LED Bargraph battery monitor part 2 · 10/09/08

OK. So You’d like to build a set of those neat little bargraph battery monitors.

Here’s how it’s done ………

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Links for 08/26/08

• Bob Hurst is back in the news with his electric Citroen. We’ve featured Bob’s EV before, here and here.
• Speaking of folks we know, Lee Hart is featured in this article, Engineer Designs Electric Car Kit. Unfortunately the article (like many news sites) doesn’t link to any of Lee’s work. I sniffed around and found their Sunrise project page. Be sure to check out the EV Kit page, interesting stuff.
• Shai Agassi is really pushing to put electric cars on the road.
• Steve thinks that he killed the electric car.
• A funny and nostalgic clip from the 70’s featuring Jack Nicholson getting rid of gas and replacing it with tanks of hydrogen gas. Wonder what he’s driving these days?
• Yet another prototype electric car, this time from Nissan.
• Finally we’ll close out with this thread over at Slashdot on how some Americans (ahem!) are refusing to wait for EVs from the car companies. As usual the comments are full of insight and idiocy, but there are a few good links to follow.

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Links for 07/27/08

• Is this BMW’s future Electric Car?. Dunno, but watching the news these days it seems like pretty much everyone has an EV on the drawing board.
• One of the options when making a battery box is to use a thick plastic “board” and weld it into a box (I can’t remember the material’s name). To do this you’ll need a plastic welder. I ran across some plastic welding videos recently along with a wikipedia article on it. Here’s the videos: one, two, three, and more.
• Speaking of youtube, here’s a vid of an EV Mini QED with PML Wheel Motors.
• Most of the wheel motors I’ve seen have been for electric bikes.
• Less than 30% of the energy in gasoline actually gets put into use and over the years folks have looked into converting some of the waste heat into electricity. Here’s a new try from Ohio State.

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Links for 07/14/08

• If you haven’t heard by now Tesla Motors is finally delivering their high-end electric sports car to customers. Let me know when yours shows up! “:^)
• Shai Agassi sat down with the US house of representatives to let them know what he thinks about EV Infrastructure. Agassi cajoled the house, noting that with American’s averaging 2.6 cars per household (one usually a big brute of an SUV driven by a chirpy ‘soccer mom’) “there is no reason that one of them can’t be all electric for use on every trip of 120 miles or less.”
• Think Electric cars coming to the states? It’s frustrating that the people who write these articles are so uninformed (or worse), saying things like: “To date, most electric cars available in the U.S.—small, unsafe, and underpowered—have been intended strictly for the earliest early adopters and the most faithful green believers.”
• It’s certainly not an EV but VW’s been working on a 282 MPG car. Usually when I see these lightweight, streamlined designs I think, “Hey, that would make a great EV donor car!”

Comment [7]

Tools Update · 06/26/08

Just wanted to post a quick update about some changes to the EV Calculator. A number of readers were wondering how hard it would be to add driving cost to the computation and it turned out to be relatively easy.

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Links for 06/26/08

• Reva – India’s first electric car.
• Oil prices keep climbing and automakers are spending more time focusing on Electric Cars. “I’ve actually made a prediction that, within 30 years, a majority of new cars made in the United States will be electric. And I don’t mean hybrid; I mean fully electric.”
• Honda has rolled out their new hydrogen car in limited availability and areas (mostly Los Angeles).
• Meanwhile Toyota has been having a hard time meeting demand for the Prius due to battery shortages.
• I got an email the other day from one of the TV networks wondering if I’d like to come on to talk about Senator McCain’s EV Battery “prize.” Being on vacation it was the first I’d heard of it and looking around the net it doesn’t sound like everyone is buying it. One person pointed out that anyone developing such a battery would rake in billions of dollars in sales, far more than any incentive prize. Still, it’s great to see the discussions and increased focus on alternatives, along with the new battery research.

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Links for 06/15/08

• Greg Zanis’ Dream Electric Car. “We’re very set on the shape,” he said. “It’s also a very safe car – it[s built with 12-inch I-beams all around in order to take on any kid of a crash. So we like the spaceship kind of feel to it.” Color me dubious.
• While we are on crazy EV designs, how about some Inflatable Electric Cars that can drive off cliffs? Seriously, that’s the headline, not usually something one looks for when shopping for a new car. “… the miracle behind the 2,500-mile range is a “hot-swap XPack Multi-Core Battery/Fuel Cell power plant” invented by the founders of XP Vehicles. Or, without the hot-swap technology, the car can travel up to 300 miles on a single charge, thanks to its light weight.”
• Eight reasons you’ll rejoice when gas hits 8 dollars a gallon. I’m not sure if “rejoice” is the right word, no matter what the beneficial side effects might be.
• Superlattice cathode extends EV range by 65%. “Our objective is to create the next generation of Lithium Ion Polymer battery that is environmentally non-toxic, safe, less expensive and more powerful.”

Comment [5]

Still Crazy After All These Years · 06/08/08

First off, as a weak defense, most folks don’t plan to start a project and then have it delayed for a couple of years. But life comes at you in ways you can’t always control. You make the best of a bad situation, lemons to lemonade, etc…

All of that being said life is still crazy and yet I managed to get in a whole weekend of work on Eve.

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