Fuel Economy, Hypermiling, EcoModding News and Forum - EcoModder.com

Hi folks.

I thought I should really get around to posting an introduction.

My name is Nikki and I live in the south-west of England (Bristol, to be exact). I've been into EVs since I was quite young, after seeing some EVs in a magazine my sisters and I had. As luck would have it, I've been given just exactly one of the vehicles which started it all off - a 1974 Enfield Electric.

At the moment the car isn't at my house - there's some hoops which need to be jumped through before I can get it back to my place. But hopefully I will before the summer. I'm a freelance teacher so have some extra time in the summer to play on projects etc.

Anywhoo - back to the EVs.

I started off in 2005 when I got my first EV - an electric scooter. It was great for nipping around town and soon I got the EV bug proper. I had originally planned to convert a 1965 Morris minor (my daily driver at the time) to Electric, but after stripping her down to a bare chassis I realised that it would have cost me nearly as much in repairs to the shell as it would have cost me in parts for the conversion. I just didn't have that money and settled for something different.

In 2006 I was lucky enough to get the chance to buy a 1998 City El electric trike. It was dog slow, but I was determined to get it working faster than it originally would. I drove it in original state for a year and then converted it to run on Thundersky Lithium Ion batteries. The net gain in speed and range was awesome! (You can read about the City El at my blog here. If anyone on the forums wants tips about the conversion to lithium ion for the City El I'd be more than happy to help, as I had to hard-wire the lithium ion REAP BMS into the car's existing charge circuit to allow me to charge the car with the built-in charger.

By summer last year my day-business (teaching music) had grown and I was required to drive further than I could physically do in the City El. Not to mention that but my commuting was now taking me outisde of the city where the El was at home to country lanes. The City El isn't the best vehicle out of town as it's so small and light. With Lithium in it instead of the original lead the El became quite the wind-sail and so my partner and I decided to sell the El and get me a bigger, more practical car.

My next project was to convert my new car, a 2004 T4 Toyota Prius to a PHEV. I have just completed the project using two additional OEM Prius batteries and a few boxes of tricks designed and built by hybridinterfaces. I'd be willing to share my experiences with you all - I've just finished my first full tank of fuel and I got 805 miles from 43 litres of petrol and about 75 KWH of electricity.

I'm missing the entire EV thing so I'm hoping my next car will be a real EV rather than a PHEV - but for now I'll have to make do with that. I'm toying with the idea of building a Peugeot 406 electric as I know of somewhere with a brand-new glider from 2002 for only £1000. It's never been used as a gas car....

Anyway. There is my hi! You can follow me on twitter at aminorjourney (aminorjourney) on Twitter and read my EV advocacy blog at http://www.aminorjourney.com I'm also quickly becoming a regular on EVcast.