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Old 01-17-2009, 06:58 PM   #242 (permalink)
bennelson
EV test pilot
 
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Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Oconomowoc, WI, USA
Posts: 4,435

Electric Cycle - '81 Kawasaki KZ440
90 day: 334.6 mpg (US)

S10 - '95 Chevy S10
90 day: 30.48 mpg (US)

Electro-Metro - '96 Ben Nelson's "Electro-Metro"
90 day: 129.81 mpg (US)

The Wife's Car - Plug-in Prius - '04 Toyota Prius
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tech2 View Post
Another random thought:
If you used ten 12 volt batteries to run the car...... , you should not need much in the way of a battery charger
That's right. There are ways of building basic battery chargers for cheap once you are around this voltage.

Flooded lead-acid batteries would be the best, as they are very forgiving with how they are charged.

With a higher voltage controller and more batteries, a person would also need a higher voltage charger (or lots of little chargers, which gets expensive too)

Controllers and chargers are two of the more expensive items on an electric car.

An Open Source controller AND charger would really help bring the cost down. There's plenty of info on "bad-boy" chargers on the web, but that's the start of a whole 'nuther thread.
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