Welcome to the Electric Car Weblog. In addition to links, news, and tips about electric cars and other forms of alternative transportation we are publishing an on-line diary of our current EV project. Started in August 2005 the chronicle follows the conversion of a gas powered Ford Probe into an Electric Car.
You will find articles organized by categories, along with recent comments, along the right hand column of the website. If you are just getting started with the idea of converting a gas car to electric be sure to check out Your First Electric Car .
Welcome and enjoy!
-Jerry
You will find articles organized by categories, along with recent comments, along the right hand column of the website. If you are just getting started with the idea of converting a gas car to electric be sure to check out Your First Electric Car .
Welcome and enjoy!
-Jerry
- Coming soon, EDrive, plug-in Hybrid converters. For around $10k they’ll replace the existing NiMH battery pack of your Prius with Lithium, along with tweaks to the battery control system. The conversion process was engineered by a company called EnergyCS (here’s some of their projects). Hmm, wonder what they are doing with the old batteries?
- How’s that for timing, I was just thinking about Hybrid School buses on the walk home from work the other day. I can hear a school bus coming from quite a ways away, they are ferocious beasts. The giant engine, exhaust pipe thick as a grapefruit, powering the huge, swaying mass of metal and rubber that is the epitome of stop-and-go driving. Regenerative braking and electric assist take-off would probably save tons of wear and tear, along with helping reduce fuel consumption.
- Prius Hacks to get rid of beeps, enter stealth mode and more.
Comment [1]
- New X-prizes are in the works. You might remember the X-Prize as the force behind the competition for private space travel. An encouraging quote from the X-Prize founder: “Why do we still drive cars that use an internal combustion engine and only get 30 miles per gallon? I think that we’ll see some amazing achievements in this area,” Diamandis predicted. Further details on this automotive prize are forthcoming, he added, when the prize is fully formulated.
- Two more episodes online of the podcast This New Car: #3 Hydrogen-combustion vehicles and #4 Fuel-cell vehicles.
- Kitcar USA looks interesting. Found a little information on car construction. Anyone else have links to sites on kitcars, fiberglass, and the like?
Comment [1]
- Seven simple strategies (PDF) to improve your car’s mileage—without busting your budget. From HomePower Magazine.
- Turning hazardous waste (Jersey Juice?) into hydrogen fuel.
- What’s up with EEStor’s Ultracapacitor technology?
- The HOV lane exception for Hybrids in California so popular that they may end it
Comment [7]
- Chinese microcar, the MyCar. The MyCar will come in both a gasoline or diesel version (the fuel used is unclear—the MyCar website refers to it as an “explosion-engine version”) and an electric version, and will sell for €6,500, or about US$7,000. [via GCC]
- Hybrids with Li-Ion in the Tank. “It’s easy to see the attraction of lithium-ion for auto makers. Li-ion cells are smaller, lighter, and more powerful than NiMH batteries. If manufacturers can bring prices down—a vital consideration since batteries account for over a third of the cost of hybrid systems—there’s every reason to believe that Li-ion will supplant NiMH as they have in laptops and other electronic gadgets.” Amen, brother, Eve will take a few too!
- Nanomotors that run on sunlight. “While the nanomotor is less efficient than some fuel-powered engines—it has an efficiency of only 2 to 12 percent—the researchers point out that it doesn’t need refueling and that sunlight is free.” Harnessing this “free power” might be a bit of a challenge seeing that 3.8 million of them, end to end, span the width of a penny.
- Video of the Wrightspeed X1 in action.
- Tiny Tim, seven inch motor powering the OrangeCrush electric motorcycle. Check out the comparison to the inside of a 9” ADC motor.
- John has started converting a 1958 Harley Davidson Servi-car.
- 502kmh/311mph on the Japanese Maglev (Google Video)
- Valence has expanded its Lithium lineup. Also available is a matching battery management system and battery discharge indicator (fuel gauge?). Oddly, they still haven’t shipped a 144vdc pack for us to test! ”:^)
Comment [4]
- Wasting energy standing by. “Britons waste the equivalent of around two power stations’ worth of electricity each year by leaving TV sets and other gadgets on standby.”
- Dashboard computer candidate? Old 486 Futitsu Tablet PCs for $59-$99. (8MB Ram…wooo hooo!) Surplus Sales also has a pile-o-motors and meters (250 amp shunt for $25)
- Energy Blog has a follow-up article on flow batteries, this one featuring Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries
- John’s Prius Site. I must say this is one of the more extensive, exhaustively documented car sites out there. Well done!
Comment [8]
- NEC organic radical battery technology.
- Article covering Firefly’s battery advances (PDF file) [link from James]