Electric Powered

[Lextreme II]

The gas price is really hurting our members all around the world. especially me. LOL.... Its not fun with 460 cc/min injectors when the gas will be $3.50 very soon. What do u guys think of electric powered Lexus? Yes, I meant battery operated for a Lexus body. If possible a LS or SC would be nice to have. Take the engine and transmission out and stuff it with rows and rows of the conventional batteries.

What do u guys think? This as been done in my light weight Honda, but the LS is prett heavy to start with.

 

[cowboy bebop]

Try 1200cc injectors sometime. : ) It's 1/8th tank of fuel for every startup, no exageration. Man, that would be a dream to have a 100% electric car. Or even a 100mpg car. I'd be happy with that.

Eric

 

[Zuffen]

The only viable electric cars are lightweight units.

If the basic chassis is too heavy you get into a spiral of needing more power to drive it which means more batteries to give the power which adds more weight which means the car has to be built stronger etc,etc,etc.

If you look at the fuel economy of a Toyota Prius (that's what they're called in Australia) it isn't worth the additional cost of original purchase combined with the abysmal performance and small size of the car.

A small (say mercedes 180 sized) diesel can give 45mpg with surprisingly good performance.

2 years ago I rented a Merceds C180 turbo diesel waggon in France. I drove it at 150-165kmh (95-100mph) on the Routes Nationale (their Freeways) all day and was getting 6.2litres per 100km or 40mpg (US gallon). Driven at a more sensible speed it rose to 45mpg. It had everything you would want except the V8 rummble.

It was a little noisy at idle but once moving you wouldn't know it was a diesel.

If I could buy a 1 or 2 seat pure electric car with a 40mile range (at normal traffic speed) I would own one. This would cover 70% of my driving and save a bundle of fuel.

 

[MaxPower]

Also another factor is the cost and enviromental impact of an electric car. An employee of the company i work for converted a toyota echo to electric power to get to and from work (around 40km per day), the total cost of the car (including purchase) was something like AUS$16k, but using electricity genearted from coal to charge the batteries resulted in just as much smog as driving with the original petrol engine. Using green power for re-charging meant the cost per km was the same as running petrol - although this was when petrol was around the AUS$1 per L.

 

[TundraEddie]

Buy a cheap,lightweight,4-cylinder beater car for commuting,leave the LS in the garage except for special occasions

 

[Zuffen]

I just found the perfect reason to not have an EV.

This morning I was asked to insure ans electric Suzuki Mighty Boy. For those that don't know its a Japanese Kia car (no relation to KIA the manufacturer) from the 80's. It had a 600cc engine and sat two in marginal comfort.

Anyway the breakdown on the cars value was:

* Car $1,000
* Battery pack $12,000
* Motor $2,000
* Controller $2,000

They wanted to insure it for $20,000.

Now the car is supposed to have cost $17,000 with $1,000 being the value of the car. How far would that car travel on $16,000 worth of fuel. At 30miles per gallon and current costs. 81632 miles! That a long payback period!

 

[ChrisV]

The only viable electric cars are lightweight units.

If I could buy a 1 or 2 seat pure electric car with a 40mile range (at normal traffic speed) I would own one. This would cover 70% of my driving and save a bundle of fuel.

You can build them. A friend of mine does electric car drag racing. He helped build a Datsun 1200 that was converted to full electric and runs 12s in the quarter, as well as a Ford Festiva that was converted as a commuter, which runs 15s now (down from 19s), but goes over 100 miles in a charge.

http://www.dragtimes.com/1972-Datsun-1200-Videos-7484.html

http://www.plasmaboyracing.com/videos/nedra2005-hi.mov

http://www.plasmaboyracing.com/videos.php

I want him to build me an electric Porsche 914, lik ehe did for another client. 60 mile range, 120 mph top speed, and 14 second quarters. Would make a FUN commuter, considering I only drive about 80 miles a WEEK on the commute...

 

[bango]

I am sure that a break through in electric cars is just around the corner,Zuffen struck on it right there,most commuters that goes to work everyday really travel less than 60 k/day with top speed less that 70k/hrs (well in Australia).Can't be too hard to have a car that does that with overnight charging..

 

[Lambo]

A Very Quick Electric

Have a look at this guys is it quick enough 0-100km 3 seconds ,http://www.wrightspeed.com/x1.html and http://www.pluginamerica.com/media/Wrightspeed.wmv

Regards
lambo

 

[verylost]

I'm not sure what the current American laws are right now, but I know they have changed this year.

However, if they are similar to before, then there were enormous tax cuts for those who purchased a hybrid vehicle. If I recall correctly, I believe it was $2000.

Also, those who live in California have the luxury to drive in the carpool lane if they are driving a hybrid.

 

[TundraEddie]

ChrisV how much did it cost to convert the Festiva to full-electric,and how long does it take to charge the batteries? Interesting project. You can buy those cars for almost nothing.

NJ has no tax cuts or any other special offers for hybrid owners,which is a bit ironic since one of our former governors (Christine Whitman) was head of the Environmental Protection Agency

 

[Lextreme II]

I have read few articles on the net about Honda Civic conversion using conventional batteries.

 

[bango]

Just a thought,its the electricity generator that need to be worked on...when the production of electricity is cheap,then electric cars will become popular..seems we still don/t have efficient generators yet..

 

[ChrisV]

ChrisV how much did it cost to convert the Festiva to full-electric,and how long does it take to charge the batteries? Interesting project. You can buy those cars for almost nothing.

I do believe his parts cost was in the neighborhood of $5-6k for the optima yellowtops, charge controller, motor controllers, 9" DC motor and adaptors. Rich makes all the electronics at Manzanita Micro. Normally, however, I woudl put the price tag in the $10k range, making it a fun project, but not something you do to save money. The conversion kit for the Porsche 914, for example, runs about $9k without batteries (it delivers a 100 mph top speed with a 100 mile range. You can up the accelleration and top speed at the expense of range)

Oh, his chargers will put a full charge on the battery pack from dead in 2 hours. (it's selectable, for output amperage, and can do a trickle charge, slow charge, or fast charge).

 

[Muzza_NZ]

Electric MR2

Hi all,
I thought you might be interested in this (especially Lowboost) Its a 1993 SW20 MR2 with a 70kW 400Hz electric motor in it. It was built by the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and has just been certified.

I'll dig out some more specs in the next few days.

Muzz

 

[Zuffen]

Where would I put my golf clubs and how would I listen to the radio?

Looks good.

I presume it's using lead acid technology.

 

[jibbby]

Too bad electricity is not all that cheap anymore...Atleast where I live it keeps going up too just like gasoline prices....

 

[Muzza_NZ]

Yeah Rod it is using sealed lead acid batteries, about 400kg of them. One charge lasts about 30-40km, but it will mostly be used around town.

Maybe a roof rack would sort out the golf club carrying issues...

The radio and cd changer work, there was a project done a while back to simulate engine noise and gear changes (so as not to scare pedestrians) I'm sure one of our students could fairly closely reproduce the rumble of a V8 using the same technology.

Muzz