The evolution of what is now Exide Technologies began with creation of The Electric Storage Battery Company, founded in 1888 by W.W. Gibbs. As vice president of the United Gas Improvement Company, a Philadelphia gas lighting firm, Gibbs recognized that electricity had great potential as a source for lighting, and as such, posed a threat to gas. Gibbs formed the Electric Storage Battery Company to create a dependable mechanism for storing power so electric lighting companies could provide services to their customers if and when it was necessary.

Realizing that a better storage battery was a necessary first step, Gibbs purchased the ideas and patents of French inventor, Clement Payen, to transform good ideas about storage batteries (then widely referred to as "Pickled Amperes") into thoroughly reliable commercial products. With the development of the storage battery, or the "Chloride Accumulator," the Electric Storage Battery Company brought the electric lighting industry to a new level.