The glorious Sinclair C5 Bio-Electric Veicle
The little story and some facts about the C5: vison, inventor, concept, idea... much of this info are pieces of text condensed from various website + some personal comments.
Last Update: 09/06/2007
The short description
As you can see, it's a single-seat pedal-operated polyester-bodied 12V-battery-assisted (on demand) vehicle with a steel tube chassis (by Lotus), a 250-watt motor (Italy), 16"x2" wheels (plastic), cable brakes, weighing 30Kg and having an advertised top speed of 24 Km/h on the straightaways.
Essentially is a new class of vehicle: you pedal first. If need help climbing a hill just push a button to activate the electric motor. Push, pedal, coast operation.
It has 3 weels, 2 pedals, lights, underlegs steering bar, a trunk... and a really confortable seat !
How can i forgot.. it's Unique Style ! driving it you look like you are coming from the future, yes, from the 1985 !
The longer story
Sir Clive Sinclair was a very rich, eccentric genius who amassed a fortune in the manufacture of revolutionary- indeed visionary- electronic devices and products. These include calculators, watches, meters, pocket TV's(1975), micro computers (1980), and home computers (1982- when computers were still in dedicated rooms).
To raise money for his C5 Sir Clive sold a small fraction of his company shares which netted 12 million pounds for the cause.
The chassis design was by Lotus, the motor by Polymotor (torpedo class), and the polypropylene body was the largest one-piece injection moulding ever made at the time. After negotiations for the former DeLorean plant failed, the C5 was built in a Hoover factory in Wales.
The much-publicized launch was an unqualified disaster. It was held in the middle of winter and the C5's bodies skated on the snow. The press was merciless. Safety and Advertising Standards organizations got involved. Sales and production nosedived, and the company was wound up in October of the same year, and Sir Clive alredy lost some 8.6 million pounds.
The main C5 body was moulded in two halves - the dark grey lower body, and the white upper body. The body of the C5 was made of self-coloured lightweight polypropylene. The vehicle was 2ft 6" wide, 2ft 6" high and 5ft 9" long. The two halves were joined using a thermo-plastic tape. This was tacked into place using a telesonic gun to the lower body. The upper body was held in position by an inflated band, and a current passed through the tape. This melted the tape, and joined the two halves together.
The C5 was promoted by Sinclair as a revolutionary advance in personal transport with the potential to replace the car. The original intention was that it would be only the first in a whole series of electric vehicles - it would have been followed the never-released C10 and C15, each successively bigger and looking more like conventional vehicles. At only £399, the C5 was a fraction of the price of a conventional car. In fact, it was not a car at all but was instead a glorified electric tricycle, powered by an electric battery with a supplementary pedal drive. It did not inspire confidence that the C5 was assembled and serviced by Hoover, better known for its washing machines, which led to unkind comparisons being made between the two product lines.
Major flaws
The C5 failed for many reason, there weren't strong improvements in design, rather everything was coming from many restriction to keep the veicle free from driving license, tax and insurance.
Some physical aspect: it was too low on the ground, too slow to stand in front of a car and too heavy against a bycicle (triple DOH!). I just reply: if you feel low just walk, if you feel slow just run, if you feel heavy, just pump more... maybe cars are too high, not to mention SUVs... :(
The marketing missed totally the objective: it was targetted as a substitute of the car, while many reconize it as a Fun Veicle, recreation veicle or at the very common, an alternative to the byicicle.
Autonomy: they claimed 20km, in real they were only 10km, and in cold wether, due to the battery tecnology, range was limited to 6-7km... 2 battery were supported, but every battery added 20kg of weight to the... 30kg of the structure. More on the battery: it's weight was roughly the same of the entire body+chassis, and they didn't developed a new tecnology, so they just used a Caravan deep discharge type (ovonics batteries came later if i'm not wrong).
Beside all, the Sinclair C5 remains one the most Spectacular Disaster made by Sir Clive and the most Famous Electric Vehicle made in the history ! and still today there is a market of spares, C5s and originals (!) plus different communities running around it, well... the remains of few of 12000 models built (some claims 17000).
Quick info
Hover facility was assembling the C5, the motor was from Polymotor an italian torpedo-class motor maker owned by philips...so nothing is right about C5 using a washing machine electric motor ! (they are AC, C5 is DC...) Chassis by Lotus ! Electronics developed by Aston electronics manufacturer.
People Misunderstandings
I like byke, better, i like to cicle.
I enjoy slow and long all-day-round ride, far from home, taking my meal, some friends, going up hills and mountais, chatting, taking photos, seeing the landscape, going at the speed of the men living in different places from my town, stopping by and so on.
I want relax while a cycle. Relax and fatigue. Just look at the left picture, that is what i mean, endless road.
I have some friends who cycle too... they are on the "fast-sport-dark-side" of the bycicle: expensive accessories, expensive thinghs-to-eat (!), expensive sunglasses (to protect from moschitos..), cutting edge sport bikes not even admittible to official sport event... short time and hurry-hurry-hurry-you-are-slowing-me-down attitude.
Well... they saw the C5 in my garage, saw it dismounted, saw it mounted (from pictures), they listened to the story, looked at his more than 20 years old cycle technology (like a spy getting secrets), mumbled a while... and then... all they can say IS: "nice, BUT if you and i were on the start line, i'll BEAT you in whatever circuit you propose"... :|
But... what the... they totally missed the point ! all i reply is "all right, i know, but this isn't a sport byke..."... and i try to explain more: This wasn't mean to be fast, this wasn't mean to "beat" someone ! this is just cicling, with a seat, a trunk, lower on the ground in a 1985-techy way. It was an experiment, it was something to make the difference... no-one is under thread... No... all they can say is "don't talk to me about bike, i know about them (uh? expert ?) and this (and you) is nothing, finish it, put on the road, call me and you loose". Well, i reply, "if you were and expert, why don't you have a sport-C5 in your garage? how many of them did you alredy surpassed on the roads ?" And so they change arguments. :>
No way, they don't understand, many other people don't understand either: it's not a car, it's not a bike... what's his purpose in the life? (half wolwe, half dog... who are you Balto?). Being different, of a class of it's own is never easy in this world ! (image from http://www.speedace.info)
The answer is simply: IT is the Wonderfull Sinclair C5 !!
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