Sinclair Zike maximum speed of the bicycle operating under its own power was kept below 15 miles per hour to prevent it being classified as a motorcycle under UK law. The Sinclair Zike was developed by Sir Clive Sinclair following the commercial failure of the Sinclair C5 in 1985. Electric vehicles were one of his long-term research ambitions. The Zike was financed largely with his own money, and the manufacture was subcontracted to Tudor Webasto, a Birmingham-based company. The Zike was launched on 5 March 1992 at the Cyclex exhibition in Olympia, London, when a prototype was demonstrated to both press and
Personal air vehicle breakthroughs. A ground transport alternative is enabled by unmanned aircraft technologies: Autonomous Systems and electric propulsion. Barriers include aviation safety, airworthiness, operating costs, usability, airspace integration, aircraft noise and emissions, tackled first by small UAS certification then experience. Other names discussed include PIVITOLs (Personal Vertical TakeOff vehicles), Air-cars, PACs (Personal AirCraft), AVs (Air Vehicles). The first technical paper to explain the difference in vehicle characteristics between PAVs and existing General Aviation single engine piston aircraft was "Personal Air Vehicles: A Rural/Regional and Intra-Urban On-Demand Transportation System" by Mark D. Moore (the NASA PAV Sector Manager) from NASA Langley Research Center.