Quote:
Originally Posted by james.lafrance
ok, I can take a hint.... what range has been or is possible in the metro w/ lead batt.s? again on the budget thing, batteries aren't really included in that. I mean I have $1500 from selling my Saturn last week, and another $1000 saved for this project.... can I just get 4-8 batteries rgiht now and add more later? Yes i do believe this will affect my "range" goals, but it should just be temporary.but then i wouldn't have the total volts i'd like....son of a *****. you know they have the technology above and beyond Lithium batteries but the lobbyists of the oil company got a strong and tight lid on it? true story. I have yet to decide what voltage i want to run and for that matter what i CAN run. this week I'm gonna go out and hunt down some lifts (will those 'scissor lifts' work?) I'm gonna take some pics and see what, if anything, i can find.
how well do the home built controllers work? i mean are they as 'efficient' as Curtis 1231's? Can I build it to whatever voltage i need?
|
Hi James.
You might want to consider going on Craigslist and seeing if you could trade the Metro straight-up for an S10 or other compact pickup (even one with a dead engine.) On a budget, battery weight is the name of the game for range. A pickup will have more room for batteries (and might be more practical for you as a plumber) and more carrying capacity. Since you're ripping out the ICE anyway, that means you can go for an older pre-injected pickup, which I regularly see on CL for $500 or less, and is lighter to boot. (A '91 S10 is 2,600 pounds with ICE--a little more than a Metro, but equivalent to a modern subcompact car, and older models are even lighter.)
A rule of thumb on the EVDL is that 500 pounds of lead is roughly equivalent to a gallon of gasoline. On an S10 that gets around 25 mpg, that's 1,500 pounds of batteries to get the range you're looking for without murdering the batteries.
On my '99 Metro, it took about 600 pounds (including driver and luggage) to reach GVWR. Even at 45 mpg, that's still 750+ pounds of batteries to get the range you want with some margin to keep the batteries alive--and that's before you add the weight of you, tools, passengers, etc.
EDIT: Another point: older pickups had manual steering as an option, which saves you more money and trouble.