British electronic wizard’s car of the 1980s

Press, 6 July 1983, Page 13

British electronic wizard’s car of the 1980s

By

COLIN SIMPSON,

, “Sunday Times,” London

This is the kind of car Sir Clive Sinclair, Britain’s newly-knighted electronics wizard, thinks we will be driving in towns in the late 1980 s. The drawing, based on prototype designs commissioned by Sinclair last year, is the first to be published. It shows a small, light, highly manoeuvrable electric car. Sinclair claims to have come up with the technical breakthroughs that make it not just feasible but a world-beater.

He believes it could run all day without having to be recharged; it would dispense with cumbersome and weighty batteries; and it would be cheap. One price being bandied about was $3500.

There is, inevitably, some scepticism among motor manufacturers who have been working on similar projects for years without success. Ford has had design studies made, General Motors have built a dozen “concept” vehicles, and the Japanese have been testing prototypes for the past three years. In each case technical problems have ruled out the projects as commercially impractical. Even so, Sinclair’s track-record is impressive. His micro-com-puters, calculators and, more recently, the flat-screen television have all combined inventiveness with low prices. The secrets of his research on the "Sinclairmobile,” as it is being called, have remained closely-guarded, but enough has leaked out to suggest that at least he is on the right tracks. Sinclair says he is prepared to invest $3O million of his own money — raised from the sale of 10 per cent of his shares in Sinclair Research - to fund the project. Almost certainly, if the idea comes off, Sinclair would go into production with one of the big car

manufacturers. The production line might well be in a factory on the Continent rather than Britain. That all depends on whether Sinclair has beaten his rivals to the punch. Hitherto, electric vehicles such as the familiar milk-float or forklift truck have been powered by “traction” batteries too expensive and cumbersome for a small commuter car.

Sinclair posed the question: “Why do batteries have to be their customary shape, and why do the casings have to be so heavy?” He handed the problem to Dr Geoffrey May of Tungstone, Ltd, a subsidiary of the Hawker-Siddeley Group. Working closely with the American Yardley Corporation, Tungstone has produced a battery which can be almost any shape, and which could form an integral part of the vehicle’s structure, Such as a body pillar, roll bar, or part of the chassis. The battery’s casing and supporting structure are made of a new plastic-based material used in the aerospace industry. Tungstone claims: “It is lighter and more cost-effective.”

The second problem was how to control or “manage” the transfer of power from battery to motor. Sinclair Research discovered that a battery’s life depends on its having steady discharge and charging cycles. Ideally the two should match, with a long gentle power

output and equally gentle recharge. A gentle output is not what you get in traffic. Stops, starts, and brisk acceleration drain a battery very quickly. Sinclair has developed what is called an “electronic battery management system,” based on microchip technology. Michael Mayer, of the Lead Development Association, explained it in simple terms: “You could call it an electronic carburettor that matches the engine power to the load,” he says. “Although there is no gearbox, the problem is still to smooth the load placed on the battery. The trick is to draw the load off slowly. It’s just like running upstairs; do it too fast and you have will a heart attack, but there is your own optimum speed at which you can get to the top without damage.” Sinclair is using a type of microchip called “choppers.” These break down the power demand into short sharp bursts, measured in milliseconds. Power is drawn for, say, one millisecond and then the battery rests for two. Then there is another millisecond burst and so on.

Sinclair’s achievement has been

to calculate a series of programmes for a wide variety of demands that might be put on the battery. The “choppers” reason for themselves such factors as the weight of the vehicle and whether or not it is on a slope or muddy ground and then, having calculated the amount of torque required, feed in the appropriate formula of millisecond bursts and rests.

Equally important to the speed and lightness of the car are the design of the body-shell, and the technical innovations inside it. Sinclair sponsored a degree course in automotive design and technology, arranged jointly by the Royal College of Art and Imperial College, which produced a string of ideas. The drawing above incorporates many of them. One of the graduates of the course, who has been snapped up by Sinclair, is a French-Canadian engineer, Guy Desbarats, who has been working on a digital steering system using a microprocessor to calculate the angle of turn, weight, speed, and so on. He claims that his scheme would dispense with steering wheels and the linkage required for traditional systems, which he calls “a load of heavy garbage.” Instead, there would be a small knob, wheel, or joystick to transmit the driver’s wishes to the microprocessor. To combat the inherent instability of most three-wheel cars, the body-unit would have a built-in tilt device which would adjust for cornering — again microchip-con-

Finally, Sinclair is believed to be enthusiastic about the “modular” approach to vehicle design: the idea is that a basic chassis can be designed to take different types of body style — a single-seater car, a family shopping car, a pick-up, or delivery van.

The result would be a car something like that above. It would travel about 80 miles without needing to be recharged. It would be almost silent, and, of course, pollu-tion-free.

Already a lot of money, apart from Sinclair’s own, has been poured into the project. “The Engineer” magazine reports that the new motor unit began life as the property of Sinclair Radionics in 1973; later the National Enterprise Board had to step in to help the company.

The early development work was done at Cambridge University, and now the new motor is being perfected at Exeter University. It has apparently cost $4.4 million to develop. The final piece of the jigsaw comes from the Lotus Group which pioneered new methods of building lightweight car bodies for the De Lorean factory. It even designed some of the immensely sophisticated machines and presses. Sinclair wanted both the technology and the machinery, and finally realised he could buy them direct from the bankrupt De Lorean operation. A lot is riding on Sinclair’s dream.