A CLASSIC with a Russian heart

After we had made interesting contact with Russian developers at the Rehacare trade fair, we were invited to Berlin a few weeks later by Elena, the translator. Both our team and the Russians wanted to deepen our relationship. After a short hesitation, Lukas and I accepted her offer and travelled to Berlin full of expectations. Elena met us at the airport and greeted us joyfully and spiritedly. We got into her silver Mercedes with the black tinted windows, which we had already got into in Düsseldorf with a queasy feeling. This time I was allowed to sit in the passenger seat. As soon as I sat down, Elena let the engine roar and drove off at excessive speed. Panic-stricken, I reached for the seatbelt, which I didn't manage well because of the way Elena was driving. I tried to snap the buckle into the lock and needed several attempts: "Martin, what do you want with the seatbelt, don't you have any confidence?" I couldn't get a word out. Lukas said that it was just our custom to wear the belt and that I was someone who was very careful to follow the rules.
Elena wanted to show us the city. She drove through the city at a highly excessive speed, explained to us with sweeping gestures where to buy things and... her phone rang. She answered and was obviously completely engrossed in the conversation, still speeding through the city.
Somewhat calmly, I asked her if she had ever had an accident. No. She loves driving fast and also has a transport company in Russia. She drives everything from motorbikes and cars to racing cars and lorries. Oh yes: she had had an accident: she had lived for a while in Los Angeles, where she had crashed a sports car into the side of another vehicle at about 80 km/h. She had never been in an accident. How? Her traffic light was red, but she didn't think a car was coming from the other side....
We went out for something to eat and while we were at it, we wanted to discuss the next steps. Conveniently, Elena had a transport company. We agreed to deliver two of our CLASSICs and all the plans of the vehicles to Russia to the Energia company. One was for them, so they could do trials and also start a licensed production. As a licence fee we get their technology: wheel hub drive and super capacitor battery. No, we were less interested in the unbreakable plastic. We agreed that production of our vehicles should be set up in Belarus and in return we could bring their technologies into series production in Switzerland. The licence fees were to cancel each other out: they produced the CLASSIC, we produced their batteries and drives. We gave ourselves a time frame of one year for the project. We were all very pleased with what we had achieved and happy.
Elena invited us to another party. What did that mean now? How would James Bond have reacted? I'm sure he would have gone. But I had had enough of the Russian temperament and decided I would rather visit old friends from the solar mobile days. Lukas also joined me immediately. So we were picked up by a friend in an old Citroën AX. There were five of us in the car. After the driver Andreas had made sure that we were all wearing our seatbelts - even those on the back seat - and after he had apologised that we were not travelling with the ecologically superior subway, but that our destination was, to his regret, very poorly connected to public transport, the 1.3 litre petrol engine was started and we drove to our destination at a leisurely pace and with as little fuel consumption as possible. What a feeling: I was safe!

A few months later, a box was delivered to us: Inside was one of the two CLASSIC vehicles we had previously delivered to Energia: converted to wheel hub drives! Unfortunately, the super capacitors had not yet made it into the package. We put the vehicle into operation and to our astonishment the energy consumption was sensational: certainly 30% lower than with our standard vehicles. So they were good, the Russians. The top speed was over 30km/h and the torque was good, too, and so was the acceleration and the climbing ability, only the drives made an unpleasant rattling noise when accelerating and the control behaviour took some getting used to. It matched the Russian temperament that we experienced with Elena and Oleg. All in all, we were thrilled. We got in touch with the Russians. They reported that they had personally invited President Putin to drive our CLASSIC. They wanted to show him our original Swiss-made vehicle. They dispensed with the Russian temperamental version. Their plan was to get a substantial budget to set up the whole production in Belarus. Their aim to supply all the injured war veterans with CLASSIC electric cars. This meeting also took place and they got the budget. We were constantly informed about the progress. The next rehab fair was coming up and we wanted to meet there again. In the meantime, Elena had been replaced by the two translators Kiril and Stephan. The two of them were really very clever. One had studied political science, the other physics. They spoke fluent German and they were very pleasant conversational partners. They both lived in Germany and were very familiar with our customs, and yes: to my and Lukas' reassurance, they were much less temperamental than their predecessor. At this rehab fair, to my surprise, Oleg had brought a modified CLASSIC. They had realised their wheel hub technology in it, changed the design and improved their unbreakable plastic material. We had a lively exchange about the technology. They had also brought the backer for their project: it was a Russian war hero who had been severely injured. Several bullets were still stuck in his body and he also had no legs left. Nevertheless, he had a great influence in Russia, precisely because he was revered as a war hero. He also had connections in parliament and thanks to him the financing of the factory had come about. We had brought our CLASSIC 100 with us. We had built the fastest electric wheelchair in the world: We were in the Guinness Book of World Records with it at 107 km/h. We allowed the war hero to test drive our CLASSIC 100 in the car park. To my astonishment, he drove very carefully and deliberately and first got used to the vehicle until he drove at a higher speed: the real heroes are obviously aware of the dangers. He was enthusiastic. Kiril, one of the two translators, said: He had only seen the war hero so happy twice in his life: One time when he parachuted into the North Pole (??? Who does that?) and the other time just now after this CLASSIC 100 ride. The war hero was overwhelmed: It was exactly our original CLASSIC that he wanted to have produced for his veterans in Belarus. He wanted to raise even more money from Putin for this very purpose! That was a welcome announcement.
We agreed to host all of the Russian scientists in Switzerland and a go on a return visit to them. Above all, they wanted me to visit the Energia company and see their laboratories, which was very difficult.
I would also to be allowed to fly with a Russian jet as a thank you for the fact that they had got all the money to set up production with the help of our CLASSIC.

The Russian project is in question
Sad news reached us: On the way to the opening of the production in Belarus, Oleg, the war hero and 2 engineers had an accident with their car. Oleg was the only one who had survived! Above all, the Russian war hero had been the key person in the project: Thanks to him, they had received the budget for the production. The project was in question. We had already invited the team to Switzerland, now everything turned out differently. Oleg, Sergei, Kiril and Stefan still travelled, but the energy was no longer the same. Oleg, the leader of the team, had become very thoughtful. We looked at our production together. We spent some wonderful days. We learned that Sergei had been the project leader of the control system for the SS20 medium-range missiles. They had already programmed all the European cities as targets in the software.

But he was very glad that his missiles had never been used. I was too, after analysing the propulsion electronics of the CLASSIC he had built.

To excuse him, it must be noted that they had to work under quite difficult conditions at that time. They could not simply order all the components they wanted. They had to improvise a lot. So our discussion was still about whether we could set up a supercapacitor production in CH and a production for the wheel hub drives. They named a sum that they thought was necessary to set up production. We didn't have to pay any more royalties, that was included in our deal with the exchange of the CLASSIC vehicles.
Again, I wondered what James Bond would have done in that situation. He probably would have blown everything up. Again, the risk was too high for me. The Russians were really nice people, but without their own funding it had become impossible to work with them from my point of view. We dropped out of the project and continued with our vehicles.
Later we saw the Russians again. The relationship was still very cordial. They had built a total of 50 vehicles from the Russian version of the CLASSIC. These were used in the Energia company to transport materials. Since then, with every Russian rocket that goes into space, I have the feeling that I have also contributed a tiny bit.

I learned from this:

• My subjective feeling of safety is also dependent on external circumstances.
• Reality is more exciting than any film, provided you live in it.
• Projects can also fail.