Petrol Delivery Vans and Wagons.
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The One-Horse Van can at Last be Beaten.
The earliest delivery vans and wagons, in the years 1898 to 1901, came to grief by reason of the fact that they were merely adapted pleasure-ear chassis. One maker only, in those days, the house of Manes-Daimler, had attacked the problem separately, and it successfully demonstrated the practical value of vehicles with internal-combustion engines, at the trials of the Royal Automobile Club and the Liverpool Self-Propelled Traffic Association. The greatest handicaps, in those early days, arose in connection with faulty electrical ignition, deficient lubrication, inefficient transmission, and lack of experience in the manufacture of india-rubber tires for road-traction purposes. By a process of slow elimination and evolution, and by the expenditure of many hundreds of thousands ef pounds in experimental and pioneer work, the situation to-day is one in which practically eo uncertainties exist for the buyer. Ample surfaces are provided in all the working parts of approved types ; the engine details and general control have been enormously simplified ; lubrication has been perfected; the efficiency of transmissiun has been greatly raised, largely by the wide use of ball bearings, and the. consumption of fuel per mile thereby lessened proportionally. The last-named improvement weighs most with some users.
We give below a summary of the inclusive costs of petrol-driven vehicles for selected and representative net loads, and we may remark that these figures were advanced in this journal, as estimates, several years ago. They have proved to be accurate, and not on the low side, although it must he pointed Out that neglect or bad management will lead to undesirable increases. They can he accepted, however, as normal costs which are well within the scope of every buyer who treats his vehicles in a business way, and gives to them a reasonable measure of supervision.
The iiiternal-comienstion-engined vehicle differs from the al-earn-propelled machine in various matters of importance, viewed from the etandpoint of operation. First and foremost is its virtual independence of water supplies, as the few gallons of this liquid, which are required to cool the cylinder walls of the engine, are automatically circulated through the water-jackets and a radia
tor, which scheme allows the same CLIPply to be used over and over ugaire We have known the radiator of a three-ton petrol van to require a make-up volume of less than one quart after 2,000 miles of running, and that in the middle of an average English summer. In hotter countries, of course, the quantity evapo
rated will be greater, and it is sometimes necessary to guard against undue loss by specifying an auxiliary radiator, and an increase upon the normal reserve of water. The conditions under which the loss per day will exceed a couple of gallons must, indeed, be exceptional. whereas the smallest .steam lorry, unlcss fitted with a semi-flash generator, and an engine adapted to the use of highlysuperheated steam, together with a condenser, will use double that quantity per mile, It will ,be realised, in addition, that the lack of necess,ty for stoking, and the avoidance of stoppages to 'find or take in water, May aggregate a considerable percentage of the total working hours in any week.
Another point of differentiation, as between an internal-combustion set and a steam-engine set, is the saving in dead weight. Ten gallons of petroleum spirit. weighing not more than 76 lb., will propel a one-ton van about 140 miles, and a five-ton lorry at least 60 miles. This compares with the necessity to carry anything from 3 to 10 cwt. of coal or coke, and the saving thereby effected,
when augmented by the weight of the average volume. of water in a boiler, and that of, say, 150 gallons of water in the tanks, is often an important consideration. *vVe must again make the reservation that an up-to-date superheated steam system is not so handicapped in relation to internal combustion.
It is, probably, in the matter of easy handling that the petrol vehicle scores most over the steam vehicle, and here we cannot except the highly-superheated equipment, because that is, as a ,general rule, one which requires a clever and experienced driver. The petrol vehicle can he put in charge of unskilled labour, with greater likelihood of success than can any other type of motor vehicle on the market. It is the only system that can be entrusted to a man who knows nothing mere than that he has to put the levers in a certain position, and turn the handle in front, for the engine to start, and that he subsequently has to depress certain pedals with his feet-, and to push certain levers with his right hand, and to do these things in a more-or-less particular conjunetion, for the machine to run. No advocate of steam, no matter how ardent, could substantiate a parallel statement in respect of his ideal.
The weekly mileages. which are given in the table on this page. are quite common in England, and are sometimes exceeded. Until comparatively recently, awing to the high ineideuee of depreciation, when it was necessary to reckon that as a lump sum per annum, it did not pay to run petrol vehicles where the weekly mileage was low— say, as low as 100 miles a week. Now, however, when one is justified in taking the life of any such vehicle of approved make, in England, at 150,000 miles, depreciation becomes a mileage charge. We take the life at 120,000 miles, in our table.
The advertisement announcements in this issue are in themselves a sufficient guide to the leading makers of the day, and we may add that fully half of their number have already made heavy sales to India, the Colonies, the East generally, South America, and other parts of the world, and that repeat sales are becoming general.