- Don’t have room/money for a hydraulic lift to build your EV? Check out Eastwood’s Tilt-A-Car™. Kind of looks like you could store your vehicle vertically with this…crazy.
- Queens auto company unveils a new electric car. “We don’t see ourselves becoming a competitor to the majors, but what we are hoping for is that the majors will take up this technology.”
- File this under, “sure thing, buddy” the Mitsubishi Motors EV concept has Solar and Wind power: It is also equipped with a fan in the front air intake system, to enable wind power generation. Uh, huh, along with additional drag, thereby wasting any power generated and some. Perhaps it is only there to power the dash mounted hype machine? “:^)
- Opel is showing off a Volt-like EV with diesel backup power. The E-flex has on-board lithium batteries that can be recharged from a typical house outlet. One of the photos shows it with a slot for a Segway and I’ve read it charges while stowed.
Does any body have any info on the LeCar electric car?
Hi Darrell
Do you mean the Renault 5 commercial conversions from the late seventies and early eighties?
Here are some on EVAlbum:
http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/type/RENA
Hi,
I remember when Chandler started building them in Athol,Ma. I found this link http://www.econogics.com/ev/lepman.htm
So, Queens doesn’t expect to compete with the majors? At $18K to go 25mph – they won’t. This is, instead, a good example of why EVs have a bad name with Joe Sixpak. As long as folk keep trying to sell EVs that only run like golf carts, then the average guy will still think an EV is just a gay-ified golf cart.
Stay away from the Tilt-A-Car! I’ve had experience working with this with my brother-in-law. Not only is it incredibly dangerous, but you have to make sure every fluid (including gasoline) is drained. Very inconvenient and dangerous! Be warned, just get a creeper.
I would suggest an actual lift instead of the tilt thingie. It’s actually cheaper!
$1250 Lift
Thanks Larry & Matt. I like that lift. Is it easy enough to retrofit into a garage after the fact?
Wind power on the new Mitsubishi?
Oh jeez, what next.
This is the EV that’s more than a year overdue (suppost to start production this year) and now they’re saying it might start production in 2008 or 2009.
I have no idea what they are doing. Neither do they by the looks of things!
I used this type of lift for years and they work great as long as you maintain them and have the arms leveled every couple of years when used commercially. This is especially true if your building is subject to frost heaves.
Picture four from Matt’s link shows where the cables are fastened through at the top of each post and used for leveling – a six foot level works good stretched diagonally across the arms.
The cables run along the floor instead of over head; which I like better for working on the tall 4×4 and body lifted vehicles but lug nuts like to roll under the floor plate or the occasional wrench that you placed on the swing arm falls down and you kick it under the plate when turning to see what fell (this is one reason to own more then one 10mm wrench). The plate lifts off easy enough and with the aid of a compressor and air hose, cleaning the dirt out from under it doesn’t take long.
Also in picture four, it shows the 4” spacers in place between the lift pads and arms; mine also had 2” spacers that could be stacked on top of those and I sometimes needed to use a 4”x4” wood block on top of the pads when setting up trucks.
On some models there are smaller safety rods with thumb screws to help prevent the swing arms from moving once positioned. There are also safety locks that click into place as it progressively lifts and a lever to lift those locks that must be held up before it can come down.
I can only stress that you want the vehicle lifted evenly. Lifting half of the vehicle with the front arms puts lateral pressure on the posts and unnecessary wear along with questionable safety.
To answer your question Jerry about having it installed in an existing garage, the answer is yes it can as long as you have a tall enough building. I’d hate to see you use EVE to create a new skylight.
The posts are mounted to bolts that are lagged into the concrete floor and slotted shims slide under the post for making them square and or plumb with each other. If this is a standard house garage, you want to close the garage door before lifting as well due to the shorter height of the door and yes a solid stainless steal car antenna with the metal ball on its tip will punch a hole though the plate glass of a garage door like a bullet.
The biggest disadvantage is if you need to open the car door while it is on the lift. This is where you get to use your skill of squeezing into the car after someone has parked to close to you.
The biggest advantage for me was parking two small cars rear bumper to rear bumper under the one on the lift for the weekend when snow was predicted; Instant three car garage.
My shop had three bays. Bay one was the swing arm lift; the second bay had a center post for heavy duel wheel trucks and the third was a drive on for my exhaust work and closest to the pipe bender and welder.
Sorry for the long testimonial but hopefully it is helpful to those looking for such a lift.