Re: Packard = Henney = Renault Dauphine??

Posted by Owen_Dyneto On 2011/4/9 7:22:12

The Renault Dauphine routinely makes all the lists of the world's 10 worst cars. And deservedly so. Even if the range of the Henney Dauphine was as little as 40 miles, that might have been longer than the range of gasoline Dauphine before the first breakdown.

From www.coachbuilt.com:

The Kilowatt was produced using Renault Dauphine's supplied to Henney by the French automaker without a drivetrain. Two models were produced, 1959's 36-volt version used 18 two-volt batteries and had a top speed of 40 mph. Although the car could travel over 40 miles on a single charge, its somewhat pokey top speed was deemed unacceptable so an all-new 72-volt system was developed by Victor Wouk using a new controller and 12 6-volt batteries. It debuted on the 1960 Kilowatt which had a top speed of 60 mph with a range to match (60 miles per charge).

Renault sold 100 rolling chassis to Henney for the project, but less than half that number were built as Henney's parent company, National Union Electric Corp., was unable to produce the revised 72-volt systems cheaply enough to keep the car within it's $3600 target price. The unfinished Kilowatt chassis were reportedly sold to a Renault dealer in Florida who retrofitted them with standard Renault drivetrains, and then sold them as new, stock Dauphines.

An article in U.S. News & World Report states that 32 Henney Kilowatts were purchased by various US electric utilities. twenty-four (24) 1959 Kilowatts and eight (8) 1960 models. Of the often-reported figure of 47 completed Kilowatts, it's unclear when the remaining 15 cars were produced, or who purchased them. The article states that some may have been sold as 1961 or possibly 1962 models.

Of the documented 32-47 Henney Kilowatts produced, two remain in a drivable state and it's believed that four to eight others remain in various un-operable states. Even though the Henney Kilowatt never reached mass production volume, its transistor-based electric technology paved the way for modern EVs like GM's EV1.