Electric battery common fuels such as gasoline. In automobiles, this is somewhat offset by the higher efficiency of electric motors in converting chemical energy to mechanical work, compared to combustion engines. The usage of "battery" to describe a group of electrical devices dates to Benjamin Franklin, who in 1748 described multiple Leyden jars by analogy to a battery of cannon (Benjamin Franklin borrowed the term "battery" from the military, which refers to weapons functioning together). Italian physicist Alessandro Volta built and described the first electrochemical battery, the voltaic pile, in 1800. This was a stack of copper and zinc plates, separated by
Electric clock types of mechanism: In 1814, Sir Francis Ronalds (1788-1873) of London invented the first electric clock. It was powered with dry piles, a high voltage battery with extremely long life but the disadvantage of its electrical properties varying with the weather. He trialled various means of regulating the electricity and these models proved to be reliable across a range of meteorological conditions. In 1815, Giuseppe Zamboni (1776-1846) of Verona invented and showed another electrostatic clock run with dry pile batteries and an oscillating orb. His team produced improved clocks over many years, which were later denoted as "the most elegant