Open Source Civic EV Kit
APRIL 7, 2008
After spending the past year and a half converting a Porsche 914 to an electric vehicle, I decided to expand my horizons by designing an open-source electric vehicle (EV) conversion kit for a commonly used car. The intention is to create detailed designs and directions so that anyone who has a garage and is moderately proficient with hand-tools can convert their car to an EV.
Plug In Partners
APRIL 21, 2008
C oming this fall, mark you calendars for the Austin Energy Alt Car Expo and Conference. It's October 17th and 18th and it will be a great opportunity to see what's happening in plug-ins, mass transportation, and urban planning. For general and exhibitor information, call Christine at Platia Productions (310) 390-2930 or email platia@earthlink.net. And here is a Plug in Partners Update: Partners Update Partners There are currently 629 entities signed on as Partners.
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Plugs and Cars
APRIL 19, 2008
Stefano Paris, plug-in car and renewable energy supporter and renaissance man, has made a video of Plug In America's rally in Sacramento outside CARB last month. Check out the video, and his extremely useful website on plug-ins here. Tags: stefano paris california air resources board Plug-in Hybrids plug in america.
Porsche 914 EV Conversion
APRIL 7, 2008
With almost 3000 miles of cheap, reliable operation, I think it's time to move on to something that will help more people do their own conversions. I really appreciated the high-quality parts and detailed instructions provided by Electro Automotive with their 914 kit. I would like to see the same thing done for a more modern, practical vehicle for much less cost.
Open Source Civic EV Kit
APRIL 22, 2008
I'd like to thank all the folks that I've bumped into over the past few weeks who have been tremendously supportive of this open-source EV conversion project. People have been quick to respond and eager to share their own experience and knowledge with Civic conversions. In the process, I've found several folks in the Portland area who are willing to help out with a variety of skills and talents.
Open Source Civic EV Kit
APRIL 22, 2008
I spent a few hours over the past days playing with Kicad. It has some quirks, but overall it's a great freeware schematic CAD package. I created an EV-parts library so that I could draw up schematics specific to electric vehicles. I've posted the current ev-parts library to the files section of the Civic-EV Google Group here. Here are some of the symbols I've created for EV usage.
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Open Source Civic EV Kit
APRIL 18, 2008
I thought I would take the afternoon to see if I could draw some battery boxes with Google Sketchup. I was surprised by how easy the program was to use. Here are some tentative 3/16" polypropylene battery boxes for the Civic-EV design: This is the front (headlight) battery box that holds four batteries. Here is the tentative firewall battery box that holds five batteries And finally the rear trunk battery box that holds nine batteries.
Open Source Civic EV Kit
APRIL 18, 2008
I wanted to get some more detailed measurements, so I went back to U-Pull-It again. Here are some photos: Here's a shot of the front engine compartment without anything in it. I'm trying to see the best way of putting batteries in the front rack. The front is 35 1/2" wide without the tow brackets, 35" wide with the tow brackets and 34 1/4" wide with the bolt heads protruding out of the brackets.
Open Source Civic EV Kit
APRIL 11, 2008
Well, I went back to U-Pull-It today to see if I could salvage the throttle body from car #2 that I found last time and ended up with a whole lot more than I bargained for. Here's the throttle body from the last car. I like the idea of using the TPS (throttle position sensor) on this instead of the PB-6 potbox that most people use in their EVs because I think the accelerator pedal feel will be much closer to the original.
Plugs and Cars
APRIL 11, 2008
Check out today's LA Times piece by Ken Bensinger on CARB Board Member Dan Sperling, here. The UC Davis Institute he heads took in millions from auto and oil companies in the years prior to his appointment by Gov Schwarzenegger. At last month's Board Meet, Sperling spearheaded a proposal to cut the number of zero emission vehicles required by the ZEV program.
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Open Source Civic EV Kit
APRIL 8, 2008
Unlike the Gnu Public License (GPL) for software, there aren't really that many widely used open-source hardware licenses out there. The best one I could find was from TAPR (link at right). It seems like this will be good enough as long as all the designs have the Open Hardware License (OHL) identification on them. The next hurdle was finding free tools with which to design various parts with.
Open Source Civic EV Kit
APRIL 8, 2008
Last Friday, I headed out to U-Pull-It auto wrecking to see if they had any '92-'95 Civics on the lot. Fortunately they had three of them, so I took some pictures to see if it would help me with battery rack and other component placement. You can click on any of the pictures for an enlarged version. I've limited the size to 640x480 to save disk space since there may be many photos during the course of this blog.
Plugs and Cars
APRIL 7, 2008
Check out my snarky AutoblogGreen.com post on Lexus' greenwashing. Quoting myself, Lexus is taking hybrid hype to the next level, the penthouse.At one time Toyota was content to let the Prius subliminally lower consumers' green expectations from electric cars to hybrids which use gasoline-generated electricity to raise efficiency. Lexus has gone literal - "h" is the new green lifestyle.
Porsche 914 EV Conversion
APRIL 5, 2008
Yesterday was fun. I drove the electric 914 back out to Camp914 where I originally purchased the car and drove it away as a gasoline vehicle. Craig was happy to see me and took several pictures. Since the round-trip drive was 44 miles and included several long hills, I charged up for an hour out at camp just to give myself a bit of breathing room. Overall, the car handled the freeway and hills well.
Plugs and Cars
APRIL 5, 2008
The following guest blog post is by Earl Killian who often blogs at Joe Romm's ClimateProgress.org. Biographical information below the post. Is NRDC drinking the hydrogen kool-aid? Imagine for a moment that the world had rejected wind and solar energy, and instead decided to wait for a hydrogen fusion research program to reach fruition. Where would we be today?
Plug In Partners
APRIL 2, 2008
I n our last post on Blowback , we observed and opined that any movement forward exerts a force in the opposite direction, and that it is natural. However, this story on water consumption seems to be more than just natural clever shaping, it seems seriously wrong. Here is the story and the claims. Plug-in Cars Could Drain U.S. Water Supply, Researcher Says By Jennifer Bogo Popular Mechanics March 7, 2008 "A 30-mile commute in a gasoline-powered car would require the withdrawal of 18.9 gallons of
Plugs and Cars
APRIL 2, 2008
Governor Schwarzenegger can expect delivery of his $100,000 electric Tesla Roadster within a few months. His pals in the Old World won't have to wait too much longer before they can buy their own, for a cool €100,000 ($156,000.) The Roadster will be sold in Europe beginning in Summer, 2008, CEO Ze'ev Drori has told the Financial Times. The upstart California auto maker decided to offer its vehicles in Europe for a number of reasons.
Plugs and Cars
APRIL 2, 2008
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the California Fuel Cell Partnership (CFCP) have become inseparable. The Green California Summit taking place next week in Sacramento appears to provide one more small example. As I stated in my testimony before CARB's Zero Emission Vehicle Program meeting last week, to understand the conflict of interest one need look no further than the CARB homepage, where hydrogen and fuel cells – not ZEVs - receive prominent placement, with no equivalent recogni
Plugs and Cars
APRIL 1, 2008
Sandia Labs Researcher Ben Cipiti has penned a short piece entitled An Unbiased Approach to Evaluating Transportation Fuels in which he extols the virtues of plug-in cars to meet our environmental and national security goals. He correctly identifies the problem bedeviling consumers, policy makers and, perhaps, auto makers. Many of us want to know what we can do to make a difference.
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