View Single Post
Old 11-21-2013, 11:05 AM   #11 (permalink)
mora
EcoModding Apprentice
 
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Jyvaskyla, Finland
Posts: 143

Golfwagen - '89 Volkswagen Golf mk2
90 day: 107.14 mpg (US)
Thanks: 47
Thanked 35 Times in 28 Posts
70 miles at 50 mph is no big deal. Get a big motor (11") and have external cooling so it will stay within temperature limits. More mass absorbs more heat. Use as high voltage as you can. Your contoller selection will likely limit voltage. If I'd go DC motor route I'd get something from Soliton series and use 250-300V pack. Those controller can limit motor voltage. You can use thinner cables as pack currents should stay low. Or then you could get suitable AC setup with controller from HPEVS for example. Voltage will be limited to 144V or something like that but then you can use batteries with bigger Ah rating. This will solve regen braking issue at the same time (can't do it using DC easily).

Oh, cost. Assuming your vehicle consumes 0.3kWh per mile (300Wh / mile) as mentioned before. 70 miles * 0.3 kWh/mile = 21 kWh. CALB batteries (LFP chemistry) cost about 440$ / kWh, so your pack alone will cost 9240$. You don't want to run the pack empty every time you run the car so let's leave some margin. 80 pieces of 100Ah cells make a good pack (25.6kWh). Price bumped to ~11k$. This pack will allow you to do ~70 miles in one go and still have 20% left. Your cells should last well over 100 000 miles this way. Even double that is within reality, though no-one using these cells hasn't driven that much yet. No real life evidence on that yet. But looking good so far.

This is not to shoot your idea down. Just to give some thoughts about it. Sometimes driving and owning an EV is not about money saving or being green. Heheh.

I've driven my EV for about 3 years. I calculated it takes less than 25 000 miles for me to "break even". About three years of driving. Almost there, heheh. Battery cost vs. gasoline cost I mean. But here gas goes for over 8$ per gallon.

  Reply With Quote
The Following User Says Thank You to mora For This Useful Post:
Ryland (11-21-2013)