Bates (automobile)

The Bates was an automobile manufactured in Lansing, Michigan, by the Bates Automobile Company from 1903 to 1905. The Bates was the brainchild of M.F. Bates, who was vice-president of the company.

4-seater Bates advertisement

History

Bates Automobile was organized on May 27, 1903, by M.F. Bates, an ex-P. F. Olds & Son company (founded by Ransom E. Olds) draftsman and developer.[1][2] Bates automobile manufacturing was started up in an old Armory building in Lansing, on south Capitol Street.[3]

Production

The company started out producing brass-era single-cylinder runabouts; and later produced a few two-seater and four-seater cars with four-cylinders. The four-seater touring cars produced cost US$2,000. In all, a total of about 25 cars were produced. The early cars had two-cylinder 16hp engines, while in 1905, a three-cylinder, 18hp engine was used.[2]

Marketing and details

The company's slogan was "Buy a Bates and Keep Your Dates."[3]

The Bates Automobile Company was entirely separate from the Bates & Edmonds Company, another auto manufacturing firm of which Bates was a partner.[3]

Notes
  1. Ingham County Biographical Sketches: M.F. Bates; US Gen; [Excerpt from "Past and Present of the City of Lansing and Ingham County, Michigan;" by Albert E. Cowles; published by The Michigan Historical Publishing Association, Lansing, Michigan; 1905; Pp. 249–250]; accessed January 2014.
  2. Kimes, Beverly (1996). Standard Catalog of American Cars; 1805-1942. Krause Publications. ISBN 0-87341-428-4.
  3. Google Book: Industrial Lansing



gollark: Except you're also now lugging around the weight of the batteries and motors.
gollark: Pedals are uncool.
gollark: So if you have a set of electric cars with small batteries - enough to travel within a city and near it - available for rent, and you don't suffer too much overhead from having to rent them out, that could conceivably be a good method of transport.
gollark: Electric cars are expensive *partly* because they need batteries for hundred-mile journeys, even though most actually won't be this long. And cars are kind of inefficient because most of the time they're left idling.
gollark: Personally, I think that local public transport and short-range intra-city electric cars would be worth considering.
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