Borland Electric

This little car falls into the Everything New is Old Again and 100 Years Ago Today categories. We've come to think that alternate fuels and electric cars are a new idea, but Borland Electric was producing an automobile powered by two GE motors as early as 1910. By 1913 they offered five models including a 7 passenger limousine.

I couldn't find any information on the fate of Borland. Apparently the company merged with several other electric car manufacturers to form American Electric, but I didn't find any definite confirmation. It was clear that the going price of the Borland 5 passenger coupe ($2900 according to the ad) put it out of the reach of the common worker who earned somewhere around $30 a week. The image in the ad gives the impression that Borland's target demographic was the idle rich. The ad comes from the back of the February 1914 issue of Life Magazine. It's interesting to consider Life Magazine's editorial cartoons of this era strike a pretty consistent anti-suffrage tone, but the ad shows a woman at the wheel.