- 200 MPH in a steam powered car? Welcome to the British Steam Car Challenge. More details here.
- Teresa Hertz’s electric ZAP Zebra. “My father, who loves me very much, said, ‘You know, if you get hit in that thing, you’re dead. Please get the most obnoxious color,’” Hertz says, revealing the inspiration behind her choice of bright green over mellow blue. “It looks like a little aphid.” As for the price of commuting? “I’ve only noticed a $10 or $12 difference in my power bill — practically nothing,” she says.
- From the mailbox (thanks!): Building a company: 0-60 in 4 seconds about Tesla motors.
- James sent along a link to the news regarding Firefly’s future batteries. You can read more about their technology here.
- Interesting read, The Truth about Recycling.
- Boggles the mind…
Ray's EV Motorcycle Schematic · 19 June 07
Ray passed along a schematic for his EV bike a while back and it has been rotting in my in-box ever since. Sorry about that Ray.
Also mildewing in the in-box is a newer shot of the bike assembly.
- A boy and his EV motor! Congrats to Gavin on receipt (and installation? I’m late in posting…) of his ADC motor. You can start at the beginning of his conversion from the KiwiEV homepage. (Gavin, that shirt isn’t conductive is it?? :) )
- James sends along a link to the Build It Solar web site he ran across the other day.
- From the in-box also comes a link to Richard Marks’ EcoVElectric website.
- Article on Sparky, Mike Phillips’s S-10 EV.
- Gas prices are going up, which means more news/speculation/research/(and kooks) with alternate fuel production, storage, or consumption techniques. Among the latest:
- Heat -> sound -> electricity device
- Solar cells may finally break into the realm of 40% efficiency
- Analysis of switch-grass ethanol production
Baby Zane · 21 May 07
I’d like to introduce the newest member of our family, Zane. Zane popped into the world last Tuesday the 15th just after 5pm. He’s a healthy, happy little fella.
In EV news (yeah, sorry for the lack of updates: see first paragraph) our EV friend from Italy, Pietro Cambi, was featured in the countries largest newspaper. Here is the article (in Italian).
Comment [12]
LED Bargraph battery monitor - part 1 · 18 May 07
Hello everybody,
About 6 months ago I wrote an article here . The idea was that I would be able to avoid my nemesis, unequalised batteries , and have early warning of bad connections like the one which caused this terminal failure in my car.
Argh!
- Mike Chancey sent along a link to a new battery pack monitor that he’s ordered: PakTrakr. It looks like a very nice unit and the price isn’t too onerous. It comes as either a 6 or 8 battery monitoring system with the ability to expand using remotes for up to 24 batteries being monitored. There’s also optional PC interface and data collector, along with a current sensor.
- SHPEGS is an open source style Solar Heat Pump Electrical Generation System. Haven’t been able to pour over the whole site yet, but I’ve done some reading of geothermal heat pumps lately and this looks interesting.
- Doug sends along a link to his very nicely done Karmann Ghia EV conversion site. Lots of pictures and a few schematics along the way from gas to electric powered automobile.
- I’d post a couple more links but my wife just let me know that her water broke…gotta go!
Comment [5]
Charging an Electric Car · 20 April 07
Most of the time when someone considers converting a car to electric the last thing that probably springs to mind is the charger. The car itself garners the most attention since it’s the biggest and most visible aspect of an EV, followed by the motor. Somewhere down the list, after the batteries or controller, the charger choice lies.
Yet, for the health of the batteries, it’s the most important aspect of an electric car.
- Hey, James, says here that everyone in the UK is eligible to get a free device that shows how much electricity is being used in the home at any one particular moment. Maybe you could mod it for the EV too?
- I wish you all would quit fooling yourselves, this can never work! (he does have some good points)
- The Velozzi electric concept car.
- Nissan and NED are teaming up to produce batteries for electric cars.
- Pietro hasn’t put his new LiPo batteries in his EV yet, but some of them went into his son’s go-kart … and won the race!
Comment [4]
- Mostly a fluff piece, Popular Mechanics takes the Hybrid Technologies L1X-75 composite body electric car for a spin. (the comments nicely illustrate the typical bi-polar responses to EVs)
- A short article on the mechanical design of the Tango electric two-seater. The Tango is an interesting car, whether you like the look of it or not. It’s not underpowered but it’s also not catering to the typical sports car crowd. Here’s the specification page. Note that it doesn’t have a tranny, but instead uses a 9” FB1-4001 on EACH rear wheel (via a custom gear box). 0-60 in 4 seconds, top speed 150mph.
- Here’s a story to warm Darin’s heart (is it still Winter in Canada Darin?): Japan mileage maniacs hack their hybrids to get over 100mpg.
- Meanwhile GM is still serious about electric cars…honest! (Ignore the man behind the curtain)
Comment [4]
Q & A · 8 April 07
As part of our Spring housecleaning I’ve started putting together an FAQ for the site. Many of the questions come straight from my email in-box (the names have been changed to protect the innocent!).
There are ten of them posted so far, more to come. If you have corrections or questions you’d like to see added be sure to drop me an email.
EVConvert FAQs