Page 24
Quote:
Wally Rippel, a longtime EV advocate and friend of the AeroVironment team, worked freelance with a local motor house to design the induction motor and gears. At Delco Remy, Bish and a partner, Terry Poorman, froze battery cases and plates to 0 degrees Fahrenheit, then chilled electrolyte mats down to 40 degrees before sliding them between the plates(*). The car that AeroVironment called Santana was coming together, but its schedule of creation had slipped precipitously. In July 1989, Brooks reported to Runkle that he would need more than five months to finish the job. He was in for a surprise. Roger Smith, the car's greatest skeptic, had grown so excited by its progress reports that he'd decided to unveil it at the L.A. auto show in early January.
(*) By chilling the acid, Bish and Poorman could slow its reactions and slide the mats into the narrow spaces between the plates before the mats could expand. The narrower the spaces between the plates, the denser the battery, the more the power it contained; the more power it contained, the more speed and acceleration it would provide.
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I picked this in relation to post #5 because it explains the degree (ha ha) to which they were willing to go to improve the battery design.
This also reminds me of what Christ was telling us about the battery modules he found on
ebay, aka that they need to be encased to keep from expanding and getting ruined.