00:00It's an electric, electrically assisted pedal tricycle, I think.
00:05What's interesting about it is that although it was a terrible failure
00:09in commercial terms in its own time, I mean, the company had gone bust
00:14in the year it launched it, I think it was actually ahead of its time
00:17in many ways, because I think Sinclair anticipated something
00:21that is very, very fashionable now, which is the electrically assisted
00:24pedal bicycle, which is sort of beginning to revolutionize cycling.
00:29I think the problem for him was that he got the format wrong.
00:31He tried to turn it into, yes, effectively a little, almost pedal car
00:36instead of realizing that the technology should really be applied to a bicycle.
00:40I think his thinking and his vision was fantastic.
00:44Low cost, modest performing,
00:47electrically driven urban transport for one person and a bit of luggage.
00:53He just, as I say, he got the format slightly wrong,
00:56but his vision was spot on.
00:58The EV was a was in a rather sad place in the 80s,
01:02because again, because of the battery tech and so on,
01:04and people just looked down on them as as inferior.
01:08And the car was very much king back then.
01:10I remember everybody was coveting, you know, a hot hatchback
01:13and what have you in 1985.
01:16So I'm not sure that it's that we can really hold the C5
01:20responsible for our current enthusiasm for electric cars.
01:23But I think it did show,
01:26although maybe nobody realized it at the time, that the very simple,
01:29electrically assisted personal transport would be a thing
01:34and was a good idea.
01:35And indeed, we're seeing it now in cities with things like, you know,
01:38delivery cargo bikes with electric assistance.
01:41That's that's basically the technology of a C5, but in a bicycle.
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