140 miles on a charge!

Wow.  It's been nearly a year since my last post.  My car has been running relatively trouble free so not much to say.  I have purchased a new Elcon 4000 charger that pushes 31amps @ 220v AC.  I like it much better than my old Elcon3000 charger as it has two fans and does not get hot at all.  It barely gets warm.  If you have the room for this, it is a much better choice.  With my old Elcon3000 I was always nervous about closing my fiberglass trunk lid over the charger as it got very hot.  Now no worries

I also made a J1772 adapter for my car (which I never use). 
Here's a shot of my trunk with its new add ons.           

140 MILES ON A CHARGE!

I had to run a few errands on Saturday and I noticed I was running very efficiently at about 1.3 Ah/mile. So... I decided to do a long distance maximum range test.

This was mostly Freeway driving @ 65mph driving like a granny not 75-80 like I usually drive. At the end of the test, I was driving around my neighborhood with a volt meter attached to my windshield wiper connected to my cell #25. This is my lowest capacity cell from prior tests. I also wanted to see how the voltage sagged on that cell when I was accelerating. Cell #25 sagged to 2.25v under 50amp load at the end of my trip. As soon as I pulled into my garage, I checked cell voltages and #25 was up to 2.41v. This was a little further than I had intended to go but I was so close to my house. :-) 

Cell voltages ranged from 2.71v to 2.41v with an average of 2.62v.

I got exactly 140 miles using 194.2 Ah (Actually it is more like 137 miles as my tachometer is off a little with my smaller diameter Bridgestone Ecopia tires.)

That's 1.387 Ah/mile and 168.4 Wh/mile with a 2,300lb car.

What's really great is in 100 miles I will have 18,000 miles on my battery pack and I still have almost full capacity!

I wanted to see if I could compete in the ENDURO run being planned for EVCCON 2012. However, as it turns out, I will be hiking in the Grand Canyon with my wife in September. The hiking group we belong to has planned a big trip in September and since my kids are both off to college I am trying to find things that my wife and I can do together that we both enjoy.  (The empty nest has its challenges)

So... next year for sure.

Here's proof of my drive (or stupidity)

I have almost 18,000 miles on the car.  I average 1.82Ah/mile = 221 Wh/mile

Highest 2.29Ah/mile = 278Wh/mile

Lowest 1.13Ah/mile = 137.2 Wh/mile

The 914 is a fairly aerodynamic car so I can do a little better than the "Rule of thumb" of

1 Wh/mile for every 100lbs of car but it depends on how I drive.

So as of June 20th, 2012:

Using 38 200Ah Lithium Iron Phosphate Voltronics batteries from Flux Power.
Nominal Pack Voltage of 121.6
Top speed 107mph
Max miles on a charge 140 (137 )
EV miles traveled 18,000 (almost)

Gross weight 2308
Charge time after my 45 mile commute is about 3 hrs. @ 31.1amps


 

Here's a rear shot of my license plate frame and bumper sticker.  The license number is a forgery. Ha Ha!

Brian Galleger of Andromeda continues to work on his Display I have the first version in my car.  His new display will have more features including touch screen an Ah counter and better graphics. 

Recent stats

Here's some of my recent statistics.  On July 10th,  I ended up needing to drive the car a bit farther than usual.  SO I decided to do a bottom balance as recommended by Jack Rickard.   SO I drove the car and checked my cells and drove and checked and drove and checked.  I used up 194 amp hrs on my 200Ah batteries.  At this point I had gone 117.4 miles!  I decided to use my ceramic heater to drain the pack further as that only draws about 13amps.  I got all the cells to balance at 2.96 V each.  This was a big pain in the butt but I did it.

  Now the theory is... if I ever drive the car down to its limits (which I do not plan on doing), all cells will be even and dropping over the discharge curve cliff at the same time and they all will be too weak to push any cell into cell reversal.  The car will just stop.  Not that I would ever want to test this. :-)

Laguna Seca Raceway

On june 26th, 2011 I went out to an event called Refuel at Laguna Seca.  It was an all electric car event.  I came in second in my class of converted cars.  The Tesla cars were wicked fast.  I remembered tailing and passing a blue Nissan Leaf in the event and thinking wow I am faster than a Nissan Leaf!  My garage build car is better than a production car.  However there is a U-Tube video of the tan Leaf in this picture being behind me for about 2 minutes and then passing me.  Hmmm....  

Not sure what happened here.  Possibly a case of thermal cut back?  My controller starts to reduce power when it hits 85C.  Time for liquid cooling and a fan.  Currently I am just using a large heatsink with vertically mounted fins.  Although on the freeway even going 90 it has never been a problem.  But on a race track I was pushing the 550amp controller to it's limits.  It was loads of fun though.  Even if I got my ass kicked by a boxy economy car.  :-)  Speaking of getting my a#* kicked, Here's a shot taken from a Tesla Video camera.  I bet the guy was thinking...Who's the guy in the slow blue car?  

Speaking of getting my a#* kicked, Here's a shot taken from a Tesla Video camera.  I bet the guy was thinking...Who's the guy in the slow blue car?  

Promoting EV awareness 04-17-2011

This Sunday there was an Earth day Fair at Balboa Park.  The Kick Gas Club got some coverage and I was on the news.  Also had an article on my car in the Union Tribune.
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/on-air/as-seen-on/Electric_Start_to_Green_Week_San_Diego-120041864.html

CostCo gas line

EV Grin...  I was parked in the CostCo parking lot today.  I took this shot of the car when I noticed what was in the background.  People waiting in line to pay 4.00/gallon for gas.

I am still working on my ceramic heater (Almost done).

A few days ago I took the car out on the freeway and got it up to 102 MPH (not a super smart thing to do with tires inflated to 42PSI.)  A week ago I drove the car 82 miles and used only 160.4 amphours on my 200 Ah batteries.  I now have over 4,100 electric miles on the car and I am very happy with what this car will do.  My typical commute to work is 45 miles round trip.  No range anxiety here.

Bring on the HEAT!

San Diego does not get very cold but I have had a day or two when I had to defog the windshield. So...

I am installing a ceramic heater with defrost vents and an interior vent.

The heater box is homemade using aluminum sheet metal, a 12V fan and the original plastic housing for the ceramic element from my $25 space heater.  I purchased a defroster kit from Mill Supply for my defroster vents and heater tubing and flanges.

Dash light

The Link pro meter by Xantrax does not light up at night unless you manually press on the meter. You can program it to have the light on all the time but this would be on 24/7. I added a blue LED strip to light up the instrument panel so I can see the Link Pro Meter at night. I like the look but may need to tone it down a bit as it's a little bright. I need to paint my dash panel flat black to reduce reflections. It is also a source of glare when the sun is reflecting off of it.