The development of the electric vehicle from a unique automotive concept to an increasingly dominant part of the car market has been a fascinating accomplishment, one credited to the entire supply chain from the suppliers of electronic raw materials to the final touches on the factory floor.

According to statistics from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, nearly a third (30.4 per cent) of all cars produced in the UK were electric cars, even amidst a transition period towards zero emissions vehicles.

There is a lot to celebrate about electric vehicles, including the remarkably high value they retain on the used car market, especially given that the modern era of the electric vehicle is only 15 years old.

Despite EVs being well over a century old as a concept, and the first practical full-sized electric car 28 years old at this point, it is still a relatively new industry primed for rapid growth and development.

This was not always the case, however, and one of the biggest reasons why this might be is due to a remarkably ambitious and innovative electric transportation solution whose failure was so public that it cast a shadow over the entire industry.

The Future Far Too Soon

The legacy of the late Sir Clive Sinclair (1940 – 2021) will be in his innovations in other fields of electronics, but what brought him success was not what he believed he should make.

Uncle Clive, as his supporters called him before he was knighted, designed the first affordable pocket calculator, as well as the first home computer available for the mass market, creating a huge computing and programming culture in Great Britain that still lingers to this day.

However, the three inventions he wanted to create most were all ambitious failures, from the Sinclair QL that was only ever widely used to run national bingo games.

There was also the TV80, a flatscreen miniature television released at the exact time LCD screens were becoming popular and thus sold very badly.

However, the most infamous and long-lasting failure was the Sinclair C5, because it nearly took down an entire industry with it.

Sir Clive sold shares in his company, Sinclair Research, to fund the creation of Sinclair Vehicles, a launchpad to an EV revolution in the mid-1980s, starting with a personal mobility vehicle designed to take advantage of a legal loophole.

At the time, electric vehicles that were under a certain size and weight could be pedal-operated and had a maximum speed of 15 miles per hour could be legally classified as electric bicycles or tricycles, allowing people over 14 to use one without a license.

Whilst the weight was affected by requiring lead-acid batteries more commonly used for car starter motors than entire powertrains, its Lotus-designed chassis and light polypropylene body gave it a range of 20 miles. 

This was not a lot, but it was intended as a hybrid between a bicycle and a city car.

It did not have a reverse gear, so performing a U-turn was a matter of getting out and moving it yourself, and was controlled by a set of handlebars located underneath the knees.

It was intended to be a start to an entire family of electric cars, including a C15 capable of reaching 85 mph. However, this initial vehicle was not subject to any market or industry research, both of which would be issues that crushed the C5’s changes in the market.

The biggest single mistake was the launch event, undertaken at Alexandra Palace, London on 10th January 1985. This was the middle of a particularly cold winter’s day and just about the worst time you could launch an EV due to the effects of temperature on the batteries.

It was a very good event at first, with models handing out press packs, a game believed to be C5 Clive given away along with a typical lineup of C5-themed merchandise.

The indoor part of the show, capped off by six C5s driven around the area, worked very well, even if it was unlikely to convince those already questioning the endeavour.

The problem was when the press tried out the C5. Several simply did not work, others broke within five yards due to the slopes on the roads around Alexandra Palace, and even racing driver Stirling Moss struggled to get it up a small hill.

This gave it a reputation for being unreliable and potentially even dangerous, even if it was described as fun to drive and very cheap at £399.

However, whilst it sold 5,000 units, that was not enough, and it spelled the end of Sinclair Vehicles, and the only remaining profitable part of the company was sold to Amstrad, leaving Sir Clive to continue to invent relatively anonymously until his death in 2021.

It hurt the perception of electric vehicles for years, and it took until the Toyota Prius hybrid and the Nissan Leaf for the C5 stigma to finally disappear.