CarBEN EV5 Full Sized Prototype Construction - 5 Seat Electric Car From Scratch

[NeilBlanchard]

I think the front suspension from a Civic would be a reasonable fit. I'm hoping the rolling chassis weighs in at 500-600 pounds (or less...) and the battery pack (~55kWh) would weigh about 900 pounds, so hopefully the whole car is under a ton?

Drive train design will be close to what we've had -- it may be the batteries where I can save either money and/or weight vs today's batteries.

I'm still helping my brother reroof his house -- which includes adding a sistered rafter to 52 rafters, so I will not be making much progress on CarBEN construction this week.

[freebeard]

Brothers and sisters, where would we be without them? You certainly have a comfortable lead on the rest of us.

After I posted last nigh I got to reading about the electric double-layer capacitor:
Electric double-layer capacitor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Toyota is winning races with them, and prices are dropping.

[Slow_s10]

This is an absolutely amazing project! I have always dreamed of building a car from scratch but you are actually doing it. Some day I still might, but my skill set is decidedly on the opposite end of the spectrum of yours. I would be much more comfortable working with steel and a welder than with foam and a CNC router.

[NeilBlanchard]

Some pictures of everything I've glued so far in the proper position:



I'm glad that it is not as tall as I had thought.

[NeilBlanchard]

Minor update: it rained all day today and I missed being able to do any gluing yesterday while it was sunny and warm. I did cut more sheets of foam both days; I have up to R13 cut and up to R24 g-code files generated.

I'll be using my 20'x30' tarp on an A frame tent in front of the garage door to keep the rain off, so I can glue as long as it is warm enough. It has to dry before it freezes, in other words...

[California98Civic]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Some pictures of everything I've glued so far in the proper position:

I'm glad that it is not as tall as I had thought.

Another wow. This and the "anal probe" and "3-wheeler's" Insight and Jethrobodine ... wow. The nose on yours looks like a bird beak, open mouthed. The pointy nose is about avoiding a stagnation zone, yes?

[NeilBlanchard]

That is a very specific part of the Mercedes Boxfish blue prototype and the boxfish itself. On their computer flow models, it seems to be starting the flow off in unexpected ways. On my admittedly flawed tuft testing on the quarter scale model, it "sends" the air sideways (MUTE your sound unless you want to hear the din of FIVE leaf blowers on high!):

[youtube]

[HyperMileQC]

Very good video Neil. a little turbulant on the side but in general it is attached flow.

[NeilBlanchard]

The five different blowers are not likely to have the same velocity, and they were not evenly distributed, so please take the tuft test with a large salt crystal.

Here's an image of the latest version of the CarBEN EV5 model, which is what I am building:

[Cd]

Would you be willing to buy some roof racks and place the model on the roof of your Scion ? ( raised out of any boundary layer air of course )

For now though, I would speculate that you might get better results with shorter tufts using string. Some of the tufts are sticking together and to the car.