Electric vehicle, Stratingh, 1835-1850
Inv V09378

The first attempt to make an electric automobile is credited to a man from Groningen. In 1834 Sibrandus Stratingh experimented with a steam carriage in which he paraded through the streets of Groningen. A year later he decided to repeat his steam success with electricity. Together with the instrument-maker Christopher Becker he built an experimental model; too small for serious use, but certainly a world first! The building of an electric vehicle never materialised, and would have been beyond him anyway. Neither electric motors nor sources of energy had developed sufficiently. But Stratingh's carriage did become famous enough to crop up in all kinds of cabinets as a demonstration apparatus.