But unlike ore milling, Edison persevered, and from 1910 to
1915, devoted much effort identifying and cultivating
. Edison realized that such cars
were desirable for rush hours mass transit systems since
they did not use additional power from the main generating
station and hence did not require expansion the transit
system's power plant order meet increased peak load. Beach established factory adjacent the
Silver Lake Chemical Works. However, with the introduction the electric
starter for the gasoline engine 1912, electric trucks lost
much their advantage and were gradually replaced by
gasoline trucks.
To develop this idea, Edison built short railway line near the
laboratory during the winter 1909-1910.
Along with the electric truck, Edison pushed for a
battery-powered streetcar.(5) manufacture
a special car, Edison gave former General Electric engineer,
Ralph Beach, the exclusive right build streetcars using
his battery. Unfortunately, after three years,
the project died because Beach was unable build sales
organization promote the car and failed pay his debts
to his suppliers.3
Tiffany and Altman's) used electric trucks with Edison
batteries.(6)
In some ways, the storage battery campaign had gone the
same way the ore milling venture; Edison had begun assuming
that large market existed for his products, only discover
that the market changed during the long years development
