29 September 1971: The Electricity Council says that electric cars are clean, silent, reliable, and make a valuable contribution to reducing pollution

Electric city cars could be in mass production and on the streets of Britain by 1973 if manufacturers and the Government gave a lead to their development, the Electricity Council said yesterday when it released details of the Enfield 8000, a vehicle capable of 40 mph and a range of 60 miles on one charge.

But both the council and Enfield, who have been given an order for 80 vehicles, admit that it is unlikely to boost the exploitation of electric cars unless the motor industry drops its obsession with the internal combustion engine.



The Enfield 8000 is being promoted by the Electricity Council which acts for the electricity boards of England and Wales. It says that electric cars are clean, silent, reliable, and make a valuable contribution to reducing pollution.



But a spokesman for the council said that the advanced engineering of electric cars was not enough in itself to break the hold that petrol engines have over the manufacturers. Otherwise, he thought, city cars could be all-electric within three or four years.



Enfield, who say they are now in a position to make and supply electric cars in quantity within the next 18 months, confess that lack of interest has dissuaded them from exhibiting in the London Motor Show next month. The chairman, Mr K. E. Adraktis, said that the Department of Trade and Industry had shown “some interest” but the company had not so far been contacted by the Department of the Environment.



Since the company first started to make electric cars, they had been approached by Japanese manufacturers for guidance and information. Spending on electric car research in Japan is running at £7 millions a year.



In Britain and the United States, where Ford and General Motors have made prototype city cars, now shelved or awaiting further development, the situation facing the major manufacturers is, according to an Electricity Council official, one of “complete financial shakedown.”



Either they ignore the implications of European Conservation Year, or they take a gamble on the practicality of an electric city car.



The 80 cars ordered from Enfield will be run by the council as part of an operational research project.