Anti-Electric
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Sir,
With reference to the letter of March’s corespondent, Mr. W. O. Nottage, regarding the battery electric vehicles his Association are going to make so readily available to us.
Mr. Nottage states that the Enfield 8000 commuter car which is shortly to go into production has a range of 50 miles and a speed of 40 m.p.h. What I would like Mr. Nottage to state is “the car has a range of 50 miles at 40 m.p.h.
I accept that the Enfield may travel 50 miles but at what speed? Is it 22 m.p.h. or 25 m.p.h.? It may be capable of 40 m.p.h. but not for 50 miles, I’m sure.
The Ford Motor Co. of America, in conjunction with other interested parties, claimed several years ago to have achieved, for the first time, the magic 100 m.p.h. with a battery electric car, which they called the “Lead Wedge”.
Only on deeper investigatien could one learn that the vehicle had been towed up to a speed of some 80 m.p.h. and then unleashed whereupon it staggered up to 100 m.p.h. and promptly expired after several hectic seconds.
Better things are electric Mr. Nottage. One I can think of is “light”, a little of which should be spread on the subject of battery electric vehicle performance. Your comments may satisfy the national dailies, Sir, but certainly not the readers of Motor Sport.
The continued use of ambiguous performance figures by publicity personnel can only bring irreparable harm and ridicule to an already struggling industry.
The electric vehicles used to deliver our daily pinta are very often tailor-made to suit the conditions, and the routes, which are surveyed to establish the gradients and number of stops, etc., are often tailored to suit the vehicle. The battery electric delivery vehicle has very little in common with normal commercial traffic and exists only by kind permission of the horse and cart.
I was interested to see that the Enfield car is now designated the 8000; in 1969 it was the Enfield 465 when, incidentally, it was again about to go into production. Perhaps the difference, 7,535, relates to the number of modifications required to get it to its present pre-production stage.
Llanfoist W. C. Lillow