Revenge of the Electric Car
OCTOBER 5, 2008
Early wakeup calls in Detroit continued as our grand tour picked up speed. We shoot at the Tech Center campus where engineers ran tests on Volt battery packs. To our surprise, some of the industrial battery testing equipment came from Aerovironment, the company who had built the SunRaycer and Impact EV prototypes back in the early 1990s. GM Tech Center, Designed by Eero Saairnen 1949.
Open Source Civic EV Kit
OCTOBER 31, 2008
I cut several pieces of metal for the battery hold-downs. The construction details are as follows: All angle iron and barstock is 1/8" thick and 3/4" wide. Front rack: 2 pieces of angle iron, 27 1/2" long with holes 2 pieces of iron bar, 7 1/16" long with holes Trunk rack: 2 pieces of angle iron, 36" long , with notches described here 2 pieces of iron bar, 13 3/16" long with holes Firewall rack: 2 pieces of angle iron, 27 1/2" long with holes 2 pieces of angle iron, 26" long (no holes) 2 pieces
Porsche 914 EV Conversion
OCTOBER 17, 2008
I took the time today to research the 914 wiring diagrams and find the annoying connection that leaves my tail light on after I turn off the ignition switch. If you remove the front dashboard cover and look under the steering column, you should see two connectors. Remove the right one as shown above. On the rear of the connector should be three wires colored grey, grey/red and grey/black.
Plug In Partners
OCTOBER 8, 2008
W hen we started the Plug In Partner initiative, our primary objective was to create a nationwide campaign to urge automakers to accelerate development of plug-in hybrid vehicles. But our goal was to see them manufacturered and in the show rooms. As stated at the opening press conference by Austin's Mayor Will Wynn in January, 2006, “ Plug-in hybrids represent a real near-term solution to America’s over-reliance on foreign oil imports and energy prices that escalate the cost of everything and th
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Honda S2000 EV Conversion
OCTOBER 17, 2008
I started off by removing the bolt that holds the coupler and putting a drop of loctite to make sure it doesn't come out. Even if it did the coupler had to be pressed on and I can't imagine it will ever move again, at least not without using a puller. Then I attached the spacers and adapter plate to the motor. Again using some loctite and torqued these bolts to 40 ft lbs.
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Open Source Civic EV Kit
OCTOBER 31, 2008
Last night I disassembled all the battery racks and gathered the pieces in the living room to get ready for powder-coating. Here are all the steel angle-iron and bar-stock pieces in their approximate battery rack groups (39 pieces in all). I put them in the plastic bin to the left and drove them over to Class Act Powder Coating for powder-coating. For $100 they're going to sandblast all the paint and oxidation off and coat the pieces with epoxy to prevent rust and acid damage.
Porsche 914 EV Conversion
OCTOBER 14, 2008
The Porsche 914 has a bunch of "distinctive" features that make it different from many other cars. One is the hand-brake being on the left side of the driver's seat (enabling a "racing start"). Another quirk is that if you leave the turn signal on after removing the ignition key, your tail light on that side stays on. This has the unfortunate side effect of draining your 12V battery.
Revenge of the Electric Car
OCTOBER 27, 2008
The web was buzzing last week with stories about BMW’s MINI E. To recap, BMW will be leasing 500 MINI Es from dealers in New York, New Jersey and Southern California starting some time early in 2009. To be considered for one of these cars, you have to go to [link] and sign up, but remember, they are only going to consider you if you live in one of the regions cited above.
Revenge of the Electric Car
OCTOBER 26, 2008
KillaCycle Pilot Scotty Pollacheck "lights 'em up" alongside Team Leader Bill Dube. One of our favorite guests from our shoot in Iceland, Bill Dube and his KillaCycle Team, made headlines this past week in Colorado with a new EV world speed record. On Thursday October 23rd, 2008, Team KillaCycle set their latest drag racing world record at Bandimere Raceway.
Open Source Civic EV Kit
OCTOBER 25, 2008
After unsuccessfully trying to use this tool to replace the springs on the front strut assemblies, I ended up going to Les Schwab Tire Center and they swapped out the springs for $30. Much less time and much less hassle than trying to do it myself. One word of caution: Make sure to keep the correct orientation between the bottom of the strut and the bolts that go into the shock tower.
Open Source Civic EV Kit
OCTOBER 25, 2008
The upper edge of the LifeLine batteries has some protrusions that the battery hold downs must fit around. I'm using 3/4" angle iron to hold down the batteries in the rear trunk. To make the hold-downs work for the life-line batteries, I used the metal cutoff grinding blade to make several adjacent cuts, thereby making a much wider unified cut. In order to notch out the 3/4" angle iron, I made one cut on the right and several vertical cuts (1/8" wide each) on the left side of the notch.
Open Source Civic EV Kit
OCTOBER 25, 2008
After redesigning the firewall battery rack with rotated batteries, I wrote down some installation instructions. For the past two days, I've been following my own instructions to see how well they work out. Here are the four 1" x 3/16" x 5.5" bars that will be mounted to the shock towers With the bars mounted to the shock towers, I cut the left and right angle iron supports.
Open Source Civic EV Kit
OCTOBER 22, 2008
I drafted up a somewhat "exploded" model of the firewall rack. There were too many pieces to dimension everything, but I hope people get the idea of what I'm trying to accomplish. (click on the image for a larger view) All the Google Sketchup files for these racks can be downloaded from the Files area of the Civic-EV Google Group. Let's hope this works.
Open Source Civic EV Kit
OCTOBER 18, 2008
I spent this evening trying to use Sketchup to capture the design intent of the instructions. Click on the images below to get a larger version. Here's the current design for the front rack just behind the radiator grille. Here's the simpler battery rack for the rear trunk. The firewall rack is a bit more complex; I'll try to draft that up tomorrow morning.
Open Source Civic EV Kit
OCTOBER 18, 2008
Last Saturday, my buddy Ian and I spent the day re-working the firewall battery rack. I wasn't sure on clearance to the hood with the LifeLine batteries and things just didn't seem to fit. Ian and I re-attached the hood and put white masking tape on the underside to more easily see where the batteries would interfere. After much staring with a headlamp at the masking tape with the hood closed, Ian suggested that we rotate the firewall batteries 90 degrees.
Open Source Civic EV Kit
OCTOBER 10, 2008
Back in this post , I discovered that the tail shaft on the Warp9 motor was interfering with the driver-side chassis. I had to decide whether to cut the tail shaft or cut the car chassis. Since I don't have welding skills and I prefer not to weaken the chassis, I decided to cut off the tail shaft of the motor. Here's my cut line on the tail shaft of the Warp9.
Open Source Civic EV Kit
OCTOBER 10, 2008
Back in this post , I had cut a 1/4" steel plate for the rear motor mount and drilled appropriate bolt holes. Here is that steel plate bolted to the rear of the Warp9 motor. I'm planning on using a piece of 2" angle iron (1/4" thick) to attach the rear plate with the driver-side Civic engine mount. In order to get the angle-iron to fit, I had to hacksaw part of the driver-side engine mount flat to accommodate the angle-iron.
Open Source Civic EV Kit
OCTOBER 10, 2008
With the motor and transmission in, I started to re-install the firewall battery rack to see if there were any clearance issues. The space between the passenger-side shock tower and the brake fluid reservoir is rather tight. There is also very little clearance between the top of the batteries and the underside of the hood. (see the dent I made in this post ).
Revenge of the Electric Car
OCTOBER 10, 2008
Bathers in the foreground, geo-thermal power plant in the distance. The rumors are true. Iceland is beautiful. Sitting on the continental plates between Europe and North America, this volcanic island is home to a mere 300,000 people. I came as a guest for Driving Sustainability , Iceland’s conference for the future of cars. They lined up an international and terrific schedule.
Revenge of the Electric Car
OCTOBER 4, 2008
Interviewing GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz at GM's test track in Detroit. General Motors invited me to Detroit to speak on a panel at its 100th anniversary along with a small group of other “outside voices&#. Since GM’s Vice Chairman, Bob Lutz planned to unveil the Chevy Volt production prototype, we decided to take our film crew. We knew we were being pulled into GM’s PR machine, but we wanted to hear their side of the story and accept their offer - If GM was once again comm
Plugs and Cars
OCTOBER 4, 2008
Sunday October 5th on CBS.
Honda S2000 EV Conversion
OCTOBER 15, 2008
I finally got some time from my uncle to machine the parts and it took longer than we anticipated. Engineering as you go and a lot of measuring twice before you cut really added to the time but I think we'll end up with a reliable setup. I loaded up the truck with everything I could think I needed and headed to my Uncle's house. First was to create the coupler.
Revenge of the Electric Car
OCTOBER 25, 2008
The automotive and green electric vehicle blogosphere has been abuzz with talk of the BMW MINI E ever since July 9th, 2008, when AutoblogGreen published the rumor that 500 of the intriguing new electric cars would be released later this year in California. Chris Paine’s docudrama “ Who Killed the Electric Car &# has raised awareness that plug-in electric vehicles are possible, and the demand for plug-in electric vehicles has never been higher.
Revenge of the Electric Car
OCTOBER 23, 2008
Lots going on with batteries now, as John O’Dell’s piece below illustrates. GM has been saying for a while now that they had picked their supplier for the LiIon battery in the Volt, but they weren’t prepared to announce who it was. MIT spinoff A123 was a personal favorite, also Germany’s Continental was in the running, but it was LG Chem subsidiary and Detroit based Compact Power, Inc. that got the nod.
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