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
- Record high gas prices are boosting sales over at Zap.
- Subaru is teaming up with Tokyo Electric Power Co. on a new electric car venture. Sounds like an internal project to start.
- Lee Iacocca is back and pushing for US automakers to get on the ball with hybrids. GM, he adds, should have invested in hybrids instead of buying the Hummer brand.
- Interview with Felix Kramer regarding plug-in hybrids.
- Haven’t heard of ElectroCraft before. Makers of EV Controllers, Chargers, and instrumentation.
- Honda’s new cars are coming, including a new hybrid meant to give the Toyota Prius a run for its money.
- How about your own homemade Hybrid? (link to PDF) First make an EV. Then, instead of always lugging around Gas & Motor, you hook up that part only when you need it. No generators or complex electronics needed, since it’s just pushing when you need it.
It's Red, Fred · 1 September 05
Checked out the Ford Probe EV candidate last night and it looks like an almost perfect car for the job. Body is in good shape, no rust (southern car most of its life), and even the tires are decent.
Paint is bleached out a bit and nicked in a number of places, will need to get it re-painted at some point. Passenger compartment is a little dinged up, but nothing that can’t be cleaned up or patched.
The mice in the trunk aren’t going to be happy when I get rid of their wheel-well housing…
I like the look of the car, sleek, with a lower drag coefficient (0.30) than the old Mazda 626 (0.36). Although I’m sure it’s nothing near the Probe prototype they made in 1983:
Ford’s Probe IV is a state-of-the-art experimental vehicle which boasts a Cd of only 0.15—about the same as an F-15 jet airplane.
Or how about the 1985 Probe V with a Cd of 0.135! Here’s a little more history behind the Probe.
Barring the seller changing his mind, I should take delivery of the new EV by this weekend. Time to start clearing garage space, re-reading a few books and starting the painful task of trying to decide on batteries.
The real test lies in coming up with a good name for it. I just don’t like typing Ford Probe…it doesn’t roll off the fingers easily. It needs a clever name, something catchy, easy to type, that doesn’t remind you of alien abductions.
Comment [4]
- Toyota decides to let EV owners keep their cars. Electric-car proponents who urged Toyota to keep the vehicles on the road planned to announce the news in a conference call with reporters Thursday. Among them were former CIA director James Woolsey. I can think of a few hobbyists who’d love to get their hands on one of these, good batteries or not.
- EV Confidential, a documentary about electric cars, hybrids, hydrogen and the future of transportation.
- If you are in the California area and want to see a variety of EVs up close check out the Electric Auto Association rally schedule for Sept. 24th.
- City-El for sale
- Edmunds tested a few “energy saving myths” to see which ones really improved overall mileage. Article here. The under inflation test didn’t turn out like they thought (measured pressure cold) but they don’t say why they didn’t re-run the test properly.
Donor Countdown · 31 August 05
We’re heading out this evening to check out an ’89 Ford Probe. Last week I got an email from Ryan (who’s had 7 Ford Probes and is a moderator over at ProbeTalk.com) letting me know that the Probe models from ’89 to ’92 should have the same transmission as that on my Mazda 626.
If that’s the case then I should be able to pop most of the old EV parts into the probe without much modification. Hardest part will be choosing and locating the batteries.
I started checking out batteries, with a brief side trip into Lithiums. Wowsa, it’s not hard at all to drop over $10k on a set of those babies. Any other suggestions?
Comment [193]
- Advanced Hybrid Vehicle Development Consortium is being formed to research and develop plug-in hybrids. [GCC]
- Fuel costs feed Hybrid Craze
- Spain has overtaken Germany as the world’s leader in Wind Power. [TH]
- Otmar from Café Electric (home of the Zilla EV Controller) was on SuckingAmps as part of the Electric Postal Van team.
Free Energy · 30 August 05
Every couple of weeks I get emailed an idea on how to improve the range of an EV.
“But that’s perpetual energy.” I reply.
“No, they are small generators, you’d be grabbing just a little bit of power,“
Let’s talk about all of this “free” energy…
- The Moovie electric concept car. Very bizarre, especially when you realize the doors are the wheels. Be sure to check out the images. [Treehugger]
- CNG, natural gas, vehicles are starting to find more interest.
- Speaking of that, Opal is introducing a CNG version of their Zafira minivan.
- Toyota Endo mini concept car.