Another EV in the garage!

[Ryland]

Last night I hauled home another electric car, this time a CommutiCar, the 2nd incarnation of the CitiCar, so it has real windows, better seats, a larger motor, and because of the larger motor the batteries are in the bumpers, instead of under the seat, so it has the longer black bumpers.
Mine is pretty, green, still shinny, bought by HMV freeway in 1981 for research and development, then sold in 1982 to a family member of the company, then to another family member of the company, then yesterday to me, complete with original invoice and owners manual, 2 year old batteries installed, some disconnected wiring to the gauges, and a bad connection to one of the turn signals, but other then that it's in awesome shape, stored in side it's whole life and only has 2,800 miles on it.
Monday I'm going in to get plates for it, next weekend is the first car show in the area of the season and I have plans to take it! I of course have plans to use it, just need to get the minor electrical problems worked out first.
Don't worry, photos have been taken, I've just been busy, I'll have them up soon.

[Arminius]

Nice! Can't wait to see the pics.

[Ryland]

I have Photos! of my new Comuticar up, and more to come, I got some work done on it today, the lights all work, the horn works, hub caps are shinny, the weather striping has glue that is curing, brakes are adjusted and clean and it's a blast to drive! took a friend for a ride down the street, it started to rain and the windshield wiper was loud... tomorrow I get temp plates for it.
the batteries appear to be in ok shape, but they are a little weak, not sure if it's the batteries, or all the old connections and small gauge wire that was used, that will all be replaced over the next few weeks.

[SVOboy]

Pretty sweet ride! I can't believe I missed this post yesterday, nice job,

[Peakster]

Oooh! It's so PRETTY! I want it... and I want it now!

I wonder if Canada would allow them on the streets?

[johnpr]

wow!! 27 years and it only has 2800 on it!! if i had one i would take it everywhere, it sure looks like a blast to drive around in and it looks like it is in great condition!

[MetroMPG]

Ryland. That rocks! Feel like telling us how much $?

Looks like they replaced the wheels with something bigger. Plans to keep it stock or revert to original?

Peakster: these cars were/are legal in Canada. I used to walk by one parked in a driveway when I was at university in Ottawa. One of the old-time members of the EV club told me just last week that "there are a few of them sitting somewhere" around Ottawa (I'd be sorely tempted to pick one up if they were for sale).

I was in touch with a guy by e-mail a couple of years ago who lives about 80 km from here - he has two of them. He was going to show them to me, but never followed up on my email to him to set up a meeting.

[Arminius]

Originally Posted by Ryland

I have Photos! of my new Comuticar up, and more to come, I got some work done on it today, the lights all work, the horn works, hub caps are shinny, the weather striping has glue that is curing, brakes are adjusted and clean and it's a blast to drive! took a friend for a ride down the street, it started to rain and the windshield wiper was loud... tomorrow I get temp plates for it.
the batteries appear to be in ok shape, but they are a little weak, not sure if it's the batteries, or all the old connections and small gauge wire that was used, that will all be replaced over the next few weeks.

Being that we are both from Wisconsin, I was wondering if there were any problems with the MDV. I'm looking forward to updates.

[Ryland]

Originally Posted by Arminius

Being that we are both from Wisconsin, I was wondering if there were any problems with the MDV. I'm looking forward to updates.

I have a temp plate on it right now, I did get asked if this was truly road leagle, I answered "yes" and it was left at that! I ended up going down to the police station today (DMV is only open Thursday and Friday here), dealt with the meter maid who was working at the counter, she looked at the title and was a bit confused, I told her it was a weird little car that was one of about 2,500 made, she then asked what kind of mileage it gets! I smirked and told her it was electric, she also asked if my family was going to be part of the national tour of solar homes again in October, I was kind of suprized at what she pays attention to.
I'm getting collector plates on it, it cost me an extra $35 and they never expire, I just can't use it in January, I also asked about collector insurance, that is going to cost $178 per year for full coverage as long as I don't use it as my "back up vehicle" or my primary mode of transit... well tonight I drove it to a friends house to show it off, drove around town a bit, and it's so much fun to drive!
I'll keep my other car for work, hauling cargo, tools, and bad weather.
When I first drove in to town I was expecting people to notice, but people really noticed, like speeding up, turning in to parking lots and pulling out camera's, kids pointing with jaws dropped, I've never seen anything slow other vehicles down like this, it made me grin.

Oh, and the wheels are stock 13" with original tires as best as I can tell, the hub caps however I don't think are original, not sure what to do with them
My batteries are over 2 years old so my current top speed with batteries fresh off the charger is just over 30mph on a flat road, the battery cables are undersized, and I need to finish cleaning connections as a few of them are getting warm, new cables are part of the plan, the 3 speeds takes a little to get used to, but in a way I don't mind it as much as I thought that I would.

[Christopher Jordan]

Terrific green I must say!!!!!

[LostCause]

That is an awesome electric car. It looks like it's straight out of Total Recall. What eMPG have you been getting?

- LostCause

[MetroMPG]

Yeah - you must have a kill-a-watt.... Got to start posting your eMPG so I have another 4 wheel EV to compete with

[Daox]

Very nice find Ryland.

[Ryland]

My brother is has the Kill-a-watt as his house right now, but I might just take the comuticar for a spin down to the library and pick up another (Wisconsin libraries received a grant years back to carry at least 3 watt meters), I've been charging it with a regular battery charger to make sure that each cell is fully charged, so that when I charge them as a set they will all be at the same place, the on board charger uses about 400-450 watts, but I didn't have a way to see for how long, the watt hour meter will help with that, then I'm not sure the best way to convert to mpg, or if I should just mpkwh (miles per kila watt hour) to leave it on a level field with other EV's, but first thing I need to do is get insurance on it.

[bennelson]

Collectors and Hobbyist plates are a sneaky great deal in our state. You only pay for them ONCE - keep that car doing forever!

Love the hubcaps on that thing! Already aeromodded! (not sure that matters much at 30 mph )

I also would be interested in how many watt-hours per mile or eMPG you get.
I think it's fine to convert watt-hours to MPG - you ARE competing against the gassers, may as well use their numbers and beat them at their own game!

The average guy on the street knows what MPG is, but is clueless about WH/M.

[TomEV]

With my Citicar, it has been just under 250 wh/m. New batteries helped - with the old, expired batteries it was closer to 330. I live in an area with flat terrain, and a 25 MPH speed limit, so conditions are about optimal for this setup.

One of these days I'll create a garage entry... Sort of stuck on 'what to name it'.

[Ryland]

got some touch up paint, turns out it's "7up green" the standard color 7up trucks are painted.
Ordered a pile of LED's, as it is the parking lights draw around 40 watts, brake lights add another 40 watts to that, with these LED's I should be able to drop that down to just under 5 watts + 4 watts for the brake lights, going to leave the head lights stock for now, but while sitting at a stop light at night it'll be nice to have the turn signals work.
Also have plans to order a PakTrakr, a gauge that hooks up to each battery, telling you if a single cell is getting lower then the others, and giving you over all battery health.
I've only driven this car in to town 3 times, and already I'm hearing from people, the guy next door heard about it last night from the mayor, and someone else asked if it was me they saw me driving "a wedge" thru town.

I also added more photos to the link in post #3

[MetroMPG]

Haha. The electric 7-up cheese wedge. How big is your town (how many people)?

You sure the Pak-Trakr will monitor at the cell level? I thought they just monitored individual batteries in the pack.

Sounds like fun. I just don't drive the FS at night. Not until the DC-DC converter is installed. I've been completely without lights twice this winter. Whoops.

[Ryland]

You are correct, the paktrakr will only monitor each of the 8 6v batteries, but it will tell me if any of those 8 batteries is falling behind, or doing other weird stuff, it should also allow me to make sure that as I reach the end of my range, that I don't over discharge any of the batteries, it's really easy to charge individual 6v batteries, so I'm hoping that by doing that I can get them to last longer.

My town is about 15,000 people + 8,000 collage students.
The biggest problem I can see so far is that to get home I have to travel up hill, half a mile at 15-20mph, compare that to my normal cruising speed of 30+mph, this is where it would be nice to have regenitive braking, because as I head in to town I have to ride the brakes to keep it under 35mph going down hill (25mph speed limit), I also talked to an industrial design student who wants to design a wood body for my CitiCar as a school project, he wanted to design a body for his electric bicycle, but thinks the CitiCar idea is more practical.
LED's should show up today as well, hoping to get time to change the rear axle oil that should be done once a year.... I doubt it's ever been done.

[MetroMPG]

Problem with regen (aside from being difficult to implement on a series DC motor) is if you live at the top of a hill is you'd be regenning into a fully charged pack (assuming you charge @ home).

Ideally if you have an EV with regen, you want to live at the bottom of a hill, so when you're coming home with a low pack, you can top it up a bit before you stick it back on the charger.