Looking at the photos and trying to understand how a person would comfortably drive it, I figured I must be missing something.

So I looked up photos with a person inside and no, it really is that bad [0]. Pure form over function.

Uncomfortable, yes. That's bad enough. But you hands are far back under your center of gravity. Any crash over a few km/hr is going to result in a faceplant because there's no way you'll bring your hands forward fast enough. Top speed of 24km/hr is enough to cause serious... death by head trauma.

[0] https://www.autocar.co.uk/sites/autocar.co.uk/files/styles/g...

>The driver sits in a recumbent position in an open cockpit, steering via a handlebar that is located under the knees. A power switch and front and rear brake levers are positioned on the handlebar. As a supplement to or replacement for electric power, the C5 can also be propelled via bicycle-style pedals located at the front of the cockpit. The maximum speed of an unmodified C5 is 15 miles per hour (24 km/h). At the rear of the vehicle is a small luggage compartment with a capacity of 28 litres (1 cu ft).[5] As the C5 does not have a reverse gear, reversing direction is done by getting out, picking up the front end and turning it around by hand.

Well, hard to believe this was a flop.

Execution could have been a bit better but ultimately it's really hard to make electric vehicles with 1980s battery technology. Just about the only successful EV of the era was the golf cart and that's very niche.

Electric moped was right idea but some 30 years ahead of its time.

This is the same guy that created the ZX81 (that I learned to code on) and the ZX Spectrum. He changed my life.

It's not far off the speed and range of my ebike which works well as transport in London. I wouldn't want to be that low down visibility wise though. On the ebike my head is a little higher than if I were standing which works quite well.

If I recall correctly they did did one niche application. Some people used them to trundle up and down the decks of oil tankers (a bicycle would seem better to me).

Way ahead of its time. Some kind of rain cover and maybe flip the wheel combination around and it would make a sweet ev for the bike lanes.

Wasn't it possible to store these by standing them on end?

see also this (it also mentions the C5 but focuses on pedal-driven velomobiles) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velomobile

Sir Clive's Dymaxion Car. Doomed to similar failure. I love it for that reason alone.