Electricity in a box

In 1899, Edison began working on a better storage battery for electric vehicles. He thought that electric cars were better than gasoline or steam powered vehicles, but realized that the storage batteries in existence limited the practicality of electric cars. With typical optimism, he announced to the press in 1902 that his batteries would run for 100 miles or more without recharging, and he proclaimed, I do not know how long it would take to wear out one of the batteries, for we have not yet been able to exhaust the possibilities of one of them.Despite those claims, the battery still required a lot of workabout a decade of research went into it. And by that time, cars with gasoline engines were clearly the market leader. Edisons batteries, however, found many other uses in things like railroad signals, miners head lamps, and marine buoys. The storage battery was his most profitable invention.