Could a 2015 Sinclair C5 type vehicle actually deliver?

[GrumpyGregry]

The Sinclair C5 three-wheeler from 1985 has been voted the greatest innovation disaster of all time in some poll.

Has the tech involved, batteries, motors, electronics, etc., moved on enough in the intervening 30 years such that a C5 type vehicle could be a go-er today. If not, what's missing and why?

 

[Davidc]

I think most of the bits were from other products, and the motor was from a washing machine or similar. I'd expect similar bits to be around now.

I'd guess the biggest improvements now would be in control electronics, and most importantly batteries.

I can't see that the C5 is much different from the electric bikes and scooters on sale now, just a recumbent version of them with a partial cover.

There's clearly a market for the bikes and scooters, there's a shop in Taunton sells both and it seems to have people there when I go past, so perhaps Sinclair was ahead of his time.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

Surely tinned beer is the biggest innovation disaster ever.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Surely tinned beer is the biggest innovation disaster ever.

tinned beer preferable to no beer at all.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

tinned beer preferable to no beer at all.

How could a chap be careless enough to get himself into a situation where beer is unavailable in bottles or on draught.

 

[green1]

tinned beer preferable to no beer at all.

Debatable.

 

[Arch]

The Sinclair C5 three-wheeler from 1985 has been voted the greatest innovation disaster of all time in some poll.

Has the tech involved, batteries, motors, electronics, etc., moved on enough in the intervening 30 years such that a C5 type vehicle could be a go-er today. If not, what's missing and why?

Members of the general purchasing public with the imagination and 'courage' to buy one.

Bearing in mind the scorn recumbent riders and E-bike riders get from many 'conventional' cyclists, what chance of the non-cycling public ever seeing it as anything but a joke?

Yes, of course, it could be a cracking product now. But it only takes a couple of scornful journalists banging on about how terribly dangerous it must be, and you've turned off a vast majority of potential purchasers. Most people really don't like to do anything 'different'.

 

[Davidc]

tinned beer preferable to no beer at all.

Definitely, and sometimes more convenient than bottles.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

Definitely, and sometimes more convenient than bottles.

As Mort would say...

 

[Davidc]

Members of the general purchasing public with the imagination and 'courage' to buy one.

Bearing in mind the scorn recumbent riders and E-bike riders get from many 'conventional' cyclists, what chance of the non-cycling public ever seeing it as anything but a joke?

Yes, of course, it could be a cracking product now. But it only takes a couple of scornful journalists banging on about how terribly dangerous it must be, and you've turned off a vast majority of potential purchasers. Most people really don't like to do anything 'different'.

Is that with or without the C5 helmet?

(Ducks to avoid several thousand carefully aimed CC missiles)

 

[Shortmember]

Here's the clockwork motor powered sports version that Clive Sinclair considered to be too cutting edge and innovative for the British public to accept, and production ceased after only one had been Sellotaped together at the Hoover factory in Merthyr Tydfil .

 

[threebikesmcginty]

Here's the clockwork motor powered sports version that Clive Sinclair considered to be too cutting edge and innovative for the British public to accept, and production ceased after only one had been Sellotaped together at the Hoover factory in Merthyr Tydfil .

It sucks!

 

[GrumpyGregry]

How could a chap be careless enough to get himself into a situation where beer is unavailable in bottles or on draught.

Having, in the company of others, drunk the house dry of alternatives?

 

[ComedyPilot]

Why try and solve something that cannot be beaten/bettered? - the humble bicycle.....

 

[bikepete]

Sir Clive was due to launch one in 2011, but it doesn't seem to have made it to production:

http://www.sinclairzx.com/spec-x-1.html