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
- Gavin, from New Zealand, has started a web page for sharing progress on his new EV project. He’s rushing to beat the on-coming winter (while we are waving it goodbye!).
- Mark emailed last week to share a link to a data logger. He also runs an EV related website chock full of information, head on over and check out EVHelp.
- Driving without gas for a year, can she do it? “Crawford is so intent on going a year without gas that she’s selling her Prius because at 50 mpg, it uses “too much” gasoline.”
- You may have seen or heard of the report circulating, claiming a Hummer is more “green” than a Prius. I’ve written it off as a case of creative rounding taken to its extreme, but a fellow over at Grist posted a longer, more reasoned analysis of the report. If you have a couple of hours to kill, here’s the /. comment thread.
- Toyota new hybrid concept car: Hybrid X.
- Speaking of concept cars, GM is now targeting 2010 for it’s Chevy Volt. Some interesting quotes (backsliding?) in the article, notably that the chance of it looking like the concept car that everyone’s been seeing is slim to none. Seems like a lot of unknowns for a company that made one of the first commercial electric cars.
- King of the hyper-milers, Wayne is able to squeeze 59mpg out of his old Accord. Faint of heart need not apply. Over at Kottke there’s an interesting comment thread on the subject.
- Looks like automobile telematics is starting to gather more interest than speed and power.
Comment [6]
- Maybe wishful thinking, but according to this article, Cheap solar power is poised to undercut oil and gas by half. The article talks about Flisom Solar but we’ve also seen similar advancements in cost cutting and power increase with other companies, including our friend Mr. Ovshinsky (inventor of the NiMh battery) over at Ovonics ECD.
- Flagstaff is hoping to be the home site of the new Tesla EV Plant. (update: they decided on Albuquerque, NM instead (because it’s so fun to spell?))
- This sounds like something Darin either has, or will do: Software patch to improve engine efficiency 2.6% by turning off the alternator at key moments.
- Not EV related, but some interesting stuff all the same, I’ve been spending time reading up on house physics over at BuildingScience.com. And it’s not all dry science, they even take time out to shoot fence posts at walls.
Comment [5]
- First off is a trip over to Brian Matheny’s Solar House project. Brian lives in New England and this is his second energy efficient home project (that I’m aware of). He has also converted a few vehicles over the years, including a few electric lawnmowers. Lots of great information.
- Mr. Chaos (going by his email address) sends along a link to the latitude EV project.
- If you are looking for a lightweight design for your EV then Darin may have come across the concept EV kit car of your dreams. It’s kind of like a recumbent electric bike with a great windscreen! I particularly enjoyed his energy efficiency comparison page: the power to do one load of dishes will run his vehicle 25 miles.
- It may be spam or it may be gold: in an email via the contact form comes a message from Mr. Chang at the Advanced Battery Factory in Guang Dong, China advertising their growing collection of LiPoly batteries.
Comment [1]
- Popular Science’s DIY Gravity Battery. Yields 1volt, no mention of cycle life.
- Having moved way beyond sloshing glasses of batteries, A123 has secured another 40 Million of investments for their high-powered lithium battery development. “A123Systems has quickly become one of the World’s largest suppliers of high-power lithium-ion batteries. Based on the Company’s patented nanophosphate technology, the batteries deliver previously unattainable levels of power, safety and life.”
- The folks over at the US Dept of Energy Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have been working on improved fuel cell cathode catalysts. “The next step”, Stamenkovic said, “will be to engineer nanoparticle catalysts with electronic and morphological properties that mimic the surfaces of pure single crystals of Pt3Ni.”
- A new electric car maker in Japan, Start Lab SAP is making a small EV for about $18k USD ($2.2M Yen). It has one odd feature: the car comes equipped with the clip-clop sound of horse hooves hitting the pavement to alert pedestrians and other drivers.
- I see that Justin already beat me to this posting in his recent comment. In case you missed it Technology Review has an article on a new ultra-capacitor “battery” that purportedly will change the whole landscape of electric cars and energy. Be sure to peruse the article’s comments and if that isn’t enough for you, follow along in the Slashdot comment thread. So far no demonstrable ultra-capacitor, just claims that they have come up with a formula for success and are moving forward with manufacturing plans. Sounds like a wonderful thing, and I wish them all the luck, but as Carl Sagan so aptly put it, Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and so far we haven’t seen any of that.
- From last night’s State of the Union address comes the Twenty in Ten plan. Mostly support for alt fuels, more domestic oil production, and changes to CAFE standards. Comments over at the Energy Blog and you can read the initiatives PDF here.
- Hop over for pictures of the Norwegian-built EV, Kewet Buddy at AutoBlogGreen
Comment [8]
- Darin has achieved a new milestone in the forkenswift project, they’ve transplanted and awakened the brain!
- A handful of block diagrams outlining the proposed functionality of an energy tower. (that’s a bunch of ammonia folks)
- Article over at the New York Times on Taking Control of your Electric Bill. Some interesting stuff even if you aren’t plugging in an EV every night.
- Need parts? How about making them yourself with the help of the backyard metal casting gang?
Comment [4]
- The FHEPIHDA? (Ford Hydrogen-Electric Plug-in Hybrid Drive and Airstream Concept)
- Meanwhile GM has been working “almost a year” on plug-in hybrids (woo!) and the current concept car to employ this blossoming tech is called the Chevy Volt (thanks for the link David). Green Car Congress has some more details.
- From Freep readers: Electric cars to rule the roads?
- Check out the TransWarP11 direct drive, 11” DC motor. I sniffed around the net but couldn’t find anything regarding it’s max RPM.
Comment [5]