Milton, Ontario, Canada, to Hiram Anderson and Susanna Cummings, on November 9th of 1853. William was still a child when they moved to the small town of Lexington, Michigan. They later settled 22 miles further south in Port Huron; Thomas A. Edison’s hometown. When William C. Anderson returned from business school around 1873, he moved into his father’s house at the corner of Kearney & St. Clair. In 1874 Hiram and William established a farm equipment sales firm called Anderson & Company. They became regional wholesalers for several brands, including Studebaker wagons and Wood’s mowers and reapers. By 1880 William was doing well enough to buy his own house. He married Ida F. Beard in 1877, a daughter of James Beard, one of Port Huron’s leading citizens. They had two daughters.
Port Huron had an ideal location along the St. Clair River. All shipping between Lake Huron and Lake Erie had to pass by the town, which had port and shipbuilding facilities. The location was less vulnerable to the storms that assailed ports situated directly on the great lakes. Telephone service was introduced in 1881. In 1891 the Grand Trunk Railway, which had been ferrying rail cars across the river since 1858, built the first underwater railroad tunnel in America, creating an all-weather rail link between Canada and the United States.
By 1884 Hiram had retired and William formed a partnership with his brother-in-law Frank E. Beard and Presbyterian pastor David Goodwillie. Anderson & Co moved into a larger two-story brick-front building at 210 Huron Avenue, across the street from the town’s best hotel, and flanked by two others. It was a few blocks from the St Clair River, and a block from a local tributary, the Black River. In 1886 Port Huron became the third American city to get a commercial electric streetcar line. Anderson had greater manufacturing aspirations than Beard & Goodwillie, so he sold his share in Anderson & Co to the partners.
William C. Anderson established the Anderson Cart & Carriage Co around 1890, making carriage tops and other accessories for horse drawn vehicles. Their address on Michigan Street was at the back end of the same two-story building fronting Huron Avenue, and they occupied the second floor. This stretch of Michigan Street served as an alley for the hotels along that side of Huron Avenue, giving access to their stables.
William P. McFarlane, a carriage trimmer from Detroit, became the factory manager, while Anderson handled finance and sales. They reported to a trade publication, printed on June 1, 1893, as having $12,000 in Invested capital and annual income of $100,000, with employment of 30 men and 10 women. A day’s wages ranged from $1.50 to $1.75. These numbers were probably rounded-up to make the company appear more successful.
When the recession of 1893 set in, Anderson closed his business and looked to fund a move to nearby Detroit, just sixty-three miles down the Grand Trunk Rail Line, with its large immigrant labor pool and a more affluent urban client base. Anderson planned to make light one-horse buggies and some fancier rigs. He came to Detroit with some of his own capital and obtained more significant funding from North Michigan lumber baron William M. Locke. The pine forests around East Tawas that survived the two great fires (1871 & 1882) were clear-cut to rebuild Chicago after its famous fire, along with the rapid growth in the region. The few remaining tracts were too expensive for a good profit margin, so Locke was interested in a new venture. Although hardwoods were preferable for furniture and vehicles, soft woods were the cash crop, as they were more compatible with nails and hand tools, making them vital for timber construction. Anderson found equity and influence in Detroit from department store magnate Cyrenius A. Newcomb, who, with William Pungs, developed the tract where Anderson’s new factory was built.
The Anderson Manufacturing Company built a wooden two-story factory in 1895. It was only slightly larger than the building back in Port Huron, but no space was taken up by retail sales. The new factory sat on a bit less than one acre; most of parcel twenty, where they commenced manufacturing light carriages & buggies.
The area was called Milwaukee Junction for the intersection of the Detroit & Milwaukee Railroad with the Grand Trunk Railroad. They both had large rail yards, with warehouses and a depot, in the immediate neighborhood. Anderson knew the Grand Trunk well, as it swept down from Canada, helping change Port Huron from a minor great lakes port town into a shipping and immigration hub. The Grand Trunk had also swept away the town’s boy genius, Thomas Alva Edison, some thirty years earlier.
On February 12th, 1897, the Anderson Manufacturing Company merged with the neighboring Michigan Railway Supply Company, owned by Pungs and Newcomb. This company manufactured Pungs’ patented Brake Beams & lock nuts.
Pungs’ factory was three stories tall and filled nearly all of Parcel twenty-one, which was of similar size to Anderson’s adjacent lot. Pungs, who was good at stirring up capital, had a much larger factory with unused floor space, and Anderson’s buggy builders were able to increase production. The consolidated companies were renamed the Pungs-Anderson Co with William C. Anderson, president; William A. Pungs, treasurer & general manager; and William M. Locke, secretary. Newcomb was on the board of directors, and had an ownership stake from both sides of the merger. Locke & Pungs were active in management, while Newcomb was busy running his huge department store. He was more of an investment banker.
Making Pungs treasurer was a mistake. MRSCo’s claimed sales of $40,000 per annum were roughly equal to the Anderson Manufacturing Company’s revenue at the time, but when the American Brake Beam Company of Chicago, which, as distributer, was the sole customer, didn’t renew their contract, which ended in December of 1897, the deal rapidly soured. In January of 1898 Anderson and Locke told Pungs that they were severing business ties with him and putting the assets on the market. Pungs stalled them, claiming to have new patent applications for improvement of the brake beams, that would benefit the partnership. When Pungs was awarded the patents in April and June of 1898, he sold them to the Chicago distributor for $10,000, and signed a non-compete agreement. Anderson, Newcomb, and Locke sued Pungs for selling his brake beam business out from under them. The suit further asserted that, as treasurer, Pungs had hidden his dealings from the partners. Pungs was forced out on June 1st, 1899. Both factories became Anderson Carriage plants, brake beam manufacturing moved to Chicago.
On May 29th, 1899, the company name was changed to the Anderson Carriage Company, under Anderson, Locke, and Newcomb. A three-story brick structure, very similar to the adjacent brake beam building, replaced the original two-story, timber-framed, “Anderson Manufacturing” building. It covered the entire dimension of lot twenty.
In 1900, Factory Manager William P. McFarlane was elected secretary of Anderson Carriage. He is credited with designing the production techniques that allowed competitive manufacturing with very high quality control, and was one of few employees who got equity in the company.
William C. Anderson was becoming prosperous. In 1902 George DeWitt Mason designed a fine two-story brick house for him at 65 Rowena, a wood-block paved street that was later widened and renamed Mack Avenue. In good weather, Anderson liked to ride the two-miles to the factory on one of his prized Kentucky thoroughbreds, with a dog trotting alongside.
By the end of 1903, Anderson Carriage had become one of the larger manufacturing companies in Michigan. The main factory occupied the two buildings, both 91 feet wide, three stories tall, and a combined 600 feet long.
Across a rail spur, to the west of the lot twenty factory, between Clay and Aberle, Anderson built a two-story timber building for general offices, shipping, and carriage storage. It gave the company a legitimate street address on Clay Avenue, as the factory buildings were between two rail sidings with no street frontage. Anderson Carriage offered 100 styles, including the well-known “High School” line of light horse-drawn vehicles, eventually selling as many as 15,000 units a year. They claimed to be the largest user of rubber tires in the country.
Both the factory and Anderson’s social circle were at the center of the rapidly developing Detroit motorcar industry, and he was interested in participating. Anderson was a friend of both Thomas Alva Edison and Henry Ford. While Ford worked at Detroit Edison he had a brief early encounter with his hero at the 1896 meeting of the Association of Edison Illuminating Companies, which took place at the Oriental Hotel near Coney Island in New York. Edison encouraged Ford to continue pursuing explosion cars, as batteries of the time were very limited in capacity and reliability. Anderson was the one who reintroduced the two, after Ford had become a successful automobile manufacturer. By then, Edison had swung to promoting electric cars using his new alkaline battery.
Anderson Carriage Company’s neighbor at Milwaukee Junction was the C. R. Wilson Body Company, an established carriage maker that became an early adopter, building motorcar bodies for Ford, Cadillac, & others. They made the 1906 Model H Coupé bodies for Cadillac, said to be the first production model inside-drive gasoline car. Inside-drive electrics had been around since 1898-9 (Woods and Sperry). This was a fairly new concept, as it was not practical to control horses from inside an enclosed vehicle.
In 1905, all manufacturers made ~1,200 electric cars, about 5.5% of total automobile production.
William C. Anderson had been approached by a number of men who wanted him to fund automobile projects, including the notorious Edward J. Pennington with his hot air engine. In October of 1906, George M. Bacon arrived at his office. Bacon explained how he had designed and built a successful electric car for the Firestone family’s buggy works, under the Columbus brand. Anderson’s Cleveland carriage competitor Rauch & Lang had begun electric car production a year earlier and electric cars seemed to be a plausible niche in the emerging industry. Anderson gave Bacon the use of factory facilities and purchased the necessary materials. Four months later Bacon completed a vehicle with the same robust Elwell-Parker motor used in Baker and Columbus Electrics. He pulled his prototype up in front of the Anderson Carriage office building on Aberle. "If you don't think it will run just watch me start," said Mr. Bacon. Then he touched a lever, and without explosions or jerks the car started on its way and kept going.
Mr. Anderson, an avid horseman, took the driver's seat and found to his delight that he could easily control the car. It was reported that Anderson was so overcome with enthusiasm and excitement that when it came time to stop he kept yelling "whoa, whoa," but forgot to pull the control lever back to its neutral position. Although this first experience was more memorable than necessary, his doubts about operation of the car were removed by the demonstration. Anderson hired Bacon to design and build automobiles.
The Anderson Carriage Company chose “Detroit Electric” as their brand. During the summer of 1907, Bacon did a series of thorough tests with a prototype Model A Victoria. Using standard equipment, he achieved 140 miles on a single charge, with two passengers, over ordinary streets, at an average speed of 12½ miles per hour.
On September 9, 1907 the brick and wood factory on lot twenty-one, which was built for Pungs and awarded to Anderson Carriage in the lawsuit, burned to the ground. This put a crimp on early production, but several cars were near completion and Anderson delivered their first car a few weeks later on September 30th 1907. By the end of the year, ten cars had been shipped.
A new factory was soon under construction, designed and equipped with the electric vehicle project in mind. Using concrete construction methods developed by Albert Kahn’s younger brother Julius, architect George D. Mason’s company designed a new three-story reinforced concrete building 303’ 4” long and 90’ 4” wide. It was ready for occupancy that December. Anderson’s factories were purely functional and not much to look at.
The first series of vehicles were very similar to the cars Bacon designed for Columbus. Models A, B, & C were on the same chassis and designed so the bodies could easily be switched to suit the season. Early styles included the Model A Victoria, Model C Coupé, Model D Brougham, and Model L cape-top Roadster. The coupé and Brougham were fully enclosed, with plywood roofs; the Brougham had curved glass front corner windows. Except for the Model L, they were all twin chain drive from one motor through jackshafts.
Henry Ford, who was tooling up to start production of his famous Model T several blocks away on Piquette Street, bought a 1908 Model C Coupé for his wife Clara, delivered July 16th 1908. His operating expenses, to December 1st of 1909, were: $14.20 for general repairs, $109.65, for tires, and $.90 in battery expense. The car had run 4,800 miles. In a letter to Ford, Anderson claimed that 100 owners had accumulated nearly 400,000 miles at an average cost of 1½ cents per mile.
Production started slowly. For the first few years most of the metal parts, including the entire chassis, were purchased from outside vendors––as was typical of automotive startups. In the calendar year of 1908 only 184 cars were sold, and in 1909 just under 600. By 1910 it was clear that the electric cars had great potential, and plans were made to build a new factory to manufacture chassis and axle components, from raw stock to finished product.
George Bacon’s experience at Columbus taught him that it did not matter how good a car one built, if the battery was not properly made and maintained. Some of the most nettlesome battery problems were not electrical but mechanical. Pure lead is heavy and mechanically weak compared with most metals. When a stationary battery is used for backup power, the plates only have to support their own weight. Automobiles, particularly on the bumpy, rutted streets of the time, were subjected to shock and stress from all angles. Other metals, whose alloys with lead didn’t compromise the electro-chemical qualities of the plates, had to be found that gave the lead more stiffness and tensile strength. Physical designs were developed to keep the lead paste from shedding off the positive plates. The battery sets needed to be held firmly in place to keep from breaking the cell jars or loosening the electrical connections. Originally, the cell jars were made of glass, but by this time they were made with Vulcan hard rubber, which was more expensive but less likely to shatter.
Bacon hired a bright industrious young man named Elwood T. Stretch, with no background in electricity or chemistry, to make in-house battery sets for the cars. Stretch was sent to the Willard Battery Company in Cleveland to learn the art. The first battery built by Stretch was installed in January 1909 in a Model L Roadster that was painted canary yellow. Initially he used plates supplied by Willard, then the longer lasting Exide plates, and then Philadelphia Storage Battery Company “Diamond Grid” plates. E. T. Stretch remained with Detroit Electric through the mid 1930’s, the longest association with the company of anyone, other than McFarlane, Wilson Critzer, or Anderson himself.
The Anderson Carriage Company’s big seller around this time was a light single-seat one-horse buggy that sold for twenty-five dollars. The cheapest electric car they made was the single-chain-drive Model L Roadster at $1,400. The Model T Ford sold for $850; at that time and an average workers annual salary was less than $400.
A New York Times article hinted that General Motors was interested in getting into the electric car business, and was looking into acquiring Elwell-Parker. Alexander Brown had invented machinery for unloading coal from the Great Lakes steam ships, of which his father happened to have a fleet. He decided the most suitable motor and control system to run his invention was the one made in England by Elwell-Parker, which had recently been acquired by the Electric Construction Company Ltd. The Brown family bought the US rights for the Parker designs in 1893 and established Elwell-Parker in Cleveland. At the urging of his son-in-law Frank Price, Anderson bought a 92½% ownership in the Elwell-Parker Electric Company from the Brown family, securing exclusive use of their superior motor and control system. E-P General Manager Morris S. Towson bought the remaining 7½% from the British interests. The team that traveled to Cleveland for negotiations were: Anderson, Price, and in-house attorney Wilson Critzer, who joined Anderson as a bookkeeper around 1896. Elwell-Parker was given a capital value of $400,000 increasing the capitalization of the Anderson Carriage Company from $500,000 to $900,000.
To acquaint the general public with the sturdy, dependable qualities of the Detroit Electric, and its capacity for speed and distance, they set up a series of highly publicized road tests, which developed into a competition between Detroit and Baker Electric. George Bacon and Gordon D. Fairgrieve drove a Model A Victoria from Detroit to Atlantic City. With great fanfare, they departed from the Hotel Pontchartrain at 1:00 PM, July 12th, taking turns between driving and photography. The Pontchartrain was the hangout for automobile pioneers before the re-formed Detroit Athletic Club opened. They made several scheduled stops to demonstrate the car to potential dealers. The 1,060-mile trip was made over muddy, rutted roads without a breakdown. When charging facilities were not available, Bacon would occasionally throw wires over power or trolley lines. After returning to Detroit the car was given a test run, before any maintenance service, to see how the Philadelphia plate battery was holding up, it went 113 miles on one charge. The feat was reported in many publications, featured in print ad campaigns, the 1909 sales brochure, and a separate booklet about the trip.
On September 22-29 1909, Detroit Electric completed the round trip Boston-to-Washington Frank A. Munsey Reliability Tour. George Bacon averaged more than 100 miles per day over the course with a total mileage of 1,282.1. They were not one of the 37 official competitive entries, but were allowed to make the run with an official observer, who certified that the run was made with no mechanical failures––just some tire trouble.
Anderson built three Detroit city charging garages, and made agreements with two private ones. Part of the success of Detroit Electric was careful supervision of battery maintenance. With early electric cars, only the pneumatic tires were more likely to fail. Every morning, employees would deliver clean, fully charged cars to many clients’ houses, and bring them back to the garage in the evening. Others had a chauffeur stay with the car all day. Streetcars served all locations for employees at the main factory campus and for those hired to staff the garages. An early Model A Victoria, probably the one used for the early road tests, ran parts between the factory and the garages, and took drivers to the cars. In 1910 the monthly charge was $30 for cars stored and delivered, $24 for cars stored and picked up, or $10 for battery maintenance only. Cards with time in and out, along with all charging data, were meticulously recorded. About half the electrics in Detroit were recharged in public garages.
Station A was also the Detroit factory showroom. It opened December 1st, 1908 in a brick building measuring 85 by 185 feet, with a second floor added in 1910. It was located near downtown at 687-91 (now 6040) Woodward Avenue, between Woodward Terrace and Martin. There were glass front showrooms on either side of the street entrance, with offices and storerooms just behind. In the back were two rows of cars with a wide passage between them. At the rear was a 14 x 9 foot electric elevator for taking cars upstairs. The garage had a 90-car capacity with up to 60 charging at a time. All wiring was in conduit under the cement floor, with a master switchboard controlling each station. A battery assembly and conditioning room was upstairs, along with repair and storage facilities.
Detroit Electric Station B was their East Side Garage, located at 112-114 East Grand Boulevard, a block from the Belle Isle Bridge. Each spring, cars were garlanded with flowers for a parade on Belle Island, many of these were Detroit Victorias garaged at this convenient location. The station was 120 feet deep 60 wide and 25 high at the center, with a 60-car capacity. The façade had a triangular peak at the center, but the roof behind it was a freestanding barrel vault; there were no columns to be hit by cars. From 1906-1928 Luna Park, with three roller coasters and said to be like Coney Island, was along Jefferson Avenue a short walk away.
The Chicago factory branch, designed for Anderson Carriage by George Mason, was established in late 1909, and financed by landlord Bryan Lathrop, based on a 15-year lease. Chicago was emerging as a center for electric car ownership and the Detroit Electric was well received. Factory branches were established in other metropolitan centers, such as New York, Kansas City, Cleveland, and Buffalo.
All electric car makes combined produced 3,835 electric pleasure cars in 1909, about 4.6% of total automobile production.
William C. Anderson knew the Edison family from his Port Huron days. His father-in-law, James Beard, was vice-president of the Port Huron Street Railway Co when Thomas A. Edison’s older brother, Pitt Edison, was the superintendent.
He made a deal to be the excusive (with exception of Bailey & Healey) provider of the Edison battery in automobiles. On May 23rd, 1910 Edison wrote to Anderson:
“My dear Anderson:
Your letter of March 23rd received. Just wait two or three weeks. I have taken hold of the business myself. There will be a hot time in the electric vehicle business in the advertising line in the next two months, Just watch.
Go ahead and sell all you can and watch the fun coming. That Waverly [sic] Company will set up and take notice.
Under no circumstances must you fail to have that test run vehicle here by the first of June; as I will be ready for it.
Yours very Truly, Thomas A. Edison”
Baker & Detroit competed for single charge mileage records using the new Edison Battery. On August 30th, 1910, Emil Gruenfeldt ran a Baker for 201.6 miles on a single charge with an Edison A6 battery.
On October 5th, George Bacon drove a chain drive Detroit Victoria for 211.3 miles.
On November 9th, Gruenfeldt drove a shaft drive Baker Victoria 244.5 miles. The run was made over 19 hours 20 minutes at an average of 12.65 MPH in rainy weather.
These tests showed the greater efficiency of Baker’s shaft drive, and Detroit Electric introduced shaft drive the following year.
It is a widely held Impression that early motorcars were painted black. This misconception is probably from two key factors: the Model T Ford and black and white photography. Henry Ford’s “Any color as long as it’s black” is a popular antique car quote. Standard paint colors for most brands of electric cars, including Detroit, had a black chassis (which usually included the fenders and such), but the body panels were listed in the brochures as blue, maroon, or green. With most Detroit models the maroon was a nice deep burgundy, the blue a deep cobalt, and the green was the unfortunate dark grayish one introduced by the Brewster Carriage Company for J. P. Morgan, which conveyed an elite status. Roadsters were more likely to be painted in flashy colors to attract attention. During the mid-teens many otherwise stuffy-looking Broughams were painted in bright colors. As the war in Europe crept closer, overt exhibition of privilege began to look gauche and darker colors became more popular.
In November of 1910 Anderson Carriage completed a new factory with 7,244 square feet of floor space to produce chassis and driveline components. It sat on land across Aberle from the offices; where stables, a carriage house, and water tower had been.
1911 was a transformational year for Detroit Electric. In January the company was re-incorporated as the Anderson Electric Car Company to reflect the shift from being a regional buggy builder to a major luxury electric carmaker. The board of directors had nine members including William C. Anderson, president & general manager; William M. Locke, treasurer; Cyrenius A. Newcomb; George M. Bacon; Gordon D. Fairgrieve; William P. McFarlane; Frank E. Price; and Wilson Critzer; by March, financier Dr. J. B. Book Jr. had joined the board. Now that they had their own chassis and driveline factory, with state of the art machine tools, they introduced an array of new models that must have been baffling to any potential client. The old twin chain drive system was supplemented by two new drive systems, including their first shaft drive and a novel tandem chain drive using sequential silent chains. They dropped the alphabetic designations and began to use numbers for the different models, starting with 10. Most companies used a high-speed motor. Although these were smaller and lighter for the same power, they required a secondary reduction gearing or chain when coupled with a straight-bevel gear shaft drive system. The Elwell-Parker motor design was lower speed, allowing direct shaft drive. The heat sink of the more massive components also gave greater short-term overload capacity. Anderson engineers realized that the best motor and control system would beat cars by platform innovators such as Baker and fancy coachbuilders such as Rauch & Lang. Most body styles were available with any of the three different driveline options, creating 13 models, plus the company’s new line of trucks. The trucks were double chain drive, with wheel steering and an under-slung battery. They were available with load capacities from 750-10,000 pounds.
Advertising for 1911 cars announced the option of ordering cars with the A6 Edison Battery having a capacity of 225 Ah or their proprietary lead battery with 168 Ah. The Edison battery was an additional $600.
Beginning with the 1910 models, some cars were shipped with “Edison hoods” with more space to accommodate the greater number of cells required for the same voltage. The company stopped producing cars holding fewer than 24 lead-acid cells for most models. Bodies were still available separately for those who wished to change the body to suit the season. The Model 17 Detroit Electric Roadster of 1911 featured a tandem silent chain drive system very similar to a driveline patent Morris S. Towson filed for on April 1, 1909. This model featured the only under-slung chassis Anderson ever made, and was their sportiest looking car. Towson had built Elwell-Parker from being motor maker for Brown’s ship unloading machinery into a more diverse maker of motors and controls. He remained the general manager of E-P after the Anderson buyout, became a consulting engineer at the car company, and was involved in the management, serving as Company President from 1918-1920.
Anderson favored buying a quantity of simple black-and-white ads in a variety of publications appealing to the affluent. These were probably produced in-house and featured line-drawing illustrations and a lot of text. Dealers and distributors were expected to buy space in local publications such as newspapers and opera programs. In 1909 Anderson did buy an expensive full-page color ad in “Country Life In America,” a favorite venue among electric carmakers. Their principal competitors spent a lot of money on some of the more extravagant color ads found in prestige magazines of the day.
On October 14th, 1911 Edison wrote to Anderson confirming exclusive use of his battery for pleasure cars in 1912. There were still exceptions for two low volume producers, Bailey and Healey. The letter guaranteed the battery would keep its rated capacity for four years, and suggested that Anderson warrantee it for five. The later lead batteries built at Anderson, featuring Philadelphia plates, typically lasted five or more years when properly maintained. The “perfected” Edison battery proved to have exceptional life, some 100 year old examples are still functional. The Edison battery did not sustain popularity in pleasure cars due to initial price and charging inefficiency, although they dominated delivery truck fleets. The “exclusive rights” were not worth much, as other makes could buy the batteries from wholesalers at a modest markup.
All nine 1912 Detroit Electric models were shaft drive with straight-cut bevel-gear rear axles. Anderson manufactured very dependable cars with high quality coachwork, usually featuring curved front quarter windows, and an aluminum clad wooden body. The 1912-1919 Type A “heavy chassis” cars and a unique sun-proof, watertight, one-piece aluminum roof. These cars were easy to drive, and had a dependable electric cutout switch attached to the emergency brake pedal for panic stops, giving the driver confidence. They had Hanlon rain visors to help see the road in foul weather. The company was not an important technical innovator and owned few patents of importance. They stressed full control of the entire manufacturing process, with tight workflow management, inspections at every step, and dynamometer testing of every car before it was shipped. Anderson built their batteries in house, and had a solid battery guarantee.
The archetypical Detroit Electric was a classic “Cinderella’s Coach” type of Coupé, which electric car companies liked to call a Brougham; these dominated sales from 1910 forward. Broughams were generally made to seat four or five passengers in the cabin, with inside drive utilizing a horizontal tiller at the rear, front, or both seating positions. As early as 1908 the company attempted to appeal to sporting gentlemen with a series of faux radiator cars that resembled the gasoline Roadsters of the time. This style was abandoned during the peak sales years from 1914 to 1917, replaced by a roadster with an electric type hood, kind of a macho Victoria. Baker introduced this style, and both Detroit and Rauch & Lang made similar models. Detroit Electric revived the faux radiator in 1920 when the company split into three parts, and the surviving electric car company had no body factory.
In 1912 Detroit Electric became the leading producer of electric cars, with 978 units, Baker made around 850 and Rauch & Lang about 600. This was similar to other luxury car production, but not even close to the low-priced high-volume gasoline cars, which came to dominate the market. Notably, in 1912: 78,440 Fords, 28,572 Willys’, 28,032 Studebakers, 19,812 Buicks, 12,708 Cadillacs, and 7,640 Hupmobiles.
William C. Anderson liked to get a new car every few years, and generally kept an open car and a Brougham. In 1914 he got a Packard-blue Model 46 Roadster, with wheels and chassis in “Valentines phenomena red.” Henry Ford bought two Model 47 Broughams, one for his wife and one as a 1913 Christmas present for the Edisons. Charles Proteus Steinmetz, the four-foot tall genius at General Electric, bought a blue on blue Detroit Model 48; with duplex drive so that he could see the road over the hood while driving from the front seat.
The Chicago branch proved to be a hub of activity. In 1915 the Anderson Company shifted the sales and distribution center to Chicago. D. E. Whipple, one of the company's most successful sales managers, was placed in charge. The two-story factory branch had a prime “motor row” location at 2416 Michigan Avenue. It was faced in white enameled terra-cotta panels, accented with green bands, presenting a 45-foot frontage between the Cadillac and Pierce-Arrow dealerships. From 1914 to 1920 Rauch & Lang was across the street on the same block. In late 1914 Argo built one of the more elaborate showrooms on the row, right next door at 2412-2414 Michigan. Anderson built an additional facility, across the alley fronting Wabash, for expanded garage and repair space. Down the alley, at 61, 24th Street, they had a modest shop for battery rebuilding and restoring electrics of all makes. Detroit Electric claimed 900 of their cars were in Chicago, 100 more than in Detroit. Around 15 electric car brands had Chicago showrooms, and there were some 70 charging garages.
In 1916 Anderson bought Chicago Electric from the Walker Vehicle Company, then owned by Commonwealth Edison, maker of the first Popemobile. It might not be a coincidence that when they bought the small electric car company from the big electric truck company, Detroit Electric stopped making trucks.
In 1916 and 1917 Anderson was still in full expansion mode with sales hovering just under two thousand units per annum. They built a repair and remanufacturing facility on Cass Avenue in Detroit, and opened a fancy Los Angeles factory showroom. Anderson management seemed oblivious to the paradigm shift to a full war economy until the US declared war on Germany, the sixth of April 1917.
To deal with the emergence of newer companies, such as Milburn, with functionally similar cars at a lower price point, Anderson designed a new, “light chassis” car that could be sold for less. These had a simpler controller located under the seat and were known as the Type B cars, and came to dominate production.
On June 27, 1918 Anderson opened a new factory for the production of ambulance bodies, which suddenly came to dominate body shop work. The market for ambulances would collapse only five months later when the First World War ended, leaving the company with a lot of excess capacity. At the same time, the luxury electric car market was fading with only 500 Detroit Electrics shipped in 1919.
As the war wound down, the world was traumatized by a second event, the influenza pandemic. It lasted from January 1918 through December 1920. It was an even greater trauma to the United States than the war, killing four times as many people. Estimates are that more than 50 million people died from influenza worldwide. There were 500,000 to 675,000 deaths In the US alone. The mortality rate was 10-20% as opposed to the 0.1% of typical seasonal influenza. Not only was this flu more deadly than usual, it was most lethal to healthy young people in the prime of life. It struck the rich as well as the poor, exacerbating the post war recession’s damping of luxury vehicle sales.
The Anderson Electric Car Company had expanded into a diminishing market. At the peak there were about fifteen hundred employees. After the end of the First World War, making bodies for vehicles with gasoline engines, such as Packard, became Anderson’s principal business. In Cleveland, Morris Towson took Elwell-Parker back to independence, and pursued its growing business making electric specialty vehicles, such as forklifts and tows. The Milwaukee Junction factory campus became an independent company, owned by Anderson investors, making automobile bodies under contract. The least valuable part of Anderson was the electric pleasure car business.
Other than reputation, the chief electric car assets were dozens of rolling chassis’, and unfinished Brougham bodies. Production of electric cars moved to a leased factory on Mt. Elliott under W. C. Anderson and son-in-law Frank Price, who also became the Detroit agent for Elwell-Parker. The majority of cars sold from late 1919 through October of 1920 were of a contemporary faux radiator type utilizing old stock chassis’, with contemporary bodies from the H & M (Hupp & Mitchell) Body Company in Racine Wisconsin. Parked on the street, these cars could easily be confused with any number of gasoline cars made at the time, such as Overland or Fiat. The Broughams, from 1919 on, were built from old stock, from when the factory was going full tilt just a few years earlier.
Although W. C. Anderson regained the title of president, day-to-day management was left to Frank Price and George Bacon.
Anderson and Price were not interested in making George Bacon’s new milk truck design (with up to four driving positions,) so he left the company in 1924, and co-founded the Detroit Industrial Vehicle Company (Divco); effectively closing the engineering department. Detroit Electric moved to an even smaller factory at 540 Piquette where they continued producing the type B light-chassis Brougham through 1929. The last entirely new car of any style was made mid-1926; the cars sold as “new” from then on were remanufactured cars, some with modified older brougham bodies, and others with “borrowed” sedan bodies from other makes.
William C. Anderson was seventy-five and in failing health, so he put the company up for sale. Car company liquidator Alfred O. Dunk purchased Detroit Electric in 1929. His main business was buying bankrupt car companies and selling both old stock and replica parts for the orphaned cars. Unlike most other clients, Detroit Electric owners didn’t want old parts so much as new cars and continuing service. Faced with these orders Dunk continued production in his factory and warehouse at Lafayette Avenue & Tenth Street. E. T. Stretch became the customer service department. The primary business was to remanufacture earlier cars into Model 97s or 98s, by adding balloon tires, modern fenders, and lowering the roof. They also made “new” Model 99s with Willys’ bodies on old chassis. The last Dunk car was shipped November 17th, 1932. The great depression forced liquidation of his enterprise, and Dunk’s “right hand man” Alfred F. Renz took over the electric car business as compensation for unpaid salary. In 1933 Renz set up shop, with Irene Theisen running the office. He managed to make a living repairing electric cars for wealthy widows, and sold 27 used and 15 “new” Detroit Electrics through 1940. The “new” cars were model 99s, now with a Dodge hood and Fisher based bodies, on 1916-1919 type B chassis.
The Anderson Electric Carriage Company was not an innovator. The key to their success was a marketing approach that fitted the times and customer base. The competition often sold cars through loose networks of dealers. Anderson owned both the dealerships and service garages in major markets. Although maintenance of the running gear was minimal, lead-acid batteries required frequent and informed attention.
Whether the cars were garaged privately or commercially, they were regularly inspected. Anderson’s staff would even visit the customer’s residence, and a written report was held on file at the office. The company kept tight control over their dealership network, filing breach of contract suits against those not up to standards.
With single-minded focus, and stable ownership, Detroit Electric managed to outsell and outlast all of their competition.