[bennelson]

Happy Anniversary,

If you look at the date of the original post in this thread, it was Jan 28th, 2008 - exactly one year ago.

So what have I done in that year? Did I meet my original goals and dreams?

Let's look back to my first post to find out.

Originally Posted by bennelson

The premise is this.
I am going to build an electric vehicle based on converting a street-legal four-wheeled automobile to run on a DC electric motor and battery pack. I need to do this as an ecological/economic project

Yep! It's %100 street legal, as of a couple of days ago when I put the sticker on the plate. As the car gets the equivelant of 130 MPG, runs on renewable electricity, costs about 2 cents per mile to run, and cost under $1300 to build, tt has been both a econogical and economic winner.

Originally Posted by bennelson

The plan is to buy parts as I can, with cash, and only when I can find good deals. Recycled/Reused is highly encouraged.

Almost everything on the car was used, salvaged, donated, or recycled. About the only thing I would do different on another project would be to try to tackle the machining myself. I paid cash for everything with the exception of a debit card for a couple of mail-order items. Cars depreciate in value. Don't take out loans to buy them, and don't take out loans to build them.

Originally Posted by bennelson

The motor will come from a forklift and be over-volted as much as I can for a resonable, but not high top speed. The vehicle will be used for local travel, errands, and short commutes.

This part really worked out how I thought it would. I did indeed use a forklift motor, although not from that entire forklift I bought. I did use a few other parts from that though. The original 36/48v motor is currently overvolted to 72V, and would like to experiment running it up to 120 or 144 volts.

This is the perfect vehicle for short commutes, grocery shopping, going to the library, and getting take out food.

Originally Posted by bennelson

When finished, it will be something that neither I, nor my wife would be (terribly) embarassed to drive.

One of my brothers pointed out that this is actually the nicest-looking car I have ever owned. Once I took off the pink pin-stiping, whacked out a couple of dents, and painted the wheels, I think it looks pretty nice. No, I take that back, I am PROUD of my work.

Originally Posted by bennelson

I will start off using free/existing controller, batteries, and other parts. When I know what I am doing, I will upgrade to either a purchased, or specially home-made controller. I plan to really look around to see what is possible for batteries. I will check with power utitites, firealarm companies, etc, to see if I can get used/surplus batts.

I never ended up testing the car with my motorcycle controller or using something off the forklift. It did run for a while with my motorcycle throttle, and then with a forklift throttle for a better part of the summer. I really hadn't looked much farther into home-built controllers until the renewed interest because of Paul's Open Source Controller Project.

I was able to snatch up a batch of used batteries at a mere $12 each. They aren't perfect, but they work well enough to get me around, and the price was right.

Originally Posted by bennelson

Planned vehicle will be a two seater. Most the time it will be driven by only me, but occasionally will have a passenger. I never plan on using it for four people.

The car ended up being a 2-door, four-seater. Mostly, it's just me driving. But sometimes my wife rides with, to get dropped off at car-pool, go out to dinner, or drive to the farmer's market.

If I upgrade the system voltage, I won't have the gross vehicle weight available to carry four people, but I will keep the back seat in there for looks and storage space, with the additional batteries hidden in a box under it.

Originally Posted by bennelson

I am thinking that either a compact car because of its light weight and small cost, or a light pickup truck for ease of work and repair, and battery-carrying strength.

Well, it did end up being a compact car. No power steering, no power windows or door locks. Everything very simple and straight-forward. The worst I had to do was add a vacuum pump for the brakes, although I can stop the car just by pushing that much harder even without the vac assist.

Originally Posted by bennelson

I am only in the really early stages on this. I am currently working on buying the forklift which will supply the motor and other parts.

In hind-sight, I totally did NOT need to buy that forklift, but I was very excited about the project, and it included a big charger. I did end up using the ammeter shunt and some other parts from the charger. I used the contactor and some other bits from the forklift. The motors from it are just waiting to be used in an electric motorcycle or lawnmower.

Originally Posted by bennelson

Next will be to decide what vehicle will work best, and then start looking around to find the deal on it.

I was pretty fanatic about looking at cars. It was exactly one month after the "official start" that I found the Craigslist ad for the car that would become the Electro-Metro.

One of the other vehicles on my "short-list" was a Dodge Neon, the same car another local guy is converting to electric.


Since one year ago, I have:

Built an electric car
Broke that electric car
Fixed the thing I broke
Seen actual EV charging stations in the wild
Had my EV video (on the motorcycle) shown at the Plug-In Conference in Washington, DC.
Talked to a Tesla Sales-Person
Talked my way into sitting in the Tesla
Met the Ecomodder guys, helping with their booth at Hybridfest
Showed my EV cycle at the MREA, including meeting Ryland and riding in his CommutaCar.
Used a plasma-cutter
Had a beer with VW hillbillies
Installed a block heater (S-10)
Been on the front page of Instructables
Been dragged around by court Judges
Straight to the front page of 2 newspapers
Got my wife to start car-pooling
Started a bio-diesel project

and too many more things to count. But most of all, I have met a lot of new people, made new friends, and tried a lot of things I have never done before.

Happy new year everyone.