EV Driver here just joined up
 

Hello Ecomodder's,

Great site, figured I would join up instead of having just a good time lurking.

Have been enjoying driving locally gas free for 4 years now. My EV ride is a 97 Solectria Force. 26,700 miles on the odometer. A factory conversion of a 97 Geo metro 4 door.

Great bottom end 0-45 but like a old VW 45 hp bug in 4th out on the freeway. Electrically governed to 70 mph.

Energy is stored in 13 gel type Pba batteries. Wired in series for a nominal 156V. Solectria did a fine job of turning the glider into a great electric vehicle.

I'm the 3rd owner and the car had 13,100 miles on it when I became it's new care-giver. I took out the original battery pack at 23,300 miles and 10 years from the factory installation date. The battery pack could still go 25-30 miles but a few of them didn't like high amp loads. Replacements cost under $2000.

The equivalent mpg is to high to mention. And besides electricity for charging the car is free. Really it is.

I don't drive an EV to save the world I just happen to find it to be extremely cheap to operate. Cheap can be green also. It is a California rust free vehicle so I expect it should last a long time at this rate. But it is a Orphan car and even the Metro stuff can be hard to find. Actually 2 of the 3 problems I've had with the vehicle have been Geo stuff.

Hypermiling a ICE vehicle is also a fantastic endeavor. I own a Scangauge II for use on rental car trips. (The Force is not a long ranger.) I like to exceed all EPA mileage standards, highway ones being fairly easy. BTW fill up a rental right away if your going to challenge yourself because "full" usually isn't. The new stuff is pretty neat and fun to rent. But still way cheaper to rent than to own. Did I use the cheap word again, guess I should have said way greener than owning. Renting when needed shares the resource, fewer cars means less manufacturing waste.

Started driving in '62 or 63 and flying in 67 so I've used a few gallons of liquid power along the way. Have had some good times in vehicles that need scatter shields and in aircraft that measure fuel flow in the thousands of pounds per hour per engine. My favorite words from days gone by, "afterburners now."

Looking to do some minor aero mods to the Force to maybe get a tiny bit more miles per AH. Coroplast sits in the garage ready for some added belly work.Solectria had covered in front I'll see if continuing on back adds some efficiency. It likely won't do much but I don't have to work around any hot pipes either. So it should be about as flat as a belly pan can be. With the coroplast being more costly than the electricity I sure hope it does a little something for the effort. Tried to find a coroplast sign to recycle but couldn't find one big enough. Should be good sign pick'ens after the election if your in need of some coro.

Removed the spare tire the first day I had it home. Canned air and a cell phone will do, as I won't be that far from home.:)

Have never found my self out of "juice". The car is very predictable and as a EV driver you plan most trips.

With the new batteries I can drive 60 miles but find most of my needs are well under 25. This keeps the battery state of charge (SOC) well above 50% most of the time so the use of Pba batteries doesn't hamper my use.

Best Regards,
EVDRVR

That's really cool. Do you have EV stickers on the car? That sounds like a economic and environment friendly commuter car.

156v Wow. I want an electric so badly I only drive about 10-20 miles a day. I just haven't figured out what to do for heat. Electric heaters are such a large drain. And Welcome to EM!!

P.S. post a picture of that bad lad.

Welcome!

Head straight over to the Fossil-Fuel Free forum to read up on the Forkenswift, my electric Metro conversion, and MPaulHolmes Electric Bug!

I would also be interested in more information on your gel cell batteries.

I am using Deka Dominator gel cells in my conversion and would love any advice on charging them, amp limiting, etc.
:thumbup:

-Ben N.

Great to see another EV user here! Awesome intro!

EVDRVR -

Welcome to EM! I googled "1997 Solectria Force" and found what looks like a version of your 4-door :

Todd Martin's 1997 Solectria Force
http://www.evalbum.com/img/734/734a.jpg

CarloSW2

Thank you all for the welcome.

Ben point me to the final specs on your vehicle. The thread I found will take me longer to read than it takes to convert a car. You have a big following:thumbup:

I can give you the charge profile used by Solectria for the Deka Dominator Gel G27 which is still the Solectria (now Azure) recommended battery for the Force AC power system. I think Deka uses the Dominator name for both gel and agm batteries in that series. Acceptable use and charging characteristics being very different. Deka makes great batteries and sells them under a lot of labels, Deka, MK, Gel-Tech......mine were Gel Tech

For reasons that do not reflect poorly on the Deka battery I now have Greensaver SP-68's in my car. A very similar but slightly different gel battery. I have almost 2000 miles on them and they are working extremely well
Silicone Batteries USA

The posted picture is like mine. But I try not to park in a crowd.:) I'll try to post a picture one of these days but if you've seen a white 97 Metro 4 door with 5 spoke after market wheels and no badging (of any kind) you know what it looks like. I think the Force perhaps sits a bit lower than a stock Metro. Solectria did re-spring the rear for the weight added back there.

Thanks,

EVDRVR

Welcome to ecomodder! I am indeed super jealous.

Congratulations on the Solectria Force! To make a somewhat meaningful electricity - gasoline comparison, there are several posts in the Fossil Free forum regarding conversion from kWh to energy content in gasoline. In short, if you know how many kWh your Force uses to travel X number of miles, you can use the converter here:
(link repeated here from the FF forum / bennelson)
Convert gallon [U.S.] of automotive gasoline to kilowatt-hours - Conversion of Measurement Units

As an example, I use about 254 watt-hours per mile in my Citicar. That translates to the equivalent energy of 140 MPG.

As car as cost goes, the local electric utility gives me $9.00 (about 85 kWh) a month credit for having a small EV. Comparing cost VS gasoline use wouldn't really work, since my EV electricity miles are essentially free.

Maybe when I grow up I'll have more than a golf cart on steroids - but it is just about perfect for my 10 mile round trip commute.

Again, welcome!

WOW!!! Just plain WOW!!! That car is about the coolest thing I have ever seen.

It will actually take exactly as long to read as to convert the car.

I think I have spent as much time talking about the car as actually working on it.

The specs are pretty modest. It is 72V and currently using 6 x 12V true gel cell (100 amp hours each) batteries. Using a Curtis 400 amp peak 72V DC motor controller and a 10" Nissan forklift motor.

The Solectria Force really is a pretty nice car. I just saw one in the Chicago area. It had mis-matched hubcaps. Only two of them were full moon, but they were both put on the same side of the car, so you didn't notice!

I guess this site is all about efficiency so I'll go ahead and post some numbers. First off I was just driving and not trying to see if I could beat Worden's records.

Based on the data stored by the charger's computer during recharge I used 3286 Wh yesterday afternoon to drive 16.9 miles. At that rate I was using slightly more than 1Ah per mile. The car can do better than that and it can do much worse.

Regen becomes better on the Force as the batteries deplete so in the right situation the further I drive the more efficient the car appears if the right stopping conditions exist. You might equate this to the warm up of a ICE engine. The SP-68 batteries seem to be especially good at this. Lower resistance results in quick efficient recharging.

The Force uses a AMC325 controller with a max output of 34KW, nominal 22KW. Some Hybrid's out there have that kind of power to supplement the ICE engine.

The Tesla and Ebox use a motor controller combo that can produce something around 150KW. Nearly 5 times the power of the Force and because it is electric virtually no downside on efficiency. Just money. You have to love AC induction motors. They are the backbone of industry world wide.

I log trips for the fun of it and overall efficiency is so predictable. I don't often hook up the computer and look at the Wh numbers.


EVDRVR

You're doing better than you think - 3.286 kW / 16.9 miles = 194 wh / mile. :thumbup:

Its nice to see another EV driver, oddly enough there are far more of us silently driving around inconspiculously than you probably realize, except for those of us driving a Commutacar like mine or a Citicar like TomEV up there. Most though don't say much about their EV and it isn't marked well, there is a guy down the road with an electric buick (96) but you would never know unless you were told.

Oddly enough I am happy to announce I have your Geo's 14" spare tires on the rear of my commuta, quite strange looking but they work on my stock studs. (actually I have junkyard spares) 115/80r14's I got tired of trying to find tempo spares and deal with the troublesome remounting.

Anyone here NOT have a small yellow EV as their avatar?!?

Doh, me too!

The requested pics of my 97 Force and the trunk "emblem."

I'm not anti EV sticker I just had a hell of a time getting all of the previous owner's company info off the vehicle and "clean" is a good look these days. He removed the original Solectria badging.

EVDRVR

PS
And to answer the #1 question in regards to the solar EV emblem. "Where are the solar panels?" They are on the house roof where they belong, sun shines a lot better up there than it does in the garage or on the road. And a 3000 DC watt PV array really is a tough fit on a family car.

EVDRVR, you ever think of badging it? Say like big letters on lower section of doors "Electric Car" I think it is a fine example of a Metro very good shape. But why not announce to the world that "Hey cars can run on electric" get people thinking. Just my .02

My small EV is Blue... maybe I should put the one of my green commuticar that I drive every day up...

EVDRVR: how did you go about finding your car? I have a news paper interview later this evening about electric cars and I'm sure they will ask how others can find these cars.

I was reading EVTrader
EVTrader.com :: View Forum - Buying a New or Used NEV

Like everything else ebay & craigs is worth a look these days.

I had opened the page virtually moments after the owner had posted it. It was a fast sale at a good price. This was 4 years ago and gasoline was by today's standards really cheap, suv sales where up, Metro's were dropped and all was good in Camelot.

I was looking for a EV to turn some of my PV (photo voltaic) investment into money well spent by offsetting most or at least some of my local driving costs. I was a pretty early adapter of grid-tied solar.

It turned out for 3 years I was giving a big unused electricity credit back to the power company (still do but not as much.) A lot of EV owners have done this in reverse. They buy an EV and then buy the PV. For me both have been a very good investment and it has some feel good "green" kickback to go with it.

Nice shape EV's trade pretty quick these days and some like the Toyota Rav4EV well above their initial selling price. Probably closer to their actual production cost. Having your car run cheap and appreciate at the same time, pinch me.

If you want "eco", electric can be a fast route. My local miles driven on our gas burner is now about 1500 miles per year. We do some of that just to justify still owning it.


Sorry for the long answer,
EVDRVR

[QUOTE=EVDRVR;58903
Like everything else ebay & craigs is worth a look these days.[/QUOTE]

Craigslist was terrific! I bought an odd homemade trike, next month I thought "this is neat!" so wanted to see what else I could find and looked up 3-wheel scooter. Up popped the City-EL EV. MAN! Am I in heaven??

Ain't Craigslist grand??

i wish i had an ev, i only need 25 mile range (30 just to be safe)
they are hard to come by.

How had have you looked for an EV? sure there are people out there like me who got their first one by having someone call me asking if I wanted it, but my 2nd electric car wasn't that easy, I looked for weeks and finely placed a want ad, after that it still took almost two weeks to find the one I wanted, of course I found a good 4-5 other electric cars in my area as well, but I ended up holding out for one that didn't need any work.

^
where did you look for yours.
I've looked.

Hi, EVDRVR - welcome to the site.

I had the chance to drive a Force sedan like yours in May at the Ottawa EV Expo. It was a pretty slick affair - particularly the driver-settable regen on the "top half" of the go pedal. You could easily drive the car without ever using the friction brakes.

Darin

I put a want ad on craigslist, there are also alot of electric cars on craigslist, but they tend to be on the east coast or west coast, not in the mid west, EV classified ads are also out there and worth looking at, but I got my citi car just by telling people that I'm in the market to buy an electric car.

I found my Citicar for sale on CL as well. Here's one for sale (as of September 14th) in the LA area -

1977 CITICAR FOR SALE ELECTRIC CAR COMMUTA CAR

I can't believe that one is still for sale, I saw that ad few days ago then it was gone, and is back again?
$800 plus $1000 should cover any shipping charges, plus $900 for nice batteries, $300 and you should have all new brakes and lines, and $500 will buy a nice state of the art charger, and end up with $3,500 0r about the same as I paid for my EV with it's worn out batteries, if I wasn't saving to buy a house with two EV's already in the garage, I would buy, ship and fix that citi-car! even at that I might because it's a good investment, I know people around here who have seen mine that would pay that much for it, it's just a matter of time to get it all done.