Saturday, April 18, 2009

1000 miles and counting

On the way to work on Friday I hit 1000 miles! It's amazing how quickly the miles are adding up now that I'm driving to work each day.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi there!

I stumbled over your site since I'm in the process of buying a Honda S200 for driving pleasure in warm summer days. I was just looking around for information on the car.

I must say I'm *deeply* impressed by your project. What are you, a wizard? You seem to know everything from shop mechanics to electronic circuit construction and programming, on top of this you handle the authorities well.

My S2000 will be my second car and sparsely used. I'd really like to have an electric or hybrid car as my first car. Since I'm not the technical wonder you seem to be I'll have to wait for a production car. Unfortunately there are none in Sweden where I live.

Maybe you should work constructing EV cars or hybrids...

Best regards
Jens (mail4jensATyahooDOTse)

Anonymous said...

Hi again..

I just came to think of something... You kept the gearbox? I was under the impression that electric motors had such high torque that you wouldn't need a gearbox with them. Without gearbox a car would be lighter, how did you reason when you decided to keep the gearbox? This is just out of curiosity and trying to learn, not meant as criticism.

Regards from Sweden
Jens (mail4jensATyahooDOTse)

Brian said...

Hey Jens,

Thanks for the compliments. Electric motors do have some great torque but depending on the motor and the amps you'll be pushing through it, it still may not have enough be used direct drive.

Basically the math needs to be done to figure out what your maximum vehicle speed would be if the motor was at maximum RPM. For me this would be like starting out in 5th gear all the time. So you really need some crazy torque to still make your acceleration decent.

The ability to shift puts less stress on the motor as it will see shorter periods of time with high amp loads. Additionally motors have certain RPM ranges where their efficiency is highest, so again the ability to pick a gear for the speed you want that is near that range also helps you out.

Ideally, you'd want a variable speed tranny like the Prius.

Anonymous said...

Greetings from another Nordic country!

After finding your blog in the web's blogosphere, I must state I am equally astonished as Jens on the work you have done.

It's just too bad that GM didn't continue utilizing the knowledge they already had on EV technology after the destruction of EV-1's. By reversing the direction and starting to manufacture Hummers instead, the Japanese quickly caught up to the extent that they're dominating the emerging market now. Chevy Volt is too late out of the assembly line and won't stop the GM from bleeding.

Thanks again for sharing your project over the web! As for myself, I am designing a diesel-electric hybrid catamaran boat, with many components similar to the ones you have used on your Honda. The weight is not so much of an issue in marine environment, but the amount of drag is. That's why electric operating mode can be used only short distances as maneuvring in port, and with trolling speeds. Even so, that keeps the noise and pollution out of the city's canals and ports.

Jay
Helsinki, Finland