What can we look forward to when the post 2000-secular bear-market mentality fades at last, supplanted by what could be an ebullient market of the 2020s getting long in the tooth? Our desire to travel faster and farther has withstood economic boom, bust, warfare and social tumult and nothing has changed.
On July 4, 1828, the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence and first U.S. Senator of Maryland, Charles Carroll, at age 91, would be at the shovel opening ceremony for the first railroad chartered in the still New New thing known as the United States.
The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad raised $4 million dollars(!) in 12 days and would also become the first railroad company to transition from horses to steam-powered locomotion with a train called the “Tom Thumb”. (You can also thank Tom Thumb inventor Peter Cooper everytime you have Jell-O, he got the first patent for gelatin.)
The new new tech of railroads would face opposition by wagon and canal operators, by threatened merchants, and by clergy claiming man was not meant to travel at such great speed, but it was only a matter of time before the need for speed would attract more capital.
Canal companies could not hope to compete against transport technology that didn’t rely upon waterways and good weather, and eventually trains became an accepted part of history. (In 1831, one rail company called Mohawk & Hudson, reduced what would have been a day long canal trek to one hour by rail.)
(RE: The Delaware and Hudson Canal Company)
First there would be the effusive investment acceptance and commensurate pricing of this hot new new transport thing, extreme optimism, the willingness to pay a premium for the future, drawing more capital but also late “adopters”, followed by disillusionment and busts. Despite the early busts of the 1800s, trains were not derailed and we continue to rely upon them in the 21st century.
You can still invest in B&O Railroad today, via it’s merger descendant CSX.
In 1927, Charles Lindbergh, helped to trigger the next big transportation investment boom, in wake of the 1926 Air Commerce Act. (Lindbergh’s future father-in-law, J.P. Morgan partner Dwight Morrow was recruited by President Coolidge to chair a board that developed the beginning of Federal aviation policies leading to the 1926 Act.)
Lindbergh’s landing of the “Spirit of St. Louis” in Paris would open the floodgates of investment and public enthusiasm for aviation. The 1928 Aircraft Year Book noted “money, everywhere, seemed available for aviation…” to the tune of $1B USD during the 20 months that followed Lindbergh’s success, resulting in a 1929 $1B USD aviation industry valuation versus 90M USD in actual earnings.
During those early years, even with the public embrace of commercial aviation, it was seen as a mere complement to the “old” standby, railroads, by then a very mature industry, having gone through several boom bust and innovation cycles. In fact, here’s a 1927 stamp commemorating the old “B&O”, celebrating its centenary.
(We won’t get into happened in 1929. Anyone remotely interested in this post knows what followed, but airlines and aircraft were here to stay.)
So, here we are, almost 100 years after Lindbergh.
This post was inspired by embrace of a 20th Century automotive unicorn, meaning a rare mythical impossible beast (and not the private held lavishly funded disruptors we all love and fear), that a commercially successful electric car could become a mainstream transportation technology and help mark the eclipse of the hydrocarbon age.
At this point, everyone knows Elon Musk assuming leadership at Tesla marked the emergence of a catalyst for other automakers to submit to change and push forward beyond tepid and begrudging concept-sops to ‘green tech’. Tesla’s stock price has ricocheted from post-IPO disappointment to great enthusiasm to disappointment yet again and so on but the company edges closer towards affordable Main Street offerings.
No matter what happens to TSLA shares, electric batteries as a power storage and distribution platform has the potential to be embedded in our everyday lives. You know what I’m suggesting. We already can invest in the prospect of a century of automobiles that will be powered by electricity, which might even drive themselves, powering our homes when they’re parked in the driveway/garage (charged by panels perhaps bought or leased from another Musk-associated enterprise, Solar City but that’s a separate topic.)
(A Tesla “battery” which may, according to Musk, eventually be replaced by an “ultracapacitor”, essentially larger versions of the ones that power electronic devices, offering instant recharge and no degradation.)
What can we hope to expect circa 2027 from either Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos or someone else like him? Shall we celebrate the Lindbergh Landing Centenary and invest in an IPO of SpaceX or Blue Origin?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Carroll_of_Carrollton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaware_and_Hudson_Canal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Thumb_(locomotive)
http://www.ushistory.org/us/
http://www.century-of-flight.net/index.htm
http://generalaviationnews.com
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_tom_thumb.htm
http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/22/tesla-ceo-musk-says-the-days-of-batteries-are-numbered-ultracap/
Originally published at www.rooster360.com on April 20, 2014.