The year 2025 appears to be a tipping point when it comes to electric vehicles, as demand for both the vehicles and the home charging stations needed to benefit from them the most have exponentially increased even in the wake of a troubling economic climate.
This means that electricians currently undergoing training will be more in demand than ever before to fit both home and public chargers to meet the demands of an increasingly electrical motoring landscape.
There is something oddly poetic about this, as it also marks the 40th anniversary of perhaps the most infamous failed electric vehicle project ever sold in the UK, but the Sinclair C5 remained significant for decades after it was discontinued both what it got wrong and how it belatedly proved its doubters wrong.
A New Type Of Transport
When the late Sir Clive Sinclair came up with the idea of making what would become the C5, the plan was to develop a vehicle that was unlike anything that had come before it.
Having seen failures such as the Scottish Aviation Scamp and the Enfield 8000 fail to launch in the UK, he believed that the problem with both vehicles was they were not ambitious enough in their designs because they attempted to replicate existing vehicles but without the decades of development evolutions their petrol-powered counterparts had.
His view was that based on the technology available, EVs should not be trying to compete with motor cars, but instead with pedal cycles and mopeds, and the C5 was designed to allow for personal mobility for people who only needed to travel less than 10 miles a day.
The logic was not dissimilar to Sir Clive’s successful approach to calculators and computing; rather than trying to compete on quality, build the most basic, utilitarian vehicle possible at the lowest price, and then build from there to create full-sized vehicles.
However, unlike the Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer or Executive calculator, the C5 failed catastrophically, and much of this can be blamed on its infamous launch.
Failure To Launch
The C5 itself seemed initially rather promising; for £400 you could have a vehicle that needed no license, could reach a top speed of 15 miles per hour and had a range of 20 miles, whilst being chargeable at the mains for pennies compared to a car.
These limitations were largely the result of a 1983 Department of Transport decision to create a new vehicle category that could be operated by anyone over 14 years old without a license or a helmet.
The “electrically assisted pedal cycle” limited speeds to under 15mpg, the motor could not be more powerful than 250 watts, the whole vehicle needed to weigh less than 60kg and it needed to have a set of pedals so it could be pedalled manually.
The C5 exploited these regulations, but there were clearly few intentions to actually require the tricycle to be pedalled. Unfortunately, the launch event at Alexandra Palace in January 1985 would show that a lot of pedalling might be needed.
The second biggest folly of the C5 was launching on a bitterly cold winter’s day in a venue with steep hilly roads, but the biggest folly was offering a press demonstration of the C5 in the worst possible testing environment.
This changed the view of the C5 overnight from an ambitious, innovative idea from the man who brought computers to every home in Britain to a complete laughing stock.
It was criticised as useless and even potentially dangerous, particularly since teenagers would be legally allowed to operate it without wearing a helmet.
Ultimately, 8000 were sold in about seven months, which was not enough for Sinclair Vehicles to survive, and both the company and any plans to create a full-sized EV were abandoned once the company was liquidated in November.
The Road Ahead
At the time, the Sinclair C5 was seen as a categorical rejection of the electric vehicle as a concept, and for nearly two decades, its ghost was exhumed every time anything remotely similar was discussed.
However, as many other people have pointed out, the problem with the C5 was nothing to do with the vehicle itself but how it was marketed, presented and sold. Taking them aside, the C5 and particularly how successfully it was sold by surplus goods handler Ellar for nearly twice the price as effectively a luxury toy.
Some have also noted it might have been more successful a few years later, as cycle lanes, less harmful petrol fumes and greater accommodations for employees who walked or took a bicycle to work would have suited the C5 far better.
Alternatively, had Sinclair committed to making the C10 instead, a far more conventional electric city car, it might have had a much better chance.