11/18/2021
Auto History time:
Owen-Magnetic M-25 Touring Car
One of the oldest and rarest hybrid vehicles were designed in the 1890’s and brought to production by an American company in 1915. These 100-year-old hybrids are not only one of the oldest electric hybrids ever made but uses the same transmission technology that was used in a USN battleship! It was also one of the first known hybrid electric vehicles that was successful and well-known. Despite all the backing of major corporations and the success the Owen Magnetic Motor Company they experienced a rapid decline after 6 years and they failed in 1921. To look at the rapid decline of the we need to look at the history of the car and the technological constraints of the time and what was beginning to happen in the world.
Electric vehicles are nothing new and have been around since the 1830’s and General Electric Company even owned a few of these EV companies. Owen Magnetic owes its success to a well-established and successful electrical engineer who is considered one of Americas greatest inventors. He made the first electric dynamos for the Navy and was chief engineer for Edison Machine Company. Later on, he would go on and work for GE so who is this inventor and engineer? Mr. Justin B. Entz. He invented the Entz electromagnetic transmission which would become one the first of its kind, be in one battleship, be in hundreds of vehicles and eventually a transmission based off of this would be used in locomotives. The patent was originally meant for ships and then shortly after they realized they could adapt for an electric vehicle.
One of the great challenges of Mr. Entz’ time, that he wished to solve, was the drivability, driving strain and the ability to have a transmission that can shift and transmit power smoothly and up to this point in history vehicles were dirty, unreliable, and not easy to drive. He previously approached a company where he licensed his technology but would never see a royalty payment at which point Mr. Entz would be fairly desperate and had approached the Owen brothers who would ultimately gain interest in this new vehicle. Though Mr. Entz was successful in designing his electric transmission he did not wish to build the vehicles himself. Mr. Entz approached the Owen brothers to build a prototype that uses the Entz transmission which is a simple and unique method of apply the driving power gradually and easily with a smooth transition to obtain multiple speeds.
In early 1900’s the Owen brothers decided to take over the project where they would spend a great deal of time adapting the patents and system to work well in an automobile. Prior to Owen Magnetic the Owens built coaches and carried over some of their core values and principles. The Owen brothers put together several well-qualified teams of engineers, vehicles, coach builders and eventually a fully operational manufacturing facility. In addition to this, they were the number one EV builder in the world at the time, had their facility provided by Baker Electric, backed by GE with a large amount of capital along with celebrity endorsements.
They would make Owen Magnetic a pioneering company and brand that built series hybrid electric luxury vehicles in a form of a roadster and a seven-seater touring car that were made famous for their use of their electromagnetic transmission. These vehicles were produced with a certain level of exclusiveness by building a limited number of vehicles with the highest quality possible through the whole vehicle without compromise along with being full of fashion and style.
When Owen Magnetic approached General Electric Company they determined that the electric transmission was better than anything else out on the market at that time and would prove to be very reliable and strong going up steep hills or enduring some of the harshest stress tests. Owen Magnetic also provided a way for GE to stay relevant in the changing markets.
With the new capital infusion from GE, GE would own a majority share in Owen Magnetic and also secured an exclusivity contract for GE to produce the electrical components that went into the Owen Magnetic vehicles. By this point in history GE had a lot of experience with manufacturing in general but also with building EVs and hybrids as they had a hybrid locomotive in the 1890s. GE also owned a few EV companies and with the backing from GE, Baker Electric Car Company would produce the cars chassis and engine, Rauch and Lang would build the coachwork in their existing body shop, and Raymond Owen would be director of sales. This was very beneficial to Owen because they did not have a facility that could accommodate their demand and even by the time the Baker facility was operational with producing the Owen’s vehicles the demand had already surpassed their production capabilities, but now they had the means to mass produce their vehicle.
It would take a great deal of time and effort to adapt the Entz to an automobile. In order to control the speed of the vehicle today we use the accelerator pedal but at this time many accelerators came in the form of a lever on the steering wheel or the steering column. Depending on the position of the lever determined your gear and speed output. A downside to their design; however, was there was no on-board battery pack. You made your power that you used on demand.
The Owen Magnetic was first used in the USS New Mexico and then from 1915-1922 it was being used for vehicle production. They were introduced in 1915 at the New York Auto Show when Mr. Entz’ electric transmission was adapted to the Owen Magnetic vehicles.
“Owen Magnetic found favor wherever people could afford them, as with government agencies and celebrities like Enrico Caruso. Riding in an Owen Magnetic was more like travel in a diesel-electric locomotive or today's continuously variable transmissions, rather than a car. Engine RPM built to a set point and then leveled off, while the vehicle continued to accelerate as the relative intensity of the generator motor field changed. It's quiet, smooth, and uncanny, with 60 MPH available. Engage neutral, and the clutch is cut out, but the motor remains connected and becomes an electric brake and charger. Hill holding up to 20 degrees was available without use of mechanical brakes, by use of the correct range in reverse.”
Everyone could easily see that the simple but improved construction aided in both the vehicles performance, reduced complexity, and driving fatigue by eliminating the most difficult part about driving at this time which was the clutch and manual transmission. This was also the only car with a three-braking system.
This was the car that was said to be a car of “a thousand speeds” and felt like “flying on four wheels” and there are several parts of this car that went into making it that way. There is so much that can be said about this vehicle but one of the biggest selling points is that it’s a clutch-less transmission. This was made possible by the electromagnetic transmission. Most vehicles in the time period were not only difficult to drive causing driver strain by just operating the transmission, but they were also unsafe and unreliable. Despite the “thousand speeds” phrase tied to this car it only had 5 speed capability whereas other vehicles like the Model T had 2 speed capability. Other than the 5 speed, the EM/GN transmission was capable of direct drive ratio, regen/dynamic braking and starting. The car is powered by a Continental L-head 303 cubic-inch six-cylinder engine capable of producing 29 horsepower. The engine never came in contact with the electric drive motor or rear drive wheels. The car had a 24V system when all other cars were only 6v.
In 1916, GE was the exclusive producer and supplier of the electrical units that were used in the transmission and had a two-year contract to produce the Owen Magnetic models.
• 1915-1916: R.M Owen & Co. New York United States
• 1916-1919: Baker R. & L., Inc Cleveland, Ohio United States
• 1919-1921: Owen Magnetic Automobile Co. Willes-Barre,
Pennsylvania United States
• 1921-1922: Owen Magnetic Motor Car Corp. Wilkes-Barre,
Pennsylvania United States
Owen Magnetic was one of the most expensive cars of its era. The most popular car on the market at the time was the Ford Model T which cost roughly $360 ($9,907.06 today) and had sold over a million cars by 1915. Cadillacs ran about $2,000 (55,039.21 today) and an Owen Magnetic three-seater roadster with clover seating arranging and the seven-seater touring car started at $3750 ($103,198.51 today) and went up to $5600 ($154,109.78) and only went up from there. The vehicle was also very heavy, expensive, and difficult to maintain. They produced only 974 units between 1914 and 1922. Of those, only are a small handful of units were known to survive. If you were to find one at auction, depending on the state of the vehicle, they can go for a large amount. In 2019 a fully restored unit sold at auction for $128,000. A poor one would run you anywhere from $8,000 to 15,000.
In 1918, the Baker manufacturing facility would cease production on all Owen Magnetic vehicles as they ramped up production and restructured to become a war time goods manufacturer as World War 1 had started. Meanwhile, the Model-T was becoming the industry standard and was significantly more affordable. This all dealt a blow to Owen Magnetic they would not recover from.
After the war, the Owen Magnetic company was reformed and a last attempt to get the company back up and running again was attempted on January 1, 1920, as one of the brothers didn’t want to give up on the company. Post-war there was very little sales and very little production while the cost of the vehicle kept on rising. Great Britain gave the company an order for 750 cars and asked the car to be named the Crown Magnetic. Unfortunately, by August 1920 after completing only one unit, the company found themselves in receivership. They had so many debts that were too great that the court had ordered them into bankruptcy. The only Crown Magnetic debuted at the London Motor Show in November 1920 but by then nothing they could do could save the company. Other factors that would pretty much doom them would be the lack of energy storage technology in the vehicle and the lack of electrical advances for the homeowners wouldn’t expand outside of city limits until after the 1930s.
For the rise of the company, the success was in part due to who they knew and what they knew. The Owen brothers got the project because of what they knew, and then they got GE financial backing because of who Mr. Entz knew. Because GE knew and owned several other companies with resources that could aid in the mass production, they were able to have success. The factors I would theorize that played a role in the downfall of the company was rapid expansion, bad timing due to World War 1, not having all their resources in house, but at that time it wouldn’t have made sense to have their own facilities. Once the war broke out, they lost all of their production capabilities and by the time it started back up it was too late as they lost all their momentum and customer bases. Post war the US had a financial crisis, and many affluent customers lost their fortune. At this time there were already millions of cheap Model-Ts on the road so having an expensive car no longer made sense. The Owen cost upwards of $6000+ and they had continuing rising costs and declining sales from the fallout of the war. It is unclear if Owen Magnetic was making war time goods or if it was their manufacturing facility Baker Electric, but what is clear is that the war time effort killed the company along with the post war economy. By 1921 like many other electric vehicle companies Owen Magnetic would be one of the many casualties of the circumstances of the time and when the Model-T was much cheaper people gravitated towards the more affordable option.
Sources:
1. Every google link for "Owen Magnetic"
2. Automobile Manufacturers of Cleveland and Ohio, 1864-1942
By Frank E. Wrenick, Elaine V. Wrenick, Pages 93-95
3. The American Chauffeur: An Automobile Digest ..., Volume 4,
January 1916
4. Electrical World, Volume 66
5. Cycle and Automobile Trade Journal, Volume 19
6. The Independent, Volumes 37-38
7. Patent: J. B. ENTZ, POWER TRANSMISSION AND CONTROL,
APPLICATION FEE). MAR 29, 1898, PATENTED JUNE 30, 1903.
----------
Who here thinks it would be awesome to see a few replicas of this car but with modern updates while staying true to the principle that this car was built on?
*none of the photos displayed is owened by us and was pulled
from google images when searched for/with the terms "Owen
Magnetic"
