
Mass-Produced Electric Lada from 30 Years Ago - stmw
http://englishrussia.com/2018/09/04/soviet-tesla-electric-lada-from-30-years-ago-that-was-mass-produced/
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nimbius
Americans love to take the piss of of the old soviet lada, but as an
automotive mechanic I think theyre another example of how the soviets really
were ahead of their time.

In 2018 most americans just commute in their cars. performance isnt a real
concern, but gas mileage and longevity are. most modern compact cars are
hardly capable of doing more than merging onto the interstate. And forget
about trying to repair them yourself (the Honda Fit requires you to drop the
engine to service the plastic fuel filter.)

but the lada could be serviced with a set of rented hand tools and in most
cases had ample ground clearance to work without stands. you could rebuild the
electric starter with a spool of wire and a few parts from an electronics
store. it was never going to beat an american muscle car in the quarter mile,
but the lada 1200 made 23 miles per gallon. the 1972 chevy nova of the same
era? 14 miles per gallon.

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vasilipupkin
It’s great to romanticize them, but this really was a low quality product that
constantly broke down. Make no mistake, this was not a good product, even if
it was cheap to repair.

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wyldfire
I wonder if you preserved the design, had higher tolerance parts, and better
QA during production, would you then have a competitive product?

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krasin
No, because of bad passive safety in Ladas.

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a-dub
"The Ni-Zn batteries were a heavy load – over 380kg of weight. The engine had
25 kWt (35 hp) which could get the car up to 90 km/h."

a car that weighs nearly 1000 pounds with an engine that was about as powerful
as a riding lawnmower.

reminds me of the old joke...

"what do you call a lada on top of a hill?"

"a miracle."

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dpwm
> reminds me of the old joke...

Despite the jokes, the 80s ladas weren't so bad.

My dad had a second-hand one in the 90s (almost certainly from mid 80s) and it
was a pretty solid car. There was a degree of simplicity to the maintenance
that was uncharacteristic of other cars at the time. I don't recall it needing
any major work doing to it at any point.

It also had windscreen wipers on the headlights which I recall a strange
fascination with because at night the blades would cast moving shadows across
the road.

When he sold it, it was snapped up quick for the Russian market.

However, the power of the electric lada in the article does sound more worthy
of the old jokes.

It still seems pretty ambitious for the day and certainly surpasses my
expectations on range.

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philjohn
As others have said, must be an exception!

My dad got my mum a Lada in the late 80's as it seemed a good deal ... that
thing was horrendous and always breaking down.

Another joke from that time "Why do Lada's have heated rear windscreens? To
keep your hands warm while you're pushing them"

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dpwm
I never knew if the jokes were just cold war propaganda or entrenched in some
kind of reality. The design of the Lada definitely went back some way. But for
his needs it wasn't a bad car.

My dad tinkered with cars and did everything himself. Maybe from a consumer
point of view the car wasn't great, but then judging by the comprehensiveness
of the toolkit that came with the car it perhaps wasn't aimed at the average
consumer.

I have since heard from other sources that the electrics could vary between
perfect and terrible in Ladas, and that the bodies could be prone to rust. But
both things were not uncommon with more mainstream cars of the time. I think
the main problem my dad had was getting hold of parts in the UK.

> Another joke from that time "Why do Lada's have heated rear windscreens? To
> keep your hands warm while you're pushing them"

I remember many of those jokes being interchangeable with Lada and Skoda.
Incidentally, my dad's next car was a Skoda Favorit. I'm not sure the jokes
were really relevant there.

It is quite interesting how Skoda now enjoys one of the better reputations of
brands under the VW group.

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eccbits
Don't know but wouldn't all cars be prone to rust in Russian winter and
breakdowns on your awful roads? :)

Came w toolkit, sounds like a gamer's overclocking PC!

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close04
It does sound a bit strange when I hear people comparing the reliability of
cars driven in conditions that are literally and figuratively worlds apart.
And I'm thinking of climate, quality of roads, availability of professional
repair, etc.

Since very few Ladas were ever driven in California, and very few Chevys in
Russia it's hard to be fair. They are both the products of local conditions.

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asaph
> So in the years 1980-81, the first serial Soviet electric car was produced –
> over fifty cars were made in that first production run.

Does 50 cars produced over a 2 year period really qualify as "mass-produced"?
When Tesla makes a few thousand Model 3 cars in a single week, analysts
complain it's not enough.

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TomMarius
Seems weird to me as well, but at the same time, there probably wasn't a
bigger market at that time for that vehicle than what they made.

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p2detar
Back in the old days my dad built his Lada himself.

We could not really afford a new one, so he bought and collected parts
including the chassis. Then, I think it took half an year or so between his
job to assemble it together. With lots of help of course, from my uncle and
several books describing the technical details. As a kid, I had minor
contributions as well and learned a thing or two about cars in the process.

How reliable was the car? Pretty reliable. He drove it for half a decade, at
least. At its end, we used the car mainly for pulling a trailer with
construction work materials for several years then sold it for scrap.

Yeah, you could build a Lada yourself, if you really wanted to.

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i_feel_great
There was a time back in the late 70's and early 80's when the USSR bought New
Zealand dairy and agricultural produce but couldn't pay the bill. So they paid
with Ladas instead.

They were terrible, terrible cars. Even worse than the rear-engined Skodas.

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eccbits
Odd fact: Skoda is owned by VW now

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vetinari
Another odd fact: Skoda is the 5th oldest car manufacturing company in the
world (after Daimler, Opel, Peugeot and Tatra - another Czech company).

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amai
But Porsche was even more ahead of it's time with the first hybrid car in
1900:

"The Lohner-Porsche's design was studied by Boeing and NASA to create the
Apollo program's Lunar Roving Vehicle. Many of its design principles were
mirrored in the Rover's design."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohner-
Porsche](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohner-Porsche)

