For the New Year, a look back at a 1967 electric vehicle from BMW (that's Boulevard Machine Works)
click above to enlarge
The years may roll on by, but some things stay the same. A perfect example is an article from the February 1967 issue of Popular Mechanics that reader Jay sent in. As you can read in the scan of the article above, BMW - that stands for Boulevard Machine Works not the Bavarians) - was secretive about its battery technology but claimed a 75-mile range from a 4-8 hour recharge from a standard wall outlet. It was a very small car (see this scan), and that's also something we see in today's EVs.
We can't find much more on this particular BMW vehicle, but Econogics says that, "Beginning in 1949, this firm produced electric mini-cars and golf-carts. In 1966 they built a larger roadster, which probably operated on 48 volts worth of lead-acid golf-cart batteries powering 2 motors, for which they claimed a maximum speed of 70 mph." Thanks to Jay for the tip and pics!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Level 5 7:13AM (1/02/2009)
Wow.. $53k in 1967 is about $337k in 2008 dollars per http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl. Exclusive indeed.
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Brn 10:48AM (1/02/2009)
level5: mass produced, they were hoping for $2300.
70mph on 4hp? I don't think so.
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