Australia's first electric MX5!

Disco · Postby **Disco** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 3:06 pm

Make this a sticky... incredible.

devolutio · Postby **devolutio** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 3:31 pm

i've been keeping an eye on this project. glad to hear it's drivable!

Please if you don't end up mass converting miatas around the globe yourself, keep notes and the information you've gained available (via website/forum etc). I know if the price of the equipment comes down enough in the next 10 years converting the na to electric will be very enticing.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/web/crowd ... 07920.html

interesting article. definitely need a site like this in english. also i agree that they should be using 10 yo plus cars.

16bit · Postby **16bit** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 3:45 pm

with that amount of torque and maybe some slightly higher gearing electric cars should make the best drifters around - especially with how you have batteries front and rear which should give great weight distribution. a brilliant project and just shows that this kind of thing is easy to do compared to what the car makers would have you believe (not that it would be easy). If you wrote instructions and sold kits i would say you will be a rich man one day. Lets face it people who own mx5's would probably rather lose a leg then sell their car due to fuel costs so this will probably be a very popular conversion in a few years. I personally love the idea of electric cars.

timk · Postby **timk** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 9:46 pm

This is VERY cool! If I'm ever in Perth I'd love to check it out.

ASE05 · Postby **ASE05** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 10:01 pm

OK you win, this is the most X-Treme engine conversion I have ever seen :shock:

WOW is all I can say :wink:

bensale · Postby **bensale** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 10:19 pm

Amazing, that in my opinion is about as good as it can get, I would love to be able to do that

I cant wait until you take it around Australia, I would love to see it!

fundies · Postby **fundies** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 1:59 pm

Love it. Congratulations. I don't think I saw it mentioned anywhere, but how much did the conversion cost :shock:

Okay, just saw it. $25,000 is a lot, but you've gotta start somewhere. The pioneers of technology will always shoulder the cost burden.

Caffeine · Postby **Caffeine** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 2:36 pm

What sort of range are you expecting from this?

Hoops · Postby **Hoops** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 2:56 pm

Caffeine: It gets about 120-150km per charge, depending on speed/terrain/etc. So, still a lot less than a petrol car but plugging it in when you get home is a lot easier (and cheaper!) than visiting a petrol station.

fundles: Yeah you're right on the money (no pun intended!); converting vehicles to electric is very expensive at present but we've gotta start somewhere! Once people have seen that it's possible, hopefully the pressure on automakers to produce electrics will increase, and for them the economies of mass production would mean electic vehicles would be no more expensive than petrol vehicles.

Caffeine · Postby **Caffeine** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 3:33 pm

Hoops wrote:Caffeine: It gets about 120-150km per charge, depending on speed/terrain/etc. So, still a lot less than a petrol car but plugging it in when you get home is a lot easier (and cheaper!) than visiting a petrol station.

Nice! that would cover ~99% of the trips most of us make

TieNN89 · Postby **TieNN89** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 8:41 pm

Hoops wrote:fundles: Yeah you're right on the money (no pun intended!); converting vehicles to electric is very expensive at present but we've gotta start somewhere! Once people have seen that it's possible, hopefully the pressure on automakers to produce electrics will increase, and for them the economies of mass production would mean electic vehicles would be no more expensive than petrol vehicles.

But the government will loose taxes as you won't be buying Petrol which is loaded with tax $$

So they'd add more taxes to electricity = increase electricity bill

Stu · Postby **Stu** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 11:38 pm

Holy Cow

Amazing job. :mrgreen:

marcusus · Postby **marcusus** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 11:43 pm

Well done

I'd love to do this on my own MX5 if I could get the (power and kilometre) range of the Tesla.

Will have a solid read of the articles on the weekend when I have some time.

Hoops · Postby **Hoops** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 12:02 am

It should be easy to get the performance of the Tesla - in fact I have a much more powerful battery pack and motor controller on order which should let this little car surpass the Tesla's acceleration. The Tesla also have a fairly bad weight balance by comparison so I doubt they'd keep up around a racetrack either. (Stage 1 of this project has been getting it converted and licensed. Stage 2 is making it the quickest electric car in the southern hemisphere.. Stay tuned!)

But it'd be pretty darn hard to achieve the same range as a Tesla with a backyard conversion. Since the Tesla was designed from the ground up as an electric, they've allowed for a very large battery pack (~400kg if I remember correctly, something like a third of the vehicle's total weight). They're also using a different chemistry (Lithium Cobalt) which offers higher energy density but are harder to work with - e.g you have to make sure the cells stay within a safe operating range or they can spontaneously combust!! Tesla have an incredibly high tech battery system which is beyond the reach of us backyard converters.

marcusus · Postby **marcusus** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 8:50 pm

Hoops wrote:Tesla have an incredibly high tech battery system which is beyond the reach of us backyard converters.

That's a shame for backyard converters, but well done on Tesla's part to develop the technology. I'd love to work for them if the opportunity arose. I just wonder how much I'd have to relinquish my computer engineering and coding knowhow and go back to basics with electronics and physics.

What do you think the maximum range is you could get out of your '5 if you stuck with the technology you're currently using?