Before Tesla... 1960s/70s Electric Cars (EVs Part 1)
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- Опубликовано: 15 авг 2019
- You might not think it, but the 60s and 70s were a hot bed of innovation in electric car design. Environmental and political events collided that got people questioning our reliance on the internal combustion engine and thinking about alternatives. So why was so much effort put into electric cars when so few people bought them, and how close did we come to perfecting hybrid and EV technology?
Part 1 (1960's to 1970s): • Before Tesla... 1960s/...
Part 2 (1980s): • Before Tesla... 1980s ...
Part 3 (90s and GM EV1): • When GM was ahead of t...
Part 4 (Tesla Roadster): • The Tesla Roadster Story
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#Amitron #Electrovair #Electrovette 
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The Electrovair may be one of the best looking electric cars ever. Side note: it was the second generation Corvair, with improved,, safe suspension. They had amazing handling and interior packaging
And they look beautiful as well. Like something Italian.
Steve, the first generation Corvair had dangerous swing axles; the second generation, in the prettier body style pictured, had much more stable semi trailing arms, and amazing handling.
40 years of Beetles and 55 years of Porsche 911s would disagree.
@Steve Terry 911 Never forget.
I read that Ralph Nader was proven wrong.
Everyone says the first gen. Mercedes A Class looked like a cheese wedge.But when i saw the CitiCar,boy thats the closest we've come to a car that looked like a cheese wedge.
The car in the thumbnail is the ancestor of CyberTruck
Woah
We all knew it: Tesla is just copying already made stuff xD
The car in the thumbnail was probably built better than the Cybertruck
Cyber truck mini
Or rather the AM Bulldog
Isn’t it strange how when a car becomes electric the body style turns into something gnarly?
Most of the time, this is done to increase aerodynamics, and therefore, range. Any modern petrol vehicle is now doing this as well. A honda civic of 1979 looks NOTHING like a honda civic of 2019.
@InfiniteMushroom LOL! I did say "most of the time". But, your comment is awesome!
That Electron looks very sweet, also Renault Tweezy, it is just absurd to make changes on the engine but keep the concept as it is, especially back then when batteries didn't last for long they needed to make it all efficient, nowadays Tesla and the whole E-Hype is just another money printing machine, it's a joke, they sell some basic e-drive with a huge magic mirror in the dashbaord and people think the future is now here, but at least one ton of unnecessary sheetmetal and plastic, five seats while cars are used by 1.1 persons on avarage. I would love to see something like the Electron in modern design, even if it really looks nice like it is, but with modern motors and batteries, the problem is that there are too much too big too fast cars on the road, so a safety issue, we should slow down and relax, acceleration is the best anyways and electric motors can do that best.
It's more a matter of not having the artists designing the body of the car hence simple bodies were chosen. Visual appeal was simply not the priority in their development.
Richard Vaughn “people refuse to buy ugly cars?” Well that’s a flat out lie. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had the unfortunate luck of having to look at people driving the Nissan Puke (Juke), Nissan Pube (Cube), and the Nissan Queef (Leaf). Many times I want to look away, but when they’re directly on front of you, you have no choice. Thankfully Nissan finally killed off the Pube in 2014, but people were buying them new for 5 years, 11 years in Japan. And don’t get me started on Scion! Only vehicle worthy to look at was the FRS.
I've looked through tons of 60s and 70s concept cars, and man there were some gorgeous futuristic looking cars even by today standards.
unfortunately i can't send any money to supporting but i enjoy to see your clips you are best youtuber i ever seen , very polite with a little sense of humor but you are not pretending or screaming to add subscribers and i enjoying every seconds of your clips
I thought I knew the history of the electric car pretty well. I was wrong. I have never heard of many of these attempts. Thank you for a brilliant video.
Hello i am the Goulandris Enfield electric car junior engineer from 1973!
@Chris Henry Ford bought his wife an Electric Car. Not many people would have expected a woman to use a starting handle. My late Father once broke his wrist using one.
It would be really interesting to retrofit such a vintage EV with a Lithium Ion battery and a modern electric motor with a inverter.
Lithium Ion batteries are exactly what was missing in the 70s, lightweight batteries with a lot of cycles and now they are increasingly getting cheaper.
how much does the lithium battery weigh?
@@robinsss it's around 250 to 300 Wh per kg, on cell level. The whole system as a pack with liquid cooling will be heavier, of course.
Compared with other battery types, they are much lighter than NIMH for example.
what does Wh mean?
@@robinsss Wh means Watt hours, 1000 Watt hours are one kilowatt hour.
A higher number is in this case better, and means a battery is lighter at the same capacity, compared to one with a lower number.
Li Ion batteries are the lightest batteries which are on market at the moment, compared to their capacity.
ok : HOW MUCH DO THEY WEIGH?…………….…………………………….IN POUNDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Actually we had electric car long before petrol.
True! The electric car was squashed by the oil companies from the very start.. I don't know how brilliant they would be about getting away from nickel batteries.. But then again, they were very creative, and had more time then we ever will to do stuff. (Life was slower back then.)
Benz created the first comercial internal combustion engine driven automobile in 1885
@@georgegates526 The evil oil companies weren't responsible for the garbage energy density of lead acid batteries that made them impractical for anything other than a glorified golf cart.
@@georgegates526 They weren't getting "squashed" by oil companies back then, Oil companies were nowhere as powerful as they are now. They got pushed out of competition because they sucked at the time. However in the early 2000s, they sure were getting squashed by oil companies
Right
FYI - The prius began with NiMH batteries, not lithium. i.e. nickel metal hydride batteries - which were a big battery breakthrough, and somehow didn't get a mention in this video.
I drove a Roberts 1895 on its 100th birthday (and on my 13th birthday), though it was better described as an electirc horseless carriage. The glass tank of acid had been replaced with 6 car batteries, thankfully, especially when you realise the tank was also the bench you sit on. Also it didn't have a steering wheel but a front mounted 'rudder arm' like you get on a boat, lol. She was a wonderful thing!
14:18 Now I finally know where they got the Johnny Cab in Total Recall 1990.
1970 thru 1989, Jet Industries, Houston, Texas. They bought "gliders" from Ford and Chrysler, to convert them to all electric power. I still own a converted 1982 Escort. It uses a 25HP Prestolite motor and 18-6 volt golf cart batteries plus one 12 volt battery for lights. It uses a 4 speed transaxle with a clutch.
Nice overview of EV tech back in the day. The culmination to the amazing yet short-lived GM EV1.
Literally 5 decades of cars that exactly 0 normal consumers would look at and NOT ask "Is this a joke?"
Really makes you appreciate how important Honda, Toyota, and ultimately Tesla were in changing not just technology but public perception.
EVs still look retarded tho..
The henney kilowatt looks reasonable. Given that it's just a normal car with a drivetrain swap
I've just binged watched all your videos, fantastic format, calm and relaxing to listen to. I can see this channel exploding if it carries on the way it is now (here at 9,832 subscribers)
What an absolute phenomenal gem of a YT channel!!!!! Thank you for this great content. Your videos are well researched, high quality works of art!
Thank you for such kind words!
Completely correct. While the GM EV-1 worked, it was essentially a rolling battery pack on wheels, given the large number of nickel metal hydride battery packs need just to get around 110 km (68 miles) of range. It's only in the last seven years that lithium-ion battery technology finally caught up, and now electric cars can go around 500 km (310 miles) or more per full charge.
I would love to see a whole video on GM's EV1
I'm working on a follow-up video on the 80's & 90's, so that will be in there.
@@BigCar2 fantastic. Did you have a previous channel? I can't believe how polished and we'll researched your videos are.
Nope. There was another channel I had that RUclips stopped me accessing. But it had the same content that's on this channel. The Austin Metro was the first video I made.
Will this include the Hy-Wire?
@@aston-martin-internationalist It'll probably only focus on battery EVs, but I'm making notes on fuel cell, turbine & even nuclear concepts so I can do videos on those in the future. I've made a note of the Hy-Wire.
That was a fantastic history of EVs. Thanks for your efforts and knowledge.
Tesla Cybertruck looks like AMC Amitron 50 years later ;)
But people now says its do modern and innovating idea... o dear teens...
The AMC Amitron looks like the Reliant Bond Bug three wheeler.
This comment made my day)))
@@axe22rus red flags should go off in your heads when the narrator says
that the Amitron battery pack weighed 180 lbs when the current Chevy Bolt battery weighs 500 lbs
something is not right
@@robinsss agree... Something wrong. I'm the owner of MMC i-MiEV, and 16 kW battery weighs almost 240 kilograms, it's about 500 lbs/ And it's lithium, but Amitron had lead acid battery
Now I wish I could get an electric car that is just a car. I don't need a fancy infotainment display, or other such features that only raise the cost and deplete the batteries faster.
Have you considered one of the many used EVs that are now available?
@@usaverageguy I have considered that, but even a used EVs has more features than I care for. However my next car probably will be a used EV; or I might convert my old car to electric.
@@wyndhamcoffman8961 today also new ICE have this infotainment stuff, there is hardly a new car now without a touchscreen.
Wyndham Coffman I was planning to build an electric pickup. Parts (salvage) were over $15,000. I got a 2014 smart electric car for $5000. Easy fast fun. Feels like a beetle. Big inside, simple.
My 2015 LEAF is a basic model, has no infotainment display. Best car I've ever owned.
wow, that AMC Amitron, so far advanced and innovative, really mind-boggling that it is from the 1960s. and it's even great looking, I'd consider one today !
Their electrical designs were well ahead of the times. It's almost a shame that if battery costs would have been lower this car could have saved AMC.
@@SlowHippie yes indeed ! it was very advanced and appears to even make some of the contemporary designs of today look dull in comparison. I've always liked AMC, they produced a number of great vehicles throughout their existence and always were a very forward thinking company that was happy to engineer and experiment with new things and concepts.
you see, since we are talking. about it, these days the all new mid engine Corvette C8 is making waves all over the world and is the talk of the performance and sportscar world, and in the. 1960s AMC already had far advanced plans to produce an American mid engine v8 powered high performance sportscar. the protoypes look amazing, see AMC AMX II & AMX III.
enthusiast greetings !
MY BROTHER has a rambler amx 69 model. AMC were very advanced in that time. They also gave ford and chev hell at nascar with a 290 cubic inch engine! Love AMC!
Two more cars - the electric AMC Pacer: www.amcpacer.com/stories/electric-pacer.asp
And the Brazilian Gurgel Itaipu: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurgel_Itaipu
Thanks for letting me know about them!
And gremlin (there were a few electric fitted models made by a university or something curiously (if you actually already put it I'm then I will remove this after this video)
I had the 78 pacer wagon as my first car. Loved all the roominess. With a 22 gallon tank it would go along time on a fill up.
Ford Capri-Sun
Ford's new Solar powered Capri
"big cars" :D
Ford Berliner, 1971, very important in the imagination of germans future, but never sold asmuch I know.
I had a ride in a Bedford CF Electric van in the very early 80's.
Hi! i had the chance to drive one for a week in the 80s and loved it, the shock on other driver's faces when you pulled away from traffic light up to 50mph. they were very fast pulling away and that was in my home town of Leicester.
The Honda Insight is what actually broke the market open for hybrid & electric vehicles. The original Insight also got far better range than the Prius, with a huge epa estimate of 49/61 mpg.
That was fascinating, great upload, thanks very much!
That opening music bed... Made me wiggle around on the floor.
Amazing history lesson, thanks!
"Watt"..a brililant dose of info about electro cars. Truly electrifying :)
Shocking
@@rcggm I'd say this is currently the best info available on the topic.
Is it just me or does someone also remember that in 70s/80s there was electric vans around? I'm sure I remember my Dad driving one the size of a 3 ton van and people looking at it because of the absence of an engine running.
Harrod's department store definitely used them. More like the milk floats though.
I have a Sinclair C5, but with twice the power and li-ion battery. Its twice as fast and the range is 10x and 30kg lighter. It was too early for its day, now its perfect.
When I was growing up there was a coworker of my Dad who had the bottom left car. I believe it was like 40 miles range but I really do not remember. He dove it to work everyday for years. Hardee county Fl was where we lived.
Not that it matters but after talking to my sister I have learned it was the bottom right car
Thank you for a very comprehensive survey of the early electric cars! Very interesting!
Wow, all of early electric cars packaged into one video. Hats off!
Tesla should put "the tech that won 1898 land speed record" on adverts
I seem to remember that actor Lloyd Bridges bought a production-version of an electrified Chevelle sedan in the 1973-1977 design generation.
There were also a lot of DIY electric cars in the 70's, some of which were very innovative such as the Urba-Electric which used a continuously variable transmission to adjust the speed of the vehicle. The accelerator would operate a stepper motor which adjusted the gear ratio of the transmission, this effectively allowed regenerative braking without any additional electronics.
It should be noted that the Toyota Prius was first introduced with Nickle Metal Hydride batteries, this is because Lithium Ion batteries come in a variety of formulations with the more energy dense formulations also being more dangerous and if you select the safest formulation just in case of car accidents, Lithium Ion batteries would have no more energy density than Nickle Metal Hydride batteries which were available commercially in standard sizes hence the early Prius used D-cell or rather sub-D-cell batteries ( sub indicates no hump on the positive end as they would be soldered in rather than held in a contact battery holder with springs ).
Wow, amazing how much of the Amatron styling went into the AMC Gremlin!
I was thinking pacer but yeah you can definitely see the resemblance
You are giving me such joy with these videos, I can not express it with words. I love everything to do with the Golden Age America, and the 60s vehicles are the epitome of it!
An business in Toronto tried to revive the Henney Kilowatt back around 2000 and got a lot of press for it but couldn't really get people to buy them despite their affordable $20K CAD price tag. To me? That's still a great idea. The styling is fantastic!
I think things would have gone very much differently if the lithium battery had been invented around the same time as the lead acid battery. Lead acid just was not made for EVs.
Imagine where we would be if gas company’s didn’t kill off electric cars
It is complicated. I'm not sure we can predict how advances in battery technology would have happened even if manufacturers supported electric cars. The issue with electric cars is really one of waiting for batteries to improve.
Oil companies didn't kill the electric car. Reciprocal rotating piston engines improved and outclassed electric cars.
A little fact most people don't know is that not only did Ford make cars affordable to the average person. Due to the metallurgy, new technology, and manufacturing methods of the time, cars were notoriously unreliable. So to sweeten the deal every new model T came with spare parts and a tool kit. Also this is where Chevrolet got their start by making overhead valve conversion kits for the model T doubling the horsepower and improving reliability.
Electric cars will have their day when battery technology catches up. I think by then, however, something else will be close to replacing petroleum as a fuel source or a new method of propulsion could be invented. Or we could go into a dark age, regress, and have this very topic pop back up 800-1000 years in the future. Only time will tell.
@@rvndmnmt1 hard to imagine a time when chevy cared about reliability.
Take a better look at 15:55 and 16:27 , Cybertruck is what was expected from a future electric car to look like and is so heart warmingly retro.
MrZaphaell Electrovair is very beautiful top.
Great videos! Thank you for posting.
GREAT REPORT... THANK YOU FOR SHARING
Finally batteries have become good enough.
Steve Terry what they use for moon lander
Jay H I think fuel cells?
800 kg of li-ion batteries gives the same range as 50 kg of hydrocarbons. Not good enough.
@@DobroPlayer12 But you cannot reuse hydrocarbons. You can reuse a battery a thousand times then recycle it at the end into new batteries.
@@pioneer7777777 No shit, this totally escapes people. You also only need 1/3 as much energy in battery storage because the electric motor only needs that much to produce the same power for the same time--it's much more efficient.
I would still love to see Amitron design in a new car. Looks awesome.
We need to bring some of these cars back into production.
Great video. Just loved it!
We need to bring the 1909 Baker Electric Car back into production.
A masterpiece of this video! Respect!
6:54 you have to pause that image and really appreciate it.
Great video!
Batteries are everything. The better they get, the better vehicles we'll see.
@NPC# 8675309 You can't beat physics.
No matter how good the engine is or how streamlined the shape is, it can't go over a certain energy conversion efficiency, and tesla's cars are already very close to that max.
Only better energy STORAGE will do it, which means, next generation batteries.
@NPC# 8675309 So you had to take out the "you are ignorant" fallacy card. I'm done here. Troll somebody else.
7:27 early hybrid! 8:30 modified golf carts 9:15 NASA LRV 14:18 first USPS EV? 14:39 352 AMC Electruck DJ-5E for USPS
Thank you for making this video.
Now I have a Chevy Bolt- I've gotten 258 miles and it out paces most "hot hatches".
Crazy the AMC was so close to today's tech, it was just too early as lithium was so expensive.
No, it outpaces them until you get to about 30mph then they will take you over in a heartbeat lol.
@@kris-wj3wj Nah, the Bolt will run away till about 60mph, GTI, Abarth, FiST all get smoked at a stop to a 1/8 mile, highway pulls are where the Bolt is less impressive, but still capable since it never needs to shift.
Very interesting, and good video!
You might not believe this, but electric cars were popular back in the 1900s. I drove Mrs. Henry Ford's electric. What really killed them was the invention of the electric starter for gasoline cars!
These vehicles were certainly "ahead of their time". But the mass market wasnt ready for them and the technology definitley had its limitations. Now, looking back with perfect 20/20 hindsight, the people who inflict sociology on us would call that era a "False Dawn".
I seen a Citicar out in the wild about 3 months ago in the next city over from me. A father and son were driving it, and I had to yell out nice ride since I knew what it was.
Thanks for the education on electric cars. If you had enough material, you could have made a great TV show on it. A lot of the car designs were really futuristic. The engineers seemed to have a concept of Laminar flow (Decides wind resistance.) on a lot of the designs that you showed us.
I am willing to accept anyone disagreeing with me but I think the AMC Amitron is just gorgeous design work. They did some really bold stuff back then. I've had the delight to spend time with a number of pacers and they were wonderful to ride in. Take that opinion for what it's worth from an admitted AMC fan. Back to my cave I go.
Great video thanks!
14:07 that 'city car' thing really looks like the Pyramid Head from Silent Hill
You forgot to mention Gurgel Itaipu, the first Brazilian electric car. It was similar to the CitiCar, and launched in the same year as it (1974).
Another excellent video. Get to 10,000 subscribers as soon as you can and make 80's hot hatches a feature at some point! Well done!
Thanks. And we've hit 10k subs (again)! Thanks to everyone for supporting me!
Great video - Cheers mate!
Jonny's Flux Capacitor. I love it.
Very interesting.
📻🙂
I want most of them. The older ones are so cool looking and my size, I'm 5'4".
Very good Englishmen thank you for electric knowledge
Excellent video. Probably the definitive guide to electric vehicles. Keep up the good work.
Love the videos would you ever do a video on the mg f
Yes - that will happen at some point.
Thanks for this. There were also electric variants of some UK Invalid cars - made by companies like Harding, Argson, AC etc.
invalid?
@@robinsss cars for the disabled
Drove a Tesla Model S100D, and it is impressive but also expensive.
My next car might be a used BMW i3 + Rex.
In the US, used Nissan Leaf's are a great deal.
@@BigCar2 Yes but their batteries have no liquid cooling, so they degrade especially quickly. The i3 has liquid cooled batteries as do almost all other modern EVs
Did you look at the Model 3? It's really not that small on the inside and it drives incredibly well.
Mike Hydropneumatic ... if the government Invest some money / why are so expensive e-cars ?
The vw golf mk 1, mk2 and mk3 had also an electric version :)
There's also a Japanese 40s unknown electric car called the Tama Electric Car.
We are still waiting for the ideal electric car. Until they can cover two hundred miles at motorway speed with the heater and lights on, they will not replace the conventional ice, Further, though mechanically they should last much longer , they will become worthless when say six years old due to the high cost of replacement batteries. I wish I could be more positive but this is reality as I see it.
You forgot refueling at a speed of close to 10,000 mph (compared to a recharging speed of 250 mph at best).
My tesla s does all of that very nicely, thanks.
Ummm yeah not sure where you got some of those figures. EV batteries last longer than six years and a lot EVs on the market have that much range or more.
My Hyundai Kona can do 200 miles (322km) at motorway speed with the heater and lights on and its battery is very likely to last much longer than 6 years. Even the battery in the car I converted in 2009 was still working well when I sold it in 2018.
My father bought one of the Enfields in the 70s, it was a great short-range alternative but obviously suffered from battery tech......however it was hardly any worse than the Leaf which came 40 years later....
ou're best, man! i cant wait for next clips
As always a fantastic video with a brilliant informative story in great detail , loved it.
Very interesting to see how electric cars were the rage at one point and now we seem to be going back to a new rage age of electric, with tesla leading the way, making attractive and sexy electric cars, with a price tag to go with it.
Thank you big car keep the videos coming love it
1:10 the 1959 Henney Kilowatt electric car!
Love the little yellow car at 7:07
My grandmother owned one of those 4444 City Cars. It was red. She also had solar heating and a incinerator toilet and sauna in her house.
I sometimes wonder if the oil embargo of the early seventies had lasted longer, if the US and other countries would have fast-tracked electric vehicles. Makes me wonder.
Honestly, the full size cars from the 50s and 60s looked less alienating than the ones of today. And the tech specs weren't too bad either compared to range and costs today.
Wow. The most complete picture I've seen to date with many entries I didn't know about. Well done!
Love this video.😁! I want to convert my Toyota hilux Australian version of Tacoma with electric and i found a 450 ft/lb motor. Problem is that the batteries would cost more than the electric motor setup (complete conversion )!
Yes. The battery is always the most expensive bit of a conversion.
Well done. A very good research on vehicles i was not aware. For the German spoken countries there was the race/competition with the 'Tour de Sol' in Switzerland. I think this was in the 1990s. One famous car brand who took place was Horlacher.
Also I was told the electric bike was initially invented from a swiss person going home, up the hill for lunch.
In Germany the Hotzenblitz got very famous. (Maybe there is a part 3 where you can add it with the EV1). Again, thank you.
Very good video mate, very well researched, I enjoyed watching it and so great that there is no silly background music or immature sound effects that are so common in videos like this, especially ones made by Americans.
very good informative video indeed!
all that said about the limitations associated with the design and execution of full-electric 'engines' however, if it weren't for oil cartels hating the entire idea at its very roots for obvious reasons, given enough R&D is done on the development of smaller lighter yet more powerful batteries, fully electric vehicles (even at the airplane sizes!) is quite achievable ...
lol bullshit
I still have a brochure for a Texas-made electric car called the EXAR-1. I remember getting it back in the late 1970s, but I don't know what years it was around.
The Amitron and Electron are super cool. So are those teeny little dune buggy looking cars. Quirky cars always catch my attention. Like the bubble cars or futuristic looking sci-fi cars. The best vehicle for taming the landscape of course is the Land Master frp, the movie Damnation Alley. Watertight, flexible mid section, tri-wheel drive train, boat feature, rear access ramp and a watertight top hatch for boat mode. Plus it looks so cool.
I'm amazed how you've found all that footage. What resources do you use?
Bing!
I want to have a hybrid electric with a steam engine driving a generator with a high pressure tank to store compressed air-you can used the compressed are to power a turbine engine when the steam engine isn't needed..then you have a car thet puffs, hums, and swishes!
I've never heard of most of these, except the City Car, which people still use in Florida in towns that only allow golf carts.
Thank you for showing the gorgeous 1974 Imperial LeBaron, a car that used a more powerful motor to simply lift a window than most of those electric vehicles used for propulsion!
Witcar, haven't heard that in ages, let alone mentioned by somebody non-Dutch, haha! Thanks for the mention of the concept (and all the others of course)