Beta 1996-1997 Soliad Electron Lead-Acid 1.0

In 1990, Bruckell presented the world with the Soliad Ballistic concept car. It was Bruckell and Soliad’s first go at making an electric vehicle. Unusual to any Soliad car, it’s not named after a famous city or town. It was named that way to signify it having an impact in the automotive world. It was even tested in the Castello Airport and reached a top speed of 180 miles per hour. Thus, making it the fastest road-going electric car in the world at the time. Impressed with their efforts, Bruckell and Soliad went ahead and made 50 hand-built replicas of the Soliad Ballistic concept car and gave them to journalists as part of their Sneak Peek into the Future program. Journalists were thrilled and the car itself had positive feedback. But, Bruckell believed that the world wasn’t ready for EVs just yet. So, they viewed the whole Sneak Peek in to the Future program as a failure.

But, they still needed to make an EV to fulfill the California zero-emissions regulations. And so after a few design tweaks, the Soliad Ballistic became the basis for the Soliad Electron EV which would first be produced in 1996. When it debuted in 1996, the car itself came with lead-acid batteries. While these batteries are cheap, it also meant that the earlier versions of Soliad Electron EV didn’t get very good range. Even worse is the fact that they often had a tendency to overheat and catch fire. 200 fires were reported. And so, a recall was initiated to fix the defective batteries. 90 of the 200 cars that were affected were fixed and modified to have an improved heat sink as well as a cooling fan to help cool down the batteries themselves.

Bruckell even offered to replace the other destroyed EVs with ones that didn’t have any of the earlier issues. This fix was even advertised as “Now available with a battery protector”. Unlike modern EVs, you couldn’t actually outright buy them. You had to lease one and made sure that you had to pay back the lease on time or else it will be repossessed. The reason why Bruckell did this is because they believed that electric vehicles were nothing more than an unprofitable niche that had little returns on how expensive they are to produce. Luckily, this practice did not continue with modern EVs unless if the person took out a loan just to buy one.

Despite being badged as a Soliad, the Electron EV was never sold in Soliad dealerships. It was always sold in Redstone dealerships. This move was done as Redstone didn’t have any cars that stood out. They only sold compact sedans, wagons and, coupes that were meant to take on foreign cars. Bruckell thought that the Electron EV would be more fitting if it was sold in Redstone dealerships. And, they could also be serviced at Redstone dealerships just in case if something went wrong. It didn’t make sense to why it was sold and serviced in Redstone dealerships. But, you have to remember that the Soliad dealerships weren’t trained to sell EVs yet. EVs were a new thing back then and Redstone employees were known for being tech-savvy. So yeah, Bruckell made the right choice. The Soliad Lansdale eVan which was Soliad’s only other EV that they made at the time was never sold in dealerships as it was sold exclusively to fleet markets. The Bruckell Scarborough Electric was also only sold to fleet markets. Thus, the Soliad Electron is the only one of the three to be sold aka. leased to consumers.

The Soliad Electron is amongst the first EV to use the now-obsolete Magnetica Charging Standard. Bruckell worked alongside NodeOLine to manufacture the chargers themselves. The whole idea of the Magnetica chargers is that they are tested so that they would work even when it’s raining. A lot of work has been done to make sure the Magnetica chargers are up to Bruckell’s standards. Other vehicles began adopting the Magnetica Charging Standard including the Bruckell Scarborough Electric, Soliad Lansdale eVan, the Ibishu Prodigy EV and, the Ibishu Kashira EV.

Not all vehicles used this charging standard, however. The SiloTec Charging Standard was also produced alongside it and vehicles like the Gavril D250 EV, Hirochi CEV, Hirochi SunRunner EV as well as several others all used it. The Magnetica Charging Standard was made obsolete in 2003 when all of the vehicles that used it were discontinued by then. Unlike the SiloTec Charging Standard, the Magnetica Charging Standard uses inductive technology rather than the more commonly-used conductive coupling seen in several electric vehicles. Ironically enough, the Magnetica Charging Standard was rejected in favour of the standard EV chargers themselves. Nearly all Magnetica chargers were decommissioned in 2003. Although, some are still active and a few have ended up with collectors while a few other intact ones are stored in museums. Starting with the 2006 model year, the use of the SiloTec Charging Standard was mandated and became the basis for the standard EV charger that we now know today and every company has used that standard.