I suspect that by now there is as much myth as fact swirling round the C- cars. Pity Bob Rice isn't here to give us his insider's perspective, though I seem to recall him dropping a few references here from time to time; you might be able to learn a little with diligent searching in the archives.
The more or less official story of the C-car is told in Barbara Taylor's book "The Lost Cord," but AFAIK it's out of print and now quite scarce. http://nogas.org/ev/Lost_Cord/Lost_Cord.html http://www.amazon.com/The-lost-cord-storytellers-electric/dp/1570742952 As the ad man says, "ask the man who owns one," and I did for a while in the late 1980s. By any objective standard it was a miserable car to drive. It was by far the loudest car I've ever owned, despite the lack of engine noise. It was cold in winter and hot in summer, with sliding windows that leaked when closed and barely let in any breeze when open. The defroster was fed from the motor blower; it dispensed air slightly above ambient temperature, scented with ozone and cooking gear oil that had leaked past the rear axle seal into the motor. Every hill required a running start. Even with essentially no current limit (only the resistance of the traction wiring), the 6hp motor was barely adequate for flat ground. Starting on a hill was an iffy proposition. When I did as the owner's manual suggested and stomped the pedal to the floor to climb hills, I burned out the motor's brush pigtails (by the time I smelled the hot phenolic, it was too late). Later I fitted a 350 amp transistor controller and a rare 8hp GE motor from the very last months of production. After that I didn't burn out any more brush pigtails, but I could no longer start at all on hills. :-( The suspension was similar to a 1950 truck's, with solid axles and leaf springs front and rear. The ride over potholes would loosen your teeth, and you never knew where you'd end up if you hit a bump while taking a turn or braking. The brakes were barely adequate for the car's ~40mph top speed and the car tended to swap ends under heavy braking. Although a Comuta-car with the bumper battery boxes supposedly passed an NHTSA bumper test, the C-car had essentially no crash protection. It had seatbelts, but they weren't of much use with the windshield a couple inches from your forehead. As recounted in The Lost Cord, part of what eventually killed the car, if not its drivers, was the NHTSA's tests showing that the steering column would impale the driver in a frontal collision. (That's why Beaumont used cable steering in the Tropica.) That top speed of ~40mph limits where you can go, just as with any NEV. Some of the routes you've used for years with your ICEV are no longer practical. You have to map out every trip so you can stick to city streets and stay off the 55mph intracity bypasses. This means you sometimes find yourself bouncing through some rough neighborhoods. The 1975 Consumer Reports test of the Citicar and Elcar is infamous. Read it here : http://www.evdl.org/docs/cr_ev.pdf Despite all that my Comuta-Car was a great introduction to EVs and a blast to drive. I commuted to work in it for a couple of years. One of the best parts was jumpstarting co-workers ICEVs with it in the winter. ;-) I'd drive it to chorus rehearsal and park in a parking deck so it could sip from the receptacles there. I only got unplugged once. (The previous owner told me she used to go drinking with it, charging it with a cord thrown out the window of the bar's women's restroom.) My other half Margaret would take her life in her hands in the passenger seat, and with her 75lb dog Bruzer stuffed into the space behind the seats, fogging up the back window with his panting, we'd jounce our way round town. Fun times. ;-) C-cars aren't hopeless. Improvements are possible and have been done. Front sway bars and bigger, stickier tires than the stock 600/12s or 135-13s help control. A resistance heater and defroster makes it much more tolerable in winter (at the expense of range). Higher voltage raises the top speed (but then the brake problems get more urgent). A transistor controller vastly improves driving quality, but don't use a feeble one the way I did - I'd suggest at least 600 amps. I think it'd be interesting to try one of these recent small AC drives in a C-car, though you'd have to provide an oil seal and shaft bearing for the golf car style rear axle. Converting to lithium batteries would lighten it even further (but then you'd want to change the spring rates). In the end I sold mine, after deciding that the amount of work and expense needed for improvements would be better spent on a fundamentally sounder and more driveable conversion EV. But those who enjoy a challenge might get a kick out of making the most of a C-car. David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA EVDL Administrator = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = EVDL Information: http://www.evdl.org/help/ = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Note: mail sent to "evpost" and "etpost" addresses will not reach me. 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