Open Source Civic EV Kit

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Seeing the Nissan Leaf in Person

Open Source Civic EV Kit

Things have been nuts this week, but I did get a chance to see the Nissan Leaf come to Portland today. Here's Nissan's spokesperson who graciously answered all our geeky questions about the car. Nissan did say that commuting on the freeway at 60mph would probably yield a range of 75-80 miles instead.

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Saying Goodbye to Electric Blue

Open Source Civic EV Kit

I have a reservation for a silver Nissan Leaf coming in December, so maybe I'll post my experience with it. I sold Electric Blue to my friend Murray (shown above) and he is taking good care of her. It's time to move on from this electric vehicle conversion hobby and see where life takes me.

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Range Anxiety

Open Source Civic EV Kit

Sell the vehicle at cost minus the price for the batteries, go with an ICE and buy a Nissan Leaf when it comes out. Spend a lot of time making the car aerodynamic like the Aero-Civic Redo the system with lithium-ion batteries and double the amp-hours for $10,000 and lots of time (ouch!). Perhaps I only need to replace one battery.

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New Vacuum Pump and Fixed Wiper System

Open Source Civic EV Kit

I think the next major project (If I don't go out and purchase a Nissan "Leaf" outright) is to upgrade the batteries to lithium-ion types when the AGM lead-acid batteries die. Now that the intermittent wiper system is fixed and brake vacuum pump is upgraded, I don't plan on doing any more work on the Civic for awhile.

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When Things Fall Apart

Open Source Civic EV Kit

In the meantime I'm going to check out Nissan's Leaf this week and think about ditching all this unreliable homebrew stuff to buy a commercially engineered EV. It's too bad that the best battery data comes under a high current draw when the serial data is the noisiest. Happy Holidays!

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