Electric Cars are 5 years away – said Ford in 1966

Ford Motor Company announced in 1966 that it had made a breakthrough in battery technology and Electric Cars would be with us in five years.

It’s 1966 and the Ford Cortina MK I (pictured above) is selling like hot cakes, a sure indicator of a prosperous new age, and just about to be replaced by the MK II Cortina. But Ford had news up its sleeve about the future of cars. The future is the electric car, they proudly proclaimed in 1966, and it will be a reality in five years time.

Ford’s revelation came about as a result of a breakthrough in battery technology developed by Ford UK. The new battery was a sodium sulphur battery and Ford said it would make battery-powered cars a reality and provide affordable and compact urban and suburban transport. And it would only need an overnight charge to fulfil its task.

Ford had evened planned what they were planning to build to exploit the battery technology – an electric city car and a delivery vehicle.

Ford were going to build a city car aimed at shoppers and commuters, perfect for running errands and going to work. The second would be an electric delivery vehicle, perfect for the Post Office and local deliveries.

All of which sounds terribly familiar. Isn’t this exactly what car makers are telling us now, spurred on by regulations committing them to producing cars with less and less CO2 emissions and with greater and greater economy?

The science behind the imperative to reduce CO2 is flawed at best, but if car makers can get us to jump in electric cars in reasonable numbers then they can shift the CO2 emissions away from the car itself and off to wherever the electricity is generated.

What we need is governments to accept that we need a technology with real potential – which always comes back to the hydrogen fuel cell – rather than pursuing battery technology which is barely more viable now than it was a century ago.

Perhaps a quote by the  PR vice president of Ford in the 1960s, Ted Mecke, who, when taunted about his claim that Ford would have a viable electric car in five years time, said to Jerry Flint of the Wall Street Journal:

 “Jerry, you’ve misunderstood. That’s a running target. It’s always five to 10 years away.”

Which sums up the future of the electric car perfectly.

Even nearly 50 years later.

Source: Forbes