Sinclair C5

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Sinclair C5

Launched in Britain on 10 January 1985, the Sinclair C5 was a three-wheeled personal transport battery electric vehicle invented by Sir Clive Sinclair. Relatively cheap to purchase (it sold for £399 + £29 for delivery), it quickly became an object of popular ridicule, and was a commercial disaster, with only around 17,000 being sold.

Sinclair had first started to think about electric vehicles as a teenager and it was an idea he toyed with over the coming decades. In the early 1970s Sinclair Radionics was working on the project. Sinclair considered that the problem would be best addressed by working on the electric motor and he had Chris Curry work on the problem. However, the company's focus shifted onto calculators and no further work was done on vehicles until the late 1970s. Development work began again in 1979 and progressed erratically until, in 1983, it became apparent that new legislation would alter the market considerably and make it possible to sell a vehicle very closely resembling their development efforts.

In March 1983, Sinclair sold some of his shares in Sinclair Research and raised £12-million to finance vehicle development. In May a new company, Sinclair Vehicles Ltd, was spun out of Sinclair Research and a development contract was entered into with Lotus to take the basic C5 design through to production. Around the same time, Hoover Ltd at Merthyr Tydfil entered into a contract to manufacture the C5. The engines were made by Polymotor in Italy, starting the urban legend that the C5 was powered by washing machine motors.[link] In 1984 Sinclair Vehicles set up its head office at the University of Warwick Science Park. Despite a promotional campaign involving former formula one racing driver Stirling Moss, the immediate reaction after the launch was that the C5 was impractical in the British climate and possibly dangerous on busy roads. On 13 August 1985 Hoover stopped production. Fewer than 17,000 C5s were sold. Sinclair Vehicles was put into receivership on 12 October 1985.

The C5 was a battery-assisted tricycle steered by handles on either side of the driver seat. Powered operation was possible so it was not necessary for the driver to pedal to make progress. It had a top speed of just 15 mph (24 km/h) on the flat (even slower up hill). The top speed was chosen as electric vehicles which could travel faster than that required a licence to use. The C5 also suffered from a number of design problems including the fact that cold weather could significantly shorten battery life, exposure of the driver to weather (a big problem in the British climate), and because it was low and close to the ground, doubts were raised about the C5's safety in traffic. Both these problems were addressed with optional extra battery, side protection and high-vis mast, all available as optional extras from the launch.[link] These were flippantly expressed in a contemporary cartoon showing a C5 and a juggernaut approaching each other at a blind corner, the C5 being occupied by a family of lemmings.

A test car had a top speed of 150 mph (241 km/h) and did 0 to 60 in 5 seconds.[link] The C5 also became the worlds first electric stunt vehicle when it was used to drive through a 70 ft tunnel of fire.[link] A "turbo conversion" converting the C5 to 24 volt and boosting the top speed to 27-30 mph is available.[link]

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