Question of the Day - 09 July 2023

Founded in 1979, Lectra was the startup vision of a Las Vegas engineer, Al Sawyer. He had experience in the robotic disposal of nuclear waste and the six-wheeled electric vehicles used for it gave him an idea. He started with a Corvair (remember those?), outfitted it with an electric engine, and redubbed it the X1, a name sure to evoke test pilots and “the right stuff.”

The central tenet was to develop electric cars that any Average Joe could own and operate without special training. It took two years to develop the prototype. For test-model purposes, Sawyer ditched the Corvair in favor of a Subaru 360, before settling on the Datsun B310 for general production.

So promising was Sawyer’s work that he obtained a subsidy from the Department of Energy, all the more remarkable since this took place during the fossil-fuel-friendly Reagan years. One of the talking points for Lectra cars, incidentally, was that they could go from zero to thirty in seven seconds, impressive for a prototype electric vehicle. 

Three Lectra models were developed: the D100 pickup truck, the 2+2 sedan, and the 400 sedan. Eventually, Sawyer added a station wagon called, aptly enough, The Wagon. Toyota was sufficiently wowed by the Lectra that it adopted one of its iterations for the Japanese market.

But if the battery problems of today’s electric cars seem vexing, they're nothing compared to those of the Lectras. These voltage-hogs required 18 (!) batteries, eight up front and 10 in the trunk. The cars needed up to eight hours of charging to have enough juice to go 50 miles, rendering the Lectra unfeasible for long-distance driving.

On the flip side, Lectras were safe by American standards, which motivated some car-rental companies to invest in them for their fleets. Thrifty, in particular, was a believer, advertising, “The type of person who drives this particular car is interested in ecology, savings, and a car of the future that’s here now.”

Although Lectra sold 1,000 cars in its first year of manufacturing, that was its only year. The company closed its doors in 1982. Undaunted, Sawyer formed the Las Vegas Electric Vehicle Association and remained a believer until his 2012 demise. The Lectra name continues, but as a manufacturer of car accessories, not of electric vehicles.