Sinclair C5: the history of Sir Clive Sinclair’s electric car

The Sinclair C5 arrived in 1985 with a level of accompanying hype that would definitely have pleased a then fourteen-year-old Elon Musk, but this brainchild of one of Britain’s a lot of popular tech entrepreneurs crashed spectacularly soon after launch.
Sir Clive, whose death at the age of 81 was announced on 16 Sept 2021, was lauded in the 1980s as the innovator of the first pocket calculator and the ground-breaking ZX81 and ZX Spectrum home computers. The tech tycoon had a deep interest in electric transport and founded Sinclair automobiles in 1983 on the back of his earlier commercial successes.

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The company’s first and only production automobile was the Sinclair C5, an innovative three-wheeler with a polypropylene body created by Lotus, manufactured at the Hoover washing maker factory in Merthyr Tidfil. The C5 was launched with great fanfare in January 1985 in London – and the project went downhill from there.
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Powered by a 12-volt lead acid battery, the C5 had a claimed range of 20 miles – enough to cover lots of people’s commutes to work – but it could only travel at 15mph. It’s other downsides were a lack of any form of weatherproofing, while the C5’s low build and recumbent driving position left motorists feeling exposed and prone in traffic.