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Originally Posted by Heynow999
I have read the whole thread over a few nights, very interesting.
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You know you get a prize for that? It's not a small undertaking!
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If I could drive one on the streets here, I would probably just buy a used GEM on ebay and be done with it.
I am wondering if that was your motivation as well?
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You mean was it our intention to build a car with NEV performance? More or less. Well, more actually. NEV's are limited to 40 km/h. The ForkenSwift can hit 70, as you just read. But the car's
average speed is probably somewhere around 20-25 km/h in normal use.
That said, if CitiCars/ComutaCars were numerous in Canada than they are, I would have considered restoring one of them instead.
No plans to upgrade the batteries. The ones we have (2 packs worth) will probably deliver our minimum range target for 2 or 3 more years. By then we may have some more hand-me-downs, so we'll just keep taking that route.
Lithium is something like 10x the price of floodies for the same capacity. Also, it requires specialized charging and cell/module management -it's not just the chemistry that adds the extra cost.
If you ever go past Brockville in your travels and want to see the car, send me a note.