Over 30 years before Tesla changed the world with its original Model S, American company Globe-Union built this family-sized electric car.
It might not seem like it, but this 1978 electric car prototype is a lot closer to the original Tesla Model S than you might think.
The story of the Globe-Union Endura dates back to the oil crises of the 1970s. Globe-Union, a manufacturer of car batteries with a history dating back to 1911, recognised the need for an electric vehicle.
Using its battery technology know-how, the company designed and built a ground-up electric car, dubbed the Endura, taking the wraps off the large family sedan in 1978.
The company’s brochure boasted, “As all Americans should be aware, alternatives to gasoline-powered vehicles are urgently needed if the US is to become less dependent upon foreign petroleum sources while conserving its own dwindling oil supplies.
“The Endura, by Globe-Union, demonstrates that because of greatly improved lead-acid battery technology, electric power personal transportation is rapidly becoming a practical reality.”
Globe-Union’s electric solution consisted of “20 lead-acid electric vehicle batteries, mounted on an aluminium frame and roller sub-assembly tray”.
Those batteries powered a 20 horsepower (15kW), 120-volt GE-sourced electric motor driving the rear wheels. Despite the meagre outputs, the Endura had a top speed “in excess of 60 miles per hour under expressway conditions,” according to Globe-Union.
A claimed driving range of “over 100 miles (160km)” at city speeds (50-60km/h) would have sounded pretty laughable to new car buyers in the late-1970s. But, Globe-Union went to lengths to point out that electric cars were not suitable for everyone.
“The Endura is the type of vehicle that will satisfy a significant segment of American families that own more than one automobile,” read the Endura’s brochure.
Then, as now, recharging remained a lengthy process. Globe-Union promised the Endura’s “on board charger uses a 110-volt, 30-amp circuit and takes 14 to 16 hours to fully recharge a discharged battery pack,” while the “off-board charger requires a single-phase 220-volt, 30-amp circuit which will provided a 90 per cent recharge in seven hours”.
Inside, the Endura featured ground-breaking technologies. And here’s where it gets really interesting.
The showpiece was a centrally mounted ‘Monopanel’, a rudimentary touchscreen controlling much of the car’s vital functions.
Globe-Union explained the space-age technology as “containing micro-motion touch switches, controls ignition, lights and wipers while monitoring turn signals, high beams and other accessories.
“These functions are visually reinforced by pictographs, colour codes and LEDs (light-emitting diodes),” continued the brochure.
“Replacing a key ignition, sequentially coded ignition switches activate [the] motor.”
In other words, the Endura’s spec sheet included keyless start, auto high-beam headlamps, and a touchscreen with a graphical interface much like the app-rich environment of today’s systems. In 1978!
The large family sedan tipped the scales at 1452kg, over a third of which (589kg) was accounted for by the battery pack. Globe-Union did its best to keep weight down, the Endura constructed of aluminium and fibreglass.
Aerodynamic efficiency for improved driving range was also high on the list of Globe-Union’s priorities, the Endura featuring, according to the company, a “small spoiler on [the] undercarriage, plexiglass covered rectangular headlights, recessed wipers and flush-mounted windshield reduces air flow resistance”.
And the Endura’s fibreglass construction gave rise to another innovation, with a removable hatchback that could be replaced by a rear section that converted the Endura into a station wagon. Clever.
The Endura never made made it past the prototype stage, the world not ready for an electric car that could only drive for 160km at city speeds before needing 16 hours to recharge.
And the early 1980s oil glut ensured plenty of cheap petrol became readily available once more. Suddenly, the need for finding an alternative source of automotive power was no longer so urgent.
Globe-Union continued to innovate and experiment with electrification, and in 1980 revealed its second prototype, the Maxima. Unlike the ground-up Endura, the Maxima was based on a then current-gen Ford Fairmont station wagon and was primarily used as a test mule for Globe-Union’s continuing development of electric vehicle technology.
The Endura might seem laughably quaint viewed through the lens of today’s electric vehicle technology, but there’s no denying it was decades ahead of its time, both in philosophy and technology.
If there’s to be a progenitor for the Tesla Model S, then the Endura presents a compelling case.
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