The Sinclair C5 lives on

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AccordGuy
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The Sinclair C5 lives on

Post by AccordGuy »

First you have to check out what a Sinclair C5 is... they are famous (or infamous) in the UK but you might never have heard of them. This Wiki page explains all...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5

Now I've never seen one actually driving around - they were pretty rare even in their day (being a total commercial failure) but at the local supermarket yesterday I was just waiting at the ATM when about five or six of these things came rolling along and started gathering a curious crowd of on-lookers.

I'm sure that lots of people thought they were brand new electric cars with all the talk in the media about such things but were amazed to discover that they were the brain-child of the slightly business-sense-challenged inventor, Sir Clive Sinclair (knighted for services to mad invention).

I doubt also that these things were on a London to Brighton rally as it's 50 miles or more and these things never had that long a range. I secretly thought they were trying to sneak some power from the supermarket to keep them going in the cold weather (it was sub-zero all day yesterday).

They set off out of the car park and presumably were run over by some big 4x4s that couldn't see them so low down on the road. One pilot thoughtfully had added a tall whip rod to the back of his C5 with a Union Jack flag at the top. This served three purposes:

1. It meant other road users would be able to see him and not kill him.
2. He could "fly the flag" for British inventiveness.
3. He could attract wonder at how a dodgem car can work without the overhead power netting.
c5aliveKarl

Sinclair C5

Post by c5aliveKarl »

You should have come up and said hello when you saw us out and about on our January C5 meeting. We don't bite :P

If you want to correct the inaccuracies in your posting just check out my own forum at www.c5alive.co.uk
....for example the seven C5's that completed the London-Brighton run in May 2007 were supported by a van carrying 64 car batteries.


A real shame you seem to have avoided forming your own opinion about Sinclair C5's, preferring instead to jump on the tired old bandwagon of slagging them off. :?

Should you want to try one out yourself and see how much fun they are , just give me a call and we can sort something out.

Who knows, you may even be pleasantly surprised :wink:

Thanks to Sharkey for the opportunity to reply
8)
AccordGuy
Posts: 144
Joined: Tue Jul 01, 2008 11:47 am
Location: West Sussex, UK
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Post by AccordGuy »

Wow, you live just a stone's throw across town from me. What a small internet this is!

Yeah, I'd love to have a go in one - just not on that road outside Tescos with cars and trucks roaring past me at 40mph. On such roads I try not to even ride my bicycle on the road as it's too dangerous - and we have bike paths for that reason.

Ok, they have been on a London to Brighton run but with 64 spare batteries, I wouldn't say they've got much in the way of range. Between 7 EVs that means they had to change batteries 9 times each in 50 miles... Not quite consistent with the brochure claim of 20 miles on a single 35Ah battery. Notably, the users handbook makes no mention at all of runtime or range. How far could you go on the Oldham battery?

I'm a big fan of quirky old technology but it has to be said that the C5 was probably a contributing factor to the significant delay in the UK public's acceptance of EVs as a real alternative to the petrol / diesel powered car.

At least Sharkey's VW Rabbit is a "proper" car. If Sir Clive had built something more like a G-Wiz, then we'd all probably be driving fuel cell EVs today.

Come to think of it, if he'd just tried to make an electric bicycle in the first instance then he'd have probably had more success. I'm quite keen to get hold of one of the electric bikes I saw in Japan last year.
c5aliveKarl

Sinclair C5

Post by c5aliveKarl »

The offer of trying out a C5 still stands , but if you are expecting a "car" you will remain disappointed by its performance. No-one is saying the C5 is perfect, far from it, and the main reason I chose to reply to this thread was simply to provide more information.

C5's are, and always have been, a battery assisted bicycle - therefore some peddling is always required. One benefit is that we also enjoy usage of the various cycle paths around Crawley ,and other venues we visit :P

As to why C5's are so underpowered is explained on Roy Woodwards excellent www.Sinclairc5.com site;

As a result of activity by certain interested parties, and after tests and recommendations from the UK Transport and Road Research Laboratory, a new category of electrically assisted vehicle was legally defined in August 1983. The key features were:

Two or three wheels with pedal propulsion
Maximum weight of 40 or 60 Kg, depending on vehicle configuration
Maximum motor continuously rated output, 200 or 250 Watts, depending on vehicle configuration
Maximum powered speed 15 mph (24 kph)
In addition, this class of vehicle could be driven by any one of 14 years of age and over. It did not require a licence, insurance or road tax. Furthermore no protective helmet had to be worn


When viewing the spec above it becomes quite obvious you are never going to enjoy car-type performance. The advertising blurb was misleading and therefore people were left disappointed. I guess they were actually expecting something more along the lines of the proposed Sinclair C10.....

Another obvious mistake was to launch the C5 at Alexandra Palace (big steep hills) in January, in the snow :roll: .

C5's have very poor hill climbing ability, and batteries perform at their worst in extreme cold...so not a good start :cry: .

In answer to your "range" question, we tend to get about 8-12 miles per battery. It depends on how much pedalling, terrain, cold/wet/dry weather,condition of battery and weight of rider etc. Lots of variable factors equals variable ranges :wink:

I would suspect that manufactures claimed ranges for all EV's are usually obtained under controlled conditions and should always be treated with suspicion - anyone checked the small print for a Vectrix Scooter.....or how about a 6 mile range ,on batteries alone, for the latest Prius.

My own view is that the publics poor acceptance of electric vehicles is more to do with all EV's being overly expensive, with appalling range, when compared to a 100mpg diesel hatchback at less than half the price. Hardly something that can be blamed on the Sinclair C5 !

Don't take this the wrong way,I'm actually a big fan of EV's and also use a 1989 El-Trans A/S mini-el, as well as being a member of the Battery Vehicle Society.

But I do feel the C5, and Sir Clive himself,were wrongly slated for what was basically a good idea, just way too ahead of its time and not properly refined.
lemmiwinks

Post by lemmiwinks »

I don't mind the look of the C5, not that we ever got them in Australia. I think recumbents are cool, and the C5 is edging towards a velomobile, but the weight is a severe drawback as I'd be willing to bet I could pedal an unpowered 'bent or velo further and faster than a C5. I'd be concerned about visibility in traffic a bit though.

I think it's a bit of a stretch to blame it for the slow acceptance of EV's though! It's clearly an electric assist pedal vehicle, whatever it may have been marketed as. If you're looking for someone to blame for putting EV development in suspended animation I think we can point the finger squarely at GM.
AccordGuy wrote:On such roads I try not to even ride my bicycle on the road as it's too dangerous - and we have bike paths for that reason.
We have bike paths because drivers can't accept that bicycles are traffic.
AccordGuy
Posts: 144
Joined: Tue Jul 01, 2008 11:47 am
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Re: Sinclair C5

Post by AccordGuy »

c5aliveKarl wrote:One benefit is that we also enjoy usage of the various cycle paths around Crawley
Are you allowed to use the cycle paths? I thought the ruling was that the C5 was classed as a quadra-something and you were allowed to drive it without tax and a license if:

It was limited to 15mph
Wasn't driven on the pavement but the road
and some other rules

Does a cycle path count as a road or a special pavement? Granted it's more dangerous to ride a bike on a shared pavement... I've been hit by cyclists speeding on shared pedestrian / cycle pavements (where the only thing separating you is a white line). A mountain bike can do 25mph easy.

I've got a dual view on bicycles being traffic. Yes, when I'm cycling it's annoying and scary how cars tail-gate you and practically run you off the road but I also drive a lot and on the UK's super-congested roads it's also really annoying to get stuck in a train of cars being held up by a bicycle doing 20mph on a 30 or 40mph limit road.
Last edited by AccordGuy on Tue Mar 10, 2009 11:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
Sharkey
Original Founder
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Post by Sharkey »

Not going one way or the other on the C5 debate, but I do have opinions about bikes in traffic.

I share the road with bikes if they share the road with me.

When I lived in the City, bicycles were a popular mode of transport for many people. I don't have a problem giving right -of-way to any cyclist who is using the road properly, but like AccordGuy, I get ticked when a cyclist is obviously "exercising their right" to the road, even if that means holding up a lot of traffic and endangering themselves.

I frequently saw cyclists in the right hand lane of traffic on ~very~ busy thoroughfares, holding up a line of cars in spite of the sidewalk being perfectly clear, or the existence of parallel bike paths or much safer side streets that they could ride upon.

I would also get angry with cyclist who would pretend they were motor traffic by riding in the center of a lane, use the left-hand turn lanes, etc, but then switch preference to being a bike by riding between a line of stopped traffic and the curb so as to be at the front of the line, or making fantastically dangerous swooping maneuvers all over the road, against traffic in oncoming lanes, up and down curbs, etc. Many also considered stop signs and signals to be "optional" and would dart out in front of cross traffic whenever it pleased them.

I would always make it a point to be courteous to cyclist who were operating their bikes in a reasonable manner, and made it a point to signal my intentions as a vehicle in advance or by eye contact to make them comfortable. The rest of them deserve a ride on a truck fender for their rudeness
lemmiwinks

Post by lemmiwinks »

Sharkey wrote:The rest of them deserve a ride on a truck fender for their rudeness
Errm, I'm not going to get involved in this debate any further since any of the generalizations about cyclists can be applied to any other road user, but I'm sure glad that we're using the roads on different continents. I'm sure my wife is pleased when I come home from my daily commute rather than scoring a ride to the hospital or mortuary on a truck fender.
AccordGuy
Posts: 144
Joined: Tue Jul 01, 2008 11:47 am
Location: West Sussex, UK
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Post by AccordGuy »

We went to London at the weekend and just walking in Soho we were almost run over by a guy pedalling one of those tricycle rickshaws that have sprouted up as unlicensed taxis in town. They have no license, no insurance and charge people money to ferry around town centre. He ran a red light and we were almost knocked down while crossing the road on a green man signal. As he sped off, I yelled at him "Yo! Red light!" and he ignored me and carried on.
c5aliveKarl wrote:Maximum motor continuously rated output, 200 or 250 Watts, depending on vehicle configuration
Hey, we should team up! I've got some solar panels that are rated at 340W... You could get all the way to Brighton on no batteries on a sunny day!
lemmiwinks

Post by lemmiwinks »

AccordGuy wrote:We went to London at the weekend and just walking in Soho we were almost run over by a guy pedalling one of those tricycle rickshaws that have sprouted up as unlicensed taxis in town. They have no license, no insurance and charge people money to ferry around town centre. He ran a red light and we were almost knocked down while crossing the road on a green man signal. As he sped off, I yelled at him "Yo! Red light!" and he ignored me and carried on.
<insert>

People are jerks and break the law, and you're surprised because? :roll:
lemmiwinks

Post by lemmiwinks »

AccordGuy wrote:We went to London at the weekend and just walking in Soho we were almost run over by a guy pedalling one of those tricycle rickshaws that have sprouted up as unlicensed taxis in town. They have no license, no insurance and charge people money to ferry around town centre. He ran a red light and we were almost knocked down while crossing the road on a green man signal. As he sped off, I yelled at him "Yo! Red light!" and he ignored me and carried on.
[insert endless stories of cars and trucks running red lights here]

People are jerks and break the law, and you're surprised because? :roll:
jayel

Sinclair C5s

Post by jayel »

If Karl had looked at the technics of the C5 a bit deeper, he would have had better results on the Brighton run.

More (accurate) technical info can be found on other sites including www.yourc5.com

Jay
c5aliveKarl

Re: Sinclair C5s

Post by c5aliveKarl »

jayel wrote:If Karl had looked at the technics of the C5 a bit deeper, he would have had better results on the Brighton run.

More (accurate) technical info can be found on other sites including www.yourc5.com

Jay
...what a load of twaddle Jay ,the other forum you mention wasn't even around when we did the London-Brighton run - and it certainly isn't "more accurate" . I fail to see how "deeper technics" would have helped :D .

Nope, perfectly happy with the info I've supplied , as I've quoted from Roy Woodwards respected site and personal experience based on real world usage.

Out of respect for Sharkey I'll stop short of commenting any further on the forum you mention,since this isn't the place to respond to your baiting.
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