Tama Electric Car (1947 : E4S-47-1)

"TAMA" is an electric vehicle developed by Tokyo Electro Automobile Co.(later becomes *Prince Motors, Ltd.) that was a spin-off of TachikawaAircraft. When this car first rolled out in 1947, Japan was suffering from an acute shortage of oil, goods and food while the supply of electricity had a surplus since there were almost no home appliances or bulk users of electricity. Under such condition, with the encouragement of the government, there were many electric vehicles by start-up car manufacturers.
"TAMA" achieved the driving range of 96km and the maximum speed of 35km/h on the 1st Electric Vehicle Performance Test. It worked very well as a taxi until about 1951. The model code is E4S-47 I. E is for electric, 4S is for 4-seater sedan, 47 is for the year, and I stands for the initial type. The brand name "TAMA" comes from the name of the place where the factory was located. It is not very well known that electric vehicles have a long history --they were running in Japan shortly after WWII and helped reconstruction of Japan. This car was fully restored to the original specifications of the year 1947 and returned to moving state in 2010 when the production model of the electric vehicle "NISSAN LEAF" was rolled out.

*Prince Motors, Ltd. : Merged with Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. in 1966.