I’ve had a lot of people recently asking me about my City El. Now while there’s quite a few City Els in the UK I’m probably one of the few british City El drivers who uses her car on an almost daily basis. I’m also one of a few (maybe as many as 30 worldwide) who has converted their car to lithium Ion. 
This week I’ve had four emails from people wanting to know how I did it and how much I paid etc etc. So, in the spirit of the Internet I’ll be creating some pages to show you all how I went about it. It may take a while though, so please be patient!
For now though I’d say that my City El has had a new lease of life with it’s lithium cells. However, if you live in a windy place (such as Bristol) and you’re going to be doing a lot of driving on busy roads you really need to think long and hard about it. My car is just on the edge of being so light that in strong winds it almost becomes a danger to me and others. So if you want to do this mod, be aware that you won’t want to drive it in winds above 30 mph. Above 35mph and it’s dangerous. I never drive in winds that strong.
Anyway - so this is the disclaimer. More to follow.
1 response so far ↓
1 Ian Milner // Dec 19, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Hi there,
Just to let you know my late father (Peter Milner) was the chief engineer on this vehicle back in the mid to late 80s when he worked with El-Trans in Denmark. We lived in the UK and had several Mini-Els (as they were called) so I guess we had the first in the country (which made it interesting when my Dad registered them for road use). Being 17 at the time I could drive them on my driving license and loved them. I actually managed to roll one once (idiot) and had to pull the broken wreck home and explain to my dad what I’d done. As the canopy was broken, he converted it into an open topped dragster with 60v power that was very fast (great fun in the snow). Anyway, I read that you’ve sold it on ebay, I hope you enjoyed your time with it. PS. I didn’t realise that they were still being manufactured in Germany! Cheers, Ian.
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