A few weeks ago, forum user captainslug posted great DIY instructions for LED headlights on his motorcycle. LED headlights will soon be catching on in the auto world because of their longevity and low power requirements, but they’re not quite there yet, probably because of the cost and the relatively low amount of lumens that most LEDs put out.
However, not everyone is patient enough to let technology catch up. It won’t save a noticeable amount of fuel, most likely, but the reduction in power draw and the “cool factor” is undeniable. Great job, captainslug!
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If you’ve read the EcoModder blog for a while, you’ve definitely seen Ben Nelson’s Electro-Metro as well as some of his other projects. If you’ve been on the forum, you’ve definitely been a party to some of his zany antics, but this is just about as good as it gets.
A few months ago Ben was pulled over for doing 25 mph in a 15 mph zone, and received a ticket for $83.80. But Ben wasn’t about to go down without a fight. He scheduled a court date and even though he had lost his ticket, went in defiantly at 8am hoping that a treehugging judge might nullify the ticket, or at least reduce the points on his license.
You can read the full court story, but I will summarize for the sake of those without such a sizeable chunk of time to spare. Like many of us who have been to court to fight a traffic ticket, Ben waited nervously as the judge ran through the list of names on the docket and one by one handed out his judgments. Because Ben had lost his ticket he ended up last, but he still got what he wanted:
The judge and clerk both comment to each other that they have never heard of anyone speeding in an electric car before. He changes the charge from speeding to “Defective Equipment: Speedometer”. The fine is still the same, but there are no demerit points involved.
I guess they’ve not heard about the Tesla Roadster yet! But it gets better…
Not only did the judge reduce the ticket (but not the cost, hence the Electro-Metro Legal Defense Fund), but he took our hero Ben across the street to talk to the editor of the local paper about Ben’s story, which squarely landed him on the front page.
Here’s Ben telling the story himself:
Feel free to check out the thread and donate yourself! Who’s ever heard of a 15 mph speed limit anyway?
2008 was the first full year of the forum, and pretty much the time when everything that’s happened yet happened, so there are quite a few warm memories and good discussions from 2008. Here’s 10 of my favorite:
MPGuino Release One: The MPGuino is a DIY, fuel economy tool that grew up right here on EcoModder and has helped a lot of people improve their fuel economy.
Aerocivic: It wouldn’t be unfair to say that the aerocivic changed the way people look at DIY aerodynamics modifications.
Project ForkenSwift: EcoModder Co-founder Darin Cosgrove’s own electric car build thread.
Not only was 2008 the first (nearly) full year that the EcoModder blog existed, but it was also a year full of great stories, interesting DIY projects, and the occasional heated debate. It has been a pleasure to sit at the helm of this blog, and as we get ready to move into the new year, I thought it would be fun to reflect on just how much we did over the course of the last year.
Here’s our top 10 posts from 2008:
A $672 Electric Car: EcoModder’s own Darin Cosgrove’s ForkenSwift is easily the top post of all time on the blog.
We certainly hope so! It was just a little more thna a year ago when my partner, Darin, was coming up with all sorts of names for what to call what we’d be doing for years: modifying cars and driving styles for better fuel economy. Famous among the reject pile was “ecorodding.” We don’t have anything against the old guys, but no one really talks about hotrodding anymore.
Even though ecomodding has been become a part of the lexicon for most ecomodders, that doesn’t mean that anyone else knows what the devil we’re talking about. However, it seems like that has been changing, first with ecomodding hitting the Wired Jargon Watch, and then with the term making it onto NPR’s Science Friday.
I’m not sure how many people really know what ecomodding is, but the population is certainly growing. So don’t feel shy about saying it anymore, pretty soon it will be in the dictionary!
