Zap truck pics

[lovemysan]

Someone was talking about the drivetrain of a zap in another thread. I thought I'd post the pics of this zap truck I saw at the local EV meeting. These zap vehicles feel pretty cheap inside and out. I'd compare the interior plastics to that of a walmart boom box. I think they're overpriced. The local dealer is good guy though, he works hard to make them dependable.

[MetroMPG]

I kind of like the way the little trucklets look.

You still going regularly to the local EV meetings?

[lovemysan]

I went to 3-4 then stopped. They can be pretty dry. It would be different if I had a project I was actively working on. I have some of the parts to build an E-bike but the batteries I got for $15 are pretty soft and would only give me less than 1 mile of range. So I put that project on the back burner until I find some type of pack.

[MetroMPG]

I hear you. Agreed: based on the meeting I went to on Monday, without a project/vehicle, the topics/presentations would have seemed pretty arcane.

The "big" presentation was by two members who are setting up a business to produce "serviceable" li-ion battery modules. IE: assembling commodity prismatic cells into packs where individual cells can be very easily swapped out if/when they fail or suffer a performance loss out of proportion to the other cells. Without that ability, a bad cell will cause the remaining good cells in a module to be ruined fairly quickly, and with Li-Ion prices as high as they are, that's not something you want to happen.

I thought it was pretty clever. We've come full circle - the "Edison" batteries that powered some EV's a century ago were also user-serviceable.

The new people at the meeting were probably pretty close to snoring though.

[lovemysan]

Edison batteries are great, not ebike friendly though, still one of my favorite battery technologies. In the EV meets here there are tinkerers, complainers, entrepreneurs, dreamers, etc. After about 3-4 meetings its all the same stuff. There has been some interesting discussions about different motor types but then there's endless gossip about new battery chemistries and new EV's going into production that never seem to come to market. I think if they had some type of communal project I'd be more interested. I'm a little to embarrassed to ask for assistance on my scooter/bike conversion and its real hard to turn down a sunday afternoon nap.

[MetroMPG]

The Ottawa group is different - its current president is an e-bike rider, and tirelessly educates people that "e-bikes are EV's too." A good chunk of the membership is e-bike builders/tinkerers (they outnumber OEM & conversion electric automobile owners).

So you'd be more than welcome in Ottawa if you wanted to talk about bikes/scooters. Though it's a bit of a drive to get to the meeting.

[Christopher Jordan]

Thanks for the pics- sad nostalgia for me since I almost got that model! I really like 3-wheel vehicles, and that would be much more useful than my old 4-wheel Aspire for hauling my other two 3-wheel vehicles. The horror storys scared me off. If only I could make my Aspire a (tadpole) trike........***ECKSTASEY!!!***

countersTrike