Delco Electronics

Delco Electronics Corporation was the automotive electronics design and manufacturing subsidiary of General Motors based in Kokomo, Indiana. The name Delco came from the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Co., founded in Dayton, Ohio, by Charles Kettering and Edward A. Deeds in 1909. Delco was responsible for several innovations in automobile electric systems, including the first reliable battery ignition system and the first practical automobile self-starter.

Initially Kettering and Deeds were co-workers at National Cash Register Company (NCR). Kettering and Deeds had a lifelong professional relationship and friendship. In 1904, Deeds hired Kettering at NCR to motorize the cash register.

Around 1908, Deeds asked for help with a car he was building from a kit. Working in one of Deeds' barns with spare-time help from William A. Chryst and other NCR friends, Kettering developed a high-energy spark ignition system to replace the weak-spark model supplied with the kit. Leaving NCR in 1909, Kettering focused on final development of this ignition set and demonstrations were favorably received. In 1909, when Henry Leland of Cadillac ordered 5,000 ignition sets, Deeds and Kettering formed the Dayton Engineering Laboratories company. The ignition system was introduced on the 1910 Cadillac.

In 1911, Kettering invented and filed for U.S. Patent 1,150,523 for the first useful electric starter, adapted from a cash register motor. The starters were first installed by Cadillac on production models in 1912.

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