My neighbor’s car battery died a day or so ago — he had just paid off his car loan, and wouldn’t you know it — dead battery. He thought it might be something else because the battery seemed just fine until it just up and died. But that’s what batteries do these days. Years ago, they gave you some warning they they were on their last legs, but not today. they just work until they don’t.
Batteries have evolved along with the cars that use them. When I was growing up, all the cars used 6-volt batteries. And if my memory is correct, they just about all had positive ground systems — the vehicle chassis was directly connected to the positive terminal of the battery.
Originally, cars were started by manually turning a hand crank. I’m old, but not old enough to remember cars with cranks to start them. My uncle did have and old Ford that had a crank, but even back then it was considered an antique, and it wasn’t practical to get from point A to point B.
But back to batteries… I got to wondering when did cars start to use 12-volt batteries instead of 6-volt batteries? And why? The why is easy — car manufacturers started to use new, higher compression engines that need more starting power — and — new features such a power seats, power windows, and such were putting more demand on electrical systems.
When is a little murkier — my extensive research on the subject seems to indicate 1955 might be the year of the big changeover. GM started using the 12-volt system on the Cadillac, Oldsmobile and Buick in 1953, but it appears that 1955 is the year that 12-volt electrical systems became pretty much the automotive industry standard.
My research also discovered that the Hudson Motor Car Company was the first to use a standardized battery — in 1918. The Battery Council International (BCI) is the organization that sets the dimensional standards for batteries.
As I said — originally, cars were started by manually turning a hand crank. Besides the convenience of not having to hand crank the engine to start it, as electricity became more common, people wanted the convenience of electric lights on their cars. So, for that and a number of other reasons, it became necessary for cars to have an electrical system. The electrical systems required a DC generator of some kind to keep the battery charged. A 6-volt system was chosen, as far as I can tell, for no particularly good reason. A six volt battery only required 3 lead -acid cells and 6-volt DC generators could be made small and inexpensively… maybe that contributed to the choice.
It appears that the start of the downfall of the 6-volt battery started when electric starters came along. Electric starters draw a lot of current. That meant that heavier wires had to be used to connect the battery to the starter. Then engines got bigger and required greater torque to start… that led to larger starters and larger wires.
So — 12-volt systems were introduced. As anyone familiar with electricity knows, when you double the voltage, you can halve the current and still produce the same amount of power. By going to 12-volt systems, more powerful starter motors could be produced without increasing the size.
Cars have used batteries for well over 80 years — a lot of people never knew that they weren’t always 12-volts. Some of us though, the mighty few remember the 6-volt days. I guess you can chalk that up to “life experience” — or maybe old age…..
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