In 1890, the Electric Storage Battery Company installed the first practical storage battery at the Germantown Electric Lighting Company in Philadelphia. The battery furnished the lighting current, while a dynamo charged the battery. Soon after, the battery company received a request for 13,000 cells to power six new electric streetcars for the Lehigh Avenue Railway Company in Philadelphia. These streetcars became the first self-propelled vehicles to challenge the supremacy of the horse. Throughout the 1890s, the demand for storage batteries increased, forcing the Electric Storage Battery Company to move to larger facilities.

The possibilities for storage batteries continued to grow. The Pullman Company used Chloride Accumulators to light a few of its luxury railroad cars, and small batteries were sold to operate electric fans, sewing machines and phonographs. In 1898, batteries powered the U.S. Navy's first submarine. Just before the turn of the century, Electric Storage Battery Company batteries were used as power sources in electric locomotives, streetcars, passenger cars, surface boats and telephone exchanges, and for the nation's first automatic switching and signaling systems for railroads.

As the new century dawned, electric taxicabs first appeared in many large cities. They became so popular that The Electric Storage Battery Company developed a product of greater capacity and less weight especially for the "Ply-for-hire" trade. This new battery, introduced in 1900, was the first to bear the trade name "Exide," short for "Excellent Oxide."