It’s debatable if you can call this electric/pedal powered recumbent bike/go-cart a car. Inventor Sir Clive Sinclair called it “a personal electric vehicle” but the one thing you can undeniably call it is “a failure.” In retrospect, people seemed to forget that success in one industry (Sinclair made one of Great Britain’s first successful personal computers) does not automatically begat success in another endeavor. As the June 25, 1983 issue of The Economist put it,
The C5 had numerous issues… it appeared too small to be a legitimate street machine, but too large for something that had no cargo space. Oh, did you know that it rains in England? They offered this great option:
Clive even wasted money having Lotus engineer the chassis and the “handling” on a 15 mph vehicle. [Editor’s Note: I’ve driven one of these crazy things! It was a failure well and admirably earned.
See? – JT] Also, the range of the C5 was crap, and the fact that it had frequently-needed foot pedals–forget it. He should have just made an electric bicycle. I know that Clive had ideas for larger products before it all fell apart. The next project (the C10) is hard to find information on. I saw the below image online and, if legitimate, it appears the C10 was essentially going to be a Smart Car without doors, and considering the lukewarm success of that (I’m sorry, Mercedes Streeter!) this concept looks like it would not exactly have killed it on the market.
Still, despite the C5’s failure and C10 concept’s seeming lack of viability, I am not convinced that the more-than-a-bike but less-than-a-car concept was all wet. In Europe and Asia, you may still see whole families on a moped or small motorcycle. My old roommate at school claimed that back in Portugal his parent carried the family and a piece of furniture home on a Vespa, at the same time. You will often see moms biking with babies in front of stretched bikes like these in Amsterdam:
There could have been a market for a new-day Messerschmitt or a Peel Trident (a German and British microcar from ~1960, respectively), something still a fraction of the size of a Mini. I think the idea of a modern version of those microcars could have worked if the vehicle launched in 1985 (or the follow up) with the following attributes: So what might a solution to this revised brief look like? Let’s call it the C10.
I did some extensive space planning (my 11 year old pushed our office chairs one behind the other) and it looked like you could get two upright passengers back to back, plus a small trunk (boot) or cargo bed in a space not much longer than a C5. Here was the initial rough sketch:
The whole thing is significantly taller than a C5, which should help other motorists see you. Batteries are under the seats, so despite the tall, narrow proportions the center of gravity would be low. The width is enough to get two small kids in the back seat(no seat belts of course in 1985), and if you aren’t carrying a rear passenger that back seat could be packed with cargo. You could even have the rear seatback removable to create a cargo area big enough for a giant CRT TV… A big improvement is the different weather protection options. You can start with a wide open driving experience if you’d like by removing the windshield and front fascia (that’s why the lights are mounted so low); that would be especially good for indoor use in things called shopping malls that used to exist back then. Or in an airport or huge production facility. Next, there would be roof panels that could attach to the targa/roll bars above the seats (these could store in a slot behind the rear seat back) for rain and sun protection. Additionally, you could have either roll down clear side curtains or maybe offer wire-framed side doors (notice these fold up photo reflectors below: could this principle might work for doors you could carry with you? Not sure).
As for the cargo area, it has a lockable waterproof lid on it that opens like a trunk (boot), or you can flip the rear tailgate down to put in bigger items or, possibly, transport longer items sticking out the back.
There could be optional rigid rear half doors to the back seat (especially if kids will be riding there), or even a rigid full rear doors with windows to lock in cargo, keep a pet in place, or to allow a mall cop to secure a perp in the back seat: “We caught you red handed at Gadzooks, Heather!”
What if you just wanted to carry stuff?? We could make a commercial version as well, where the rear seat is gone and it’s all cargo space (either open or covered). I mean, vendors trying to get to some booth at a festival would never get through in a car or even a golf cart-type vehicle, but this skinny thing would work.
One thing I would carry over from the C5 design is the lack of a steering wheel. The C5 had a handlebar under your thighs, but in the C10 this would have steering via synchronized left and right levers that would simulate a handlebar (connected by cable to a tie rod). There are padded forearm rests on each side, and then the few controls and displays needed in front of the sliders; left hand side features the battery power LED gauge, headlight and hazard switch, while the right side features the forward/reverse buttons and a five digit keypad used to turn it on and off with a combination code (like Ford Keyless Entry!). It would then play a few tones to tell you you’re ready to go. There are buttons/switches on the ends of the turn-levers; left hand side for turn signals, and right hand the horn button. Here, have a look:
There are foot pedals for “throttle” and also brakes. I thought about the cable operated (four-wheel) brakes being operated by hand levers but it’d be easier to use your foot. Note the pedal on the far left to lock the rears as a parking brake.
As an option, there would be another foot pedal. Why? Because I realized that one of the extras (if you don’t just want to use RainX) should be a windshield wiper, but I don’t like that sucking battery power. Thus the foot operated pneumatic wiper. Sort of the like the windshield washers on our shit ’69 Dart but instead acting on a geared-down rotary impeller….one push to move the wiper once across the screen. Is this design now, unlike the C5, an answer to a question someone might have actually asked? Possibly. Think of where you would take a bicycle or a scooter in a European or Asian city and that’s where this could operate (and what if in an alternate reality they allowed this to legally go on bike lanes?). No pollution, none of the hassles of normal sized car parking and ICE maintenance. It’s not gonna cut it in a city like LA or Detroit, but that’s not the point; in the U.S. it could work in retirement centers or resorts quite nicely. Overall, this thing is kind of like a giant adult Powerwheel, or a scaled down golf cart, which I am sure that Sir Clive would have seen as unimaginative rubbish. It would also be much more expensive than a C5, and likely need some kind of license to drive and register. Overall I think it’s a far more useable solution than the C5, a “car” that was worse than an answer to a question that nobody asked…it was somehow not even the right answer.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xfDnVS9n41U/maxresdefault.jpg
I drove one of these for 4 days in Switzerland in 1992. Great fun!
The proposed changes by the Bishop pull the Sinclair vehicle from “not under any circumstances, even ironic” status to “I could see it in the right situation”. I especially like the concept of the foot-powered windshield wiper and the alternative body/usage considerations make sense.
On the slightly critical side, although I see where you were going with the location of the horn and turn signal switches I think you are going to have a huge number of accidental activations with that placement.
In any case I really appreciate the amount of care and imagination you put into these scenarios.
I like how designer Gus Desbarates stated -per wikipedia- that his work on massaging the C5’s final design was “convert[ing] an ugly pointless device into a prettier, safer, and more usable pointless device”.
I’d have taken a different approach and slimmed it down like the early velomobiles of the era. The Vector trike or the Cyclodyne/Ecodyne would have been good starting points for a design. Such a thing could have used a single 12V AGM lead acid battery and probably got an honest 50 miles of range @ 55 mph with a total vehicle mass of around 120 lbs. Given the 55 mph speed limit at the time in the US, and similar in other countries, it would have been a great match.
The downside to my alternative proposal is that it would have only seated 1. But that one would have had dirt cheap transportation.
For a real world exploration of this concept, look up Cedric Lynch’s custom recumbent bike. His first conversion of this bike had a 60 mile range on a single 12V lead acid battery back in the early 2000s. He has a longer range lithium pack 10+ years ago, but the validity concept still stands. He’s saved tens of thousands of British Pounds not buying fuel for the mileage he has put on it versus using a car.
The aerodynamics of these early velomobiles were good enough that 1 horsepower or slightly above it was enough to maintain the maximum legal speed limit of the US on flat ground. If one reinforced the chassis to hold more batteries, it is not inconceivable that we could have had 150+ mile range @ 55 mph single seater commuter cars that weighed in around 300 lbs, using conventional build materials.
In Denmark we had this in the 80’es: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CityEl
Sort of the same concept as the Sinclair, but enclosed for rain protection and more power so it could go at city traffic speeds. But unfortunately still very, very low.
I think this new take is a lot better than the original. But those tiny wheels and no suspension, however rudimentary, I think is a big mistake. As is the arcane steering mechanism. The steering wheel has been invented. As has handlebars. Both works great and everyone knows how to use them, without any training,. So why not use one of those?
Also: no doors? Come on. Let’s have some basic protection against inclement weather. And ideally some kind of basic impact protection. Even if only a 5-mph-bumper kind of protection.
Otherwise we might as well just have a proper, electric cargo bike. Like this: https://triobike.com/en/
These, and many others like it, are hugely popular in cities in Denmark. They are much faster and more comfortable than a Sinclair, and has proper cargo space. And can use the bike paths, and be parked pretty much anywhere.
So a competing design, where most of these advantages are removed will have to bring some significant upsides to compensate.
https://www.arcimoto.com/
Different versions of these: – https://cleantechnica.com/files/2020/03/Deliverator_Sunset-7-Arcimoto-FUV-electric-last-mile-delivery-ARCIMOTO-OFFICIAL.png – https://cdn.arcimoto.com/wp/20220613160729/flatbed-model-image.png
The handlebar controls seem like they would be overly confusing too – what’s wrong with a steering wheel? It seems like you’d want/need the front fascia (at least up to the wing mirrors) in every setting, so it could easily be mounted low enough that the windshield is still removable. Heck, even come up with a clever mechanism to temporarily mount the windshield behind the lower fascia when not in use!
Crumple zones…on this or the the C5, in a collision with anything bigger than….well…this…that probably isn’t going to do much for you. Sort of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
I like the re-imagination of the concept, and especially the additional variations presented.
But this whole project, including the original C5, seems a lot more like an in-factory transport vehicle for a large factory. Maybe inside a mine. It would be useful even in a large manufacturing campus or a logistics center of some sort.
This was one of the moments that I lost a lot of my ability to get lost in fan worship of prominent individuals, because I loved Sinclair’s efforts at making computers much more accessible to low to average income families. And then he presented this.
Not every project is a winner. Good thing he did the computer first.
you mean like the Elio? promised 80MPG for just under 8K in the aughts.
I’ve done something along those lines as well. In my profile are pics of a custom-build microcar I put together. It has trunk space for a week’s worth of groceries plus my tools plus spare tubes/cables. I get a 150-200 mile range on a 1.5 kWh pack riding it in the city at 30-35 mph, with light pedaling effort added. Top speed is over 45 mph, and it can peel out and do donuts. Total vehicle weight was 91 lbs before I started some recent upgrades. It now has full suspension, longer wheelbase, and corners like a gokart. I can get it to skid instead of going up on two wheels now, and my goal is to get 1g lateral acceleration. It’s also pedalable with the motor disabled to faster-than-bicycle speeds thanks to the aerodynamics. I can sprint to 35 mph on flat ground with the motor turned off. I’ve been well over 60 mph downhill and it is still very stable. I can take my hand off the steering at that speed and it tracks straight. It is in the process of receiving upgrades to make it capable of 100+ mph and 0-60 mph acceleration like a car, and it will be getting a roll cage, DOT rims, solar car tires, motorcycle brake lever, ATV rotors, and with the finished vehicle weighing somewhere around 100 lbs to retain the pedal-only functionality when desired.
I love my “bicycle”. It has saved me a crap ton of money.
Last year, I was riding with the “bike life” crowd that mass rides illegal ATVs/dirt bikes/motorcycles. When I did donuts in an intersection, three people had their phones out. I never saw the videos, but somewhere out there someone recorded the act. The irony is that my vehicle is technically legal as a “bicycle”. I’ve been pulled over repeatedly by cops and there’s nothing they can do. I don’t even have a drivers license.
I have a switch to allow me limit the motor’s thrust to 750W/28 mph in jurisdictions where ebikes are codified into law. But I can still turn the motor off and pedal it faster than the legal limit.
I look forward to eventually tracking this creation. The motor that is in it is theoretically capable of handling enough power/torque to do 0-60 mph in under 7 seconds, but I’m going to have issues with wheelspin that will prevent me from achieving that. I’m hoping to get 0-60 mph in under 9 seconds after the upgrade. Eventually I’ll be able to implement a slip detection system to decrease that time.
As it is, it currently can’t even reach 60 mph on the flat, but after my upgrade, triple digits may be possible. Currently, it only has 4 horsepower, and that’s enough to make it do donuts. It will have 13 horsepower after the upgrade. My long term goal is to build an AWD vehicle of similar weight and no bicycle drivetrain that has 150+ horsepower, which would be total insanity.
It currently gets the equivalent of about 4,000 mpg at 30-35 mph. I suspect that will drop to 1,000 mpg equivalent at 70 mph, even after improving the aerodynamics, once I am able to cruise at that speed. I also have some solar panels on the way for it too.
