Seeing a way to make a profit in the already competitive lead-acid battery market, Thomas Edison worked in the 1890s on developing an alkaline based battery that he could get a patent on. Edison thought that if he produced a lightweight and durable battery electric cars would become the standard, with his firm as its main battery vendor. After many experiments, and probably borrowing from Jungner's design, he patented an alkaline based nickel–iron battery in 1901. However, customers found his first model of the alkaline nickel–iron battery to be prone to leakage leading to short battery life, and it did not outperform the lead-acid cell by much either. Although Edison was able to produce a more reliable and powerful model seven years later, by this time the inexpensive and reliable Model T Ford had made gasoline engine cars the standard. Nevertheless, Edison's battery achieved great success in other applications such as electric and diesel-electric rail vehicles, providing backup power for railroad crossing signals, or to provide power for the lamps used in mines.