You will find articles organized by categories, along with recent comments, along the right hand column of the website. If you are just getting started with the idea of converting a gas car to electric be sure to check out Your First Electric Car .
Welcome and enjoy!
-Jerry
News · 24 June 06
Site updates are going to be light to non-existant for a while folks. My father was checked into the hospital and the prognosis is not good. I’ll be traveling and in and out of communications for a while. Update: he passed away on Saturday.
Of course y’all should keep on plugging away and helping each other as you’ve been doing in the comments. Lots of great information being shared, which makes the site/community all the better.
I’ll leave you with a few treats.
- TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) unveils their Electric Mini Car prototype. With specs such as, “A 346V battery pack powers the 40kW drive motor, and can recharge to 80% capacity in 15 minutes. The manganese Li-ion cells use lithium manganese oxide spinel (LiMn2O4) as the cathode active material, making the battery resistant to overcharging and providing high thermal stability.”
- Kusnetz’s Mac Prius. Looks mostly for entertainment purposed right now, no mad unix scripts pulling in data from the prius sensors to make charts or tweak performance. Hey, I’ve got an old mini kicking around somewhere at home…
- What did you do this weekend? Over at Random Foo he researched energy and power generation and came to the conclusion that the government could do a massive incandescent to fluorescent light bulb swap (at an estimate cost of $100M-$200M). This would save around 4 billion in energy over the lifetime of the incandescent bulbs (4.4yrs), almost a billion bucks a year.
- Speaking of which, the EETimes reports that Cree has produced a white LED with the efficiency of 131 lumens per watt. Your typical incandescent checks in with a measly 10-20 lumens/watt while fluorescent ups that to 50-60 lumens/watt. (of course LEDs are still on the expensive side).
- You convert your car to electric, replace the heavy factory seats with lightweight performance ones, and now you have a couple of extra car seats. What to do?
Battery Tools · 20 June 06
Hey, we’re getting closer to settling on a battery! Those who have been following the comments elsewhere may have read that I started looking into the Odyssey Hawker PC2150 battery. More expensive (nothing like NiMH/Lithium prices) and from everything I’ve read they are well built (mil spec) and able to take or dish-out lots of power.
Of course John Westlund then jumps into the comments and mentions another, cheaper battery and doubt sets in…
- “Electric cars have a saintly image but do they work in the real world?” From a Times Online article/review on electric vehicles. Pictured is the Reva G-Wiz, the same car our friend at Danny’s Contentment drives. Saintly?
- Speaking of news, last week’s “big” story was the Smithsonian removing the EV-1 from display just before the release of the movie, Who Killed the Electric Car. If you really have TONS of time to kill and want to read piles of wildly divergent opinions be sure to check out the Slashdot thread.
- Not to fear you still may be able to see a working EV-1 at the upcoming HybridFest in Madison, Wisconsin the 22nd of July. Of course most of the current models of hybrids will be on display, including some plug-in models.
- Ener1 will be talking to investors about advancements in hybrid batteries. This is good, we like seeing lots of companies with plans for new/better batteries. Gotta get us some of dem new carbon fiber nano tech super cap batteries.
- High gas prices are renewing interest in bicycles too. Zeke and I have been walking the 3.5 miles to/from work a couple times a week…trying to regain our svelte, non-winter figures. ’:^)
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- Larry’s 1982 Mazda B2000 electric pickup, along with wiring schematic. Here’s his EVAlbum entry (I really appreciate EV journals that provide schematics)
- A few more details on the upcoming Myers Motors’ NmG commercial electric vehicle. It’s a three wheeled commuter and it’s funtelligent (their words, not mine)! Here’s the specs.
- Someone posted in the comments a while back wondering about building our own Lithium batteries. I happened across a wikipedia article yesterday on lithium batteries. Maybe one reason we won’t be cooking our own lithium batteries is because the metal is also used in making methamphetamine! (scroll to bottom) Lithium batteries are certainly PRICED as if they were a rare drug. Here’s a wiki article on lithium ion polymer batteries.
- GreenTomatoCars.com – an environmentally friendly private hire service in London (extensive flash website, lots of little “info” things). More info from the Guardian.
- Transcript of remarks by Ford President of the Americas to U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
- A couple stories about Gordon Cooper’s Ford Ranger Electric Car: KLTV and News Journal.
- Red Herring has an interview with Martin Eberhard, the founder of Tesla Motors, about starting a new car company to make electric vehicles.
- Lumina launches a new warm light LED. Designed to be “a super-bright, very long lasting and energy efficient alternative to halogen and incandescent lamps but with the same warm, eye-appealing glow.” They also have a LED “light engine” designed for automotive technicians, called CentraL.E.D..
- Comedian Robert Newman’s take on the history of oil.
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Vacation · 10 June 06
We just got back this week from our (too short) vacation to California. It was GREAT to be somewhere that it didn’t rain around the clock. And, Sun, I’d almost forgotten what it was.
Saw a couple EVs and a bunch of Prius hybrids. At one point I was keeping track of how many Prius we saw vs. the new Ford Mustang. Along Hwy 1 the count was about even, being prime winding-road sports car territory, but once we were in city areas the Prius easily took a commanding lead.
- Sony has put up a new information center to promote their movie, Who Killed the Electric Car. Nicely done flash with a bunch of information. They even have a “Go Green” section that would make Darin at MetroMPG proud with a few tips on how to get better mileage with your existing car.
- Thanks to Richard for mailing a link to this turning orange peels into ethanol story.
- A anonymous reader emailed a link to Electric Vehicle Concepts.
- Congrats to the Cleveland High School Seniors and their recently completed a Solar Car project. “Equipped with a Global Positioning System and wireless communications, data can be sent from the car to the pit area. The information collected is conveyed to the pit crew.” Anyone have a link to some pictures?
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