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AMOC life member 7,341 posts John Purser AMOC life member 7,341 posts
John Purser
I saw the Sinclair C5 being ridden across the ground and subsequently got talking to the rider (driver?) Alex Getty, the photographer and part of the Getty family, whose Sir Paul Getty created Wormsley.
Sir Clive Sinclair was a regular visitor to the estate and a pair of C5s were gifts, used in childhood, stashed away and recently restored. Alex was amused at the background of how the 'cycle' parts were sourced by an old friend of mine (Lotus were involved with the chassis) for their assembly at the Hoover factory in South Wales from 1983.
They didn't fail because they were (allegedly) made badly (they were not perfect, but they worked) but because they were (like all recumbent cycles) nearly invisible in traffic consisting of cars and larger vehicles. They have quite a following for the 14,000 that were made. Look at the popularity of Ebikes nowadays and you can see how ahead of his time Sinclair was with a 'personal electric vehicle.'
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Lord Rowley I was vewee, vewee, dwunk. 831 posts
Lord Rowley
John,
Was that “the young chap” with the beard, who was asked to speak at the end?
If so we felt sorry for him, as it appeared he had not been briefed. I bet he could have given us an entertaining 5 mins on the place and of course, his C5 - had he been prepped.

Similarly, we struggled to hear the explanation of the electric DB5 and Suzanne said on our journey home, that the idea sounded fascinating. “Could (our Son) Christopher replace Tweety’s V8 in 20-30 yrs time with electrickery so keep her on the road, when hydrocarbons are banned and I’m too old to drive her?”

An interesting and possibility counter-intuitive concept to us Petrol-Heads maybe but shows “a mother’s love for what she holds dear”.........her Son and her Aston. (In my day, it would have been her bottle of Mackeson and box of 10 Woodbines).

Could be the new marketing angle in Dr Palmer’s search for new demographics. 😉
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Vanquish Rider Aston Jockey 3,374 posts
Vanquish Rider
There is a good feature on Pistonheads for this vehicle. Includes a test drive.
SteveE

Life Begins Outside Your Comfort Zone
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Rich5ltr AMOC member 5,466 posts
Rich5ltr
Lord Rowley wrote:
... in 20-30 yrs time with electrickery so keep her on the road, when hydrocarbons are banned ...
Let's hope not. I cannot see the attraction of battery cars. The electricity has to be generated and in highly populated countries that will mostly be using fossil fueled and nuclear power stations. Consider the un-ecological effects of mining and disposing of lithium and cobalt, which are themselves, limited resources. Plus human rights abuse and the use of child labour where is sourced from and it's all pretty toxic.  Still they are fashionable and everyone must jump on that bandwagon. [rolleyes]
Still burning hydrocarbons just for fun! 
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John Purser AMOC life member 7,341 posts
John Purser
Lord Rowley wrote:
John,
Was that “the young chap” with the beard, who was asked to speak at the end?
If so we felt sorry for him, as it appeared he had not been briefed. I bet he could have given us an entertaining 5 mins on the place and of course, his C5 - had he been prepped.

Yes, based on the fact, Kevin, that nearly everyone is 'a young chap' to us.[wink]
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GaryU_2 General 1,066 posts
GaryU_2
Moved the post from the 'Photographs' section, because there is not a single one.
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John Purser AMOC life member 7,341 posts
John Purser
Rich5ltr wrote:
Let's hope not. I cannot see the attraction of battery cars. The electricity has to be generated and in highly populated countries that will mostly be using fossil fueled and nuclear power stations. Consider the un-ecological effects of mining and disposing of lithium and cobalt, which are themselves, limited resources. Plus human rights abuse and the use of child labour where is sourced from and it's all pretty toxic.  Still they are fashionable and everyone must jump on that bandwagon. [rolleyes]
"What is graphene battery?
Samsung Electronics has developed core battery technology using graphene to make lithium-ion batteries last longer and charge more quickly, a potential industry milestone if mass produced. ... It is a form of carbon that can be used to develop smaller, slimmer batteries but with higher capacity.

If the carbon is sourced by 'cracking' CO2 and releasing oxygen, that's another benefit.
I agree fossil fuel and nuclear power generation needs to be phased towards tide, solar and wind generation. A car roof incorporating a solar panel will surely be an option ?
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rcfurse Administrator 3,908 posts
rcfurse
Graphene is a UK invention. It is literally a carbon sheet one atom thick. Immensely strong.
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John Purser AMOC life member 7,341 posts
John Purser
CAR magazine has an explanation of Dyson's investment in battery technology which doesn't say that grapheme is used, but it may well be.
And ex AML man Ian Minards, all-round top bloke, is in the thick of all this. 
We are getting a bit off topic.......
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Lord Rowley I was vewee, vewee, dwunk. 831 posts
Lord Rowley
Fascinating.
And further off the subject.....Ian Minards was due to give a talk Suzanne & I for Inst Mech Eng at Brooklands on the DB11 launch and pulled out the day before to join Dyson!

I didn’t realise graphene was a(nother) British invention!👍🇬🇧
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philmw AMOC Old Fart 4,336 posts
philmw
Wasn’t invented as such but developed the way to make sheets. Graphite was used as the substrate for scanning tunnelling microscopy in the 80s and 90s. The easiest way to make a clean surface of graphite is to stick Cellotape on the surface and then peel it off. The top few layers of graphite are removed leaving a freshly cleaved surface. Geim and Novosolov (in Manchester) looked at the layers stuck to the tape transferred to silicon oxide with TEM and developed a way to pull single layers off from the graphite. This is graphene. The SiO2 substrate allowed the imaging of the graphene and study of its properties.

I remember some figures from a while ago that the UK had a few tens of patents on graphene, whilst China had a few hundred.
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Lord Rowley I was vewee, vewee, dwunk. 831 posts
Lord Rowley
Fascinating, Phil. Thanks for that.

So are you saying the Chinese had it first or that had just applied for more patents?

Amazing what you can do with “sticky-backed plastic”. 😳

John Noakes was a true genius.🇬🇧👍
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Lord Rowley I was vewee, vewee, dwunk. 831 posts
Lord Rowley
“Transmission Electron Microscopy” eh?
No wonder, you have that fabulous DBS Superleggera.

And THIRTY ONE miles per gallon? 🙀🙀🙀
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philmw AMOC Old Fart 4,336 posts
philmw
China jumped on the bandwagon quickly. How useful and worthy the patents are is questionable. Graphene itself couldn’t be protected as it is a natural product and not an invention. It’s use and methods of manufacture can.
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