Lithium El-ectric Camino

[bennelson]

While today was another fun day of EV building at Tom's, the highlight was when the Lithium-powered El Camino showed up.

This is a new guy we just heard of and invited out.

The Camino (or EL Camino for you Spanish speakers...) has a theoretical range of 200 miles per charge, runs a 144V system with an Advanced 9" DC motor.

It goes FAST, using the original 3 speed manual transmission, but gone clutch-less. All lights except the headlights are LED.

See all photos of the day at:
EV Build Day Sept. 6 2009 Lithium El Camino - a set on Flickr







It's pretty cool.

When I left for the day, I ended up next to the Camino at a traffic light.

[Intrigued]

WAY cool!

I would like updates as to how well those particular batteries work...

[Ryland]

I sure hope the batteries work well, according to wired magazine they cost $18,000 to put the batteries in that car! of course that guy also has the largest privat owned solar electric system in Wisconsin (I want to be his friend) they look like ThunderSky batteries... a brand that has had some issues in the past, but I would think with an order like that they would try to make him happy if something went wrong.
Ben, what did you think of the rest of the vehicle? did it all look home built? (ratchet tie downs) or was it pretty solid?

[bennelson]

The car looked real solid overall.

He had a welder do up the battery boxes, they looked very nice.

There were ratchet straps used for holding down the plexiglass over the top of the batteries, but even those didn't look "unprofessional".

I believe they are Thundersky batteries. The logo on the batts had a little lightning bolt.