The 'Enfield 8000' aka 'The Enfield Thunderbolt' was the worlds first viable electric car .... It was a British invention (as a result of a competition by the 'Electric Board' in the mid 1960's), and decades ahead of its time in both concept and technology ..... and yes, the reason why you will never had heard of it was that it also was scrapped through lack of development funds. Exactly like Blue Streak and almost every British invention of that era and beyond.
So now, its the Japanese and German who make viable electric cars (having borrowed much of the ideas from the defunct British model), and Britain merely assembles their designs. It's criminal how the technological breakthroughs of British scientists in the 1960's, were wasted by British Governments .... I sometimes suspect that it was the persistent use of the term 'Boffins' in the press and elsewhere, that led to the brilliant science being wasted in almost a jokey manner. A generation of idiots ran the country at that time.
If we had shown the same foresight as the French, or the diligence of the Germans in the 1960's and the next two decades, it would be British 'Blue Streak' rockets and launchers that were the basis of the 'European Space Industry', not the French 'Ariane' systems which were years behind the British developments; It would be British Nuclear technology that was exported around the globe, not French; It would be the HOTOL intercontinental supersonic Rocket Planes that be-straddled the globe, not the failed 'Concorde' (that cuckoo in the nest that was set up by the French to lure Wilson's government away from rocket technology); and it would have been a British electric car that would now be the leading manufacture of 'eco friendly urban cars - not the German 'SMART Car' concepts.
Had the UK politicians of the post 50's era not been obsessed with expanding the welfare state into the monster that it now is (and look what's that has given us), or even on trying to expand or roll back socialism etc, and concentrated on developing and supporting the technologies that would sustain Britain as a major economic player into the next century, then we would be rivalling Germany in economic performance and output, instead of relying on Eastern Europeans to fill the low paid jobs in tourism and 'service' industries, which our own feckless underclass can't or won't fill (cradle to grave benefits being far easier), to keep our economy afloat.
We lost our place in the world because of an obsession with building a 'New Jerusalem' on sand foundations, instead of an economy on stone ones.
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| The Enfield 8000 aka Enfield Thunderbolt - Mass Produced Electric Car |
So now, its the Japanese and German who make viable electric cars (having borrowed much of the ideas from the defunct British model), and Britain merely assembles their designs. It's criminal how the technological breakthroughs of British scientists in the 1960's, were wasted by British Governments .... I sometimes suspect that it was the persistent use of the term 'Boffins' in the press and elsewhere, that led to the brilliant science being wasted in almost a jokey manner. A generation of idiots ran the country at that time.
If we had shown the same foresight as the French, or the diligence of the Germans in the 1960's and the next two decades, it would be British 'Blue Streak' rockets and launchers that were the basis of the 'European Space Industry', not the French 'Ariane' systems which were years behind the British developments; It would be British Nuclear technology that was exported around the globe, not French; It would be the HOTOL intercontinental supersonic Rocket Planes that be-straddled the globe, not the failed 'Concorde' (that cuckoo in the nest that was set up by the French to lure Wilson's government away from rocket technology); and it would have been a British electric car that would now be the leading manufacture of 'eco friendly urban cars - not the German 'SMART Car' concepts.
Had the UK politicians of the post 50's era not been obsessed with expanding the welfare state into the monster that it now is (and look what's that has given us), or even on trying to expand or roll back socialism etc, and concentrated on developing and supporting the technologies that would sustain Britain as a major economic player into the next century, then we would be rivalling Germany in economic performance and output, instead of relying on Eastern Europeans to fill the low paid jobs in tourism and 'service' industries, which our own feckless underclass can't or won't fill (cradle to grave benefits being far easier), to keep our economy afloat.
We lost our place in the world because of an obsession with building a 'New Jerusalem' on sand foundations, instead of an economy on stone ones.
Well said.
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