Since there’s a growing buzz on both the upcoming Geneva Motor Show in recent days and green cars in recent years, here’s an eco-friendly urban blast from the past that will show you how the electric alternative is solid-rooted way back in the automotive history.
Just in case you got it wrong, the recently amplified green movement in the automotive industry is not just a hipsteresque trend that will eventually fade away, as some might want. Carmakers were keen on exploiting the electric potential on their models and since the Geneva Motor Show is coming at a fast pace, here’s what Ford of Britain had to say about EVs in 1967, years after Henry Ford and Thomas Edison worked on an EV in 1913.
This little electric bug was named Comuta, a pretty suggestive choice if you ask me, and made its debut at the 1967 Geneva Motor Show. The tiny experimental electric vehicle was designed by Ford in the 1960s and was similar in size to the Peel P50 three-wheeled microcar, declared the world’s smallest automobile in the 2010 Guinness Book of Records. In fact, at 6 feet, 8 inches long, the Comuta was less than half the length of a contemporary Mustang.
What made the Comuta even more special were its 12-volt 85-amp batteries that offered a maximum range of 37 miles (40 kilometers) at a speed of about 25 mph (40 km/g) when fully charged. However, this pocket EV was able of reaching a top speed of 37 mph (60 km/h) and it never received more than a handful of examples, as Ford was only focused on experimenting at that time.
Nevertheless, as Wired reports, Sir Leonard Crossland, who was at that time managing director and later on became general chairman at Ford, made a prediction by saying that “similar cars would hit the road by the mid-1970s” and expecting “electric cars to be commercially feasible within the next 10 years, although we believe their uses will be primarily as city-center delivery vans and suburban shopping cars.”
Wait, was he a fortune teller? We think not, but 43 years ago, the Comuta could seat two adults and two children as the concept’s rear wheels were put into motion by dual DC electric motors that delivered 5 HP. Now, do you still think the green car movement was born after yesterday’s rain?
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