Australia's first electric MX5!

[Hoops]

With the tech I'm using, probably 200km is about the practical limit due to the size/weight of the batteries. Using an AC motor and controller (which are more efficient and support renegerative braking), you can add about 25% to that figure, but they're 2-3x the price for equivalent power. Using lithium polymer batteries, you can add another 50% to the achievable range, but then the batteries cost 2-3x as much as well!

Then you'd be in Tesla territory.. both in range and price! So as with most things, it all comes down to budget. (Sadly I couldn't afford a Tesla even if they were available in Australia..)

Edit: For the technically inclined, as I mentioned before the Tesla uses Lithium Cobalt batteries. Lithium Polymer are a subtype of lithium cobalt, so as Tesla have done you'd probably need temperature control of the battery pack to ensure it didn't overheat.. Which is not rocket science, all petrol cars have such a cooling system for their engines to stop them overheating of course.. but it's just another system to set up.

[marcusus]

I'm surprised you didn't go the regenerative braking option. If I bought an electric car (or modded a car to electric), that'd be right up there on the priorities list. If we're doing this all in the name of efficiency, what's the point in wasting all the energy? But yes, cost does come down to it. Although I assume 2-3x the cost of the motor isn't going to be anywhere near 2-3x the cost of the batteries.

Meanwhile, slowly reading through your blog. Making for some light reading on a lazy Friday night

[16bit]

a guy i know mentioned something about lithium batteries with phospherous (probably wrong spelling) in them. apparently they opporate cold and can get up to 4 times the amount of charges out of them. have you heard of/have any experience with those?

[Hoops]

He was probably referring to Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4), which are in fact the type of battery I have used in the MX5. They definitely seem to be the most promising battery chemistry for EVs because of the 2000-3000 cycle life (i.e a few hundred thousand kilometres service life, usually as long as the rest of the car will last!)

There's also a new Lithium Manganese "nano-titanate" battery developed by Altair Nano, which last about 20,000 cycles!! But they're not available to the general public yet, and are quite a lot more expensive of course.

[Benny]

That is fantastic work!
I'd love to see the car and have a ride in it.
Hell!!! I'd like to OWN one!

I really do think that electric cars will be the answer, as soon as the oil companies back off all the pressure they are giving to the car makers and governments which are currently preventing the car companies from making and selling electric cars.
The oil companies are using the excuse of the loss of excise revenue to governments, (which we are not told about) to help prevent the mass-manufacture of electric cars.
I doubt it would be very difficult to use an inductive charging system connected to 3 phase power for fast charges, then you would just have a metal plate on your garage floor which would line up with the inductive side on your car to charge the car automatically every time you park it over the plate, and these plates could easily be installed at parking meters, parking stations or anywhere else, so you could get your car charged while you are parked on the street.

The real problem is that governments would object vehemently to mass sales of electric cars as they would be the big losers as far as their income is concerned, and if someone did start the manufacturing of affordable and practical electric cars, governments all around the world would do whatever they could to prevent it, unless they could work out a way of charging tax on the usage of the electric cars.
Right now, with the very small numbers of electric cars getting about, the governments aren't too worried about it, but wait until they are in mass production! Then you'll see them really squawk.

If you can covnert a car for around $25K, it wouldn't take too long for it to pay itself back, not even taking into account the other benefits of clean air etc are considered.

[sliq]

if we back off consuming crude oil and there is a sudden demand for batteries.. would there be the same amount of pollution to generate the electricity from burning coal? i have no idea how the see saw works

[Hoops]

To save me some typing... (http://www.zeva.com.au/faq.php?id=4)

"First and foremost, your mains electricity no longer needs to come from fossil fuel power stations. In almost all parts of Australia, there are now "Green Power" options which ensure that the power you use is coming from renewable energy sources. Everyone should consider switching to Green Power, even if you don't have an EV!

That said, even when charged from mains power based entirely on fossil fuels, driving an electric vehicle results in far less greenhouse gas emissions. Power stations use fossil fuels much more efficiently than internal combustion engines, and electric motors themself are very efficient. A common measurement for real vehicle efficiency is "well to wheel" – as in the quantity of oil taken from a well required to drive the car a given distance. For a comparison, the all-electric Tesla Roadster supercar is approximately twice as efficient well-to-wheel as a Toyota Prius.

Another interesting point is that it tends to be uneconomical to down-regulate power stations during off-peak periods, such as at night. During these times, a lot of power is simply dissipated (wasted). This could instead be used to recharge a huge number of electric vehicles. For example, in California enough power is wasted every night to recharge 4 million electric vehicles!

And lastly, many people opt to install solar panels on the roof of their home or business premises to become energy and carbon neutral – then you can truly say your EV is zero emission!"

[marcusus]

Another interesting point is that it tends to be uneconomical to down-regulate power stations during off-peak periods, such as at night. During these times, a lot of power is simply dissipated (wasted). This could instead be used to recharge a huge number of electric vehicles. For example, in California enough power is wasted every night to recharge 4 million electric vehicles!

And of course the other plus to this is that during peak times for the power companies, if all the cars are plugged back in to the grid, they can then use the cars as batteries to supply power back to the grid if there's a huge demand.

[irwin83r]

theres a guy that lives near me thats waiting for his mx5 to arive thats been converted for him by a company in vic...i think..

i'm buying his motor to build an extra thristy turbo race motor so... im going to use his offset carbon emmisisions and make sure the fuel companies dont miss out

theres some really really intersting video on youtube regarding oil companies and governments putting lids on things and stopping progress with clean cars and controlling everything, even out right claims of people being killed by the government. the scary part is its bleiveable.. and yet we do nothing..

something that has really caught my attention is the HHO conversions that are floating around on youtube, the whole run your car on water thing.. again logicaly shouldnt work and sounds rediculas but.. some of the videos on youtube really got me thinking maybe it is possible..

i love the fact that people are really starting to push clean cars and not waiting for the car companies and the government to make the changes.. it kinda shows their true colours in away.. i mean we all know what needs to be done and that there are possibilities out there and the people in the best possition to make the steps forward sit on their hands because it makes their wallets fat and their lives easy. BUT now the people such as hoops and many others are sick of it and pushing things forward them selves. kudos to you hoops i hope you inspire many others. one of the main things holding all this back is alot of people are too set in their beliefes of how things should be done.

i my self have just bought an old xc 78 falcon with a 351 clevland (5.8L v8) probably one of the most dirty motors ever made but im getting it put on straight LGP then im going to find out for myself if this HHO thing is a load of bull or not. the car will cost me under 4grand once on gass a tad cheaper than your project... but then again chances of success are some what less also but hey im willing to give it a stab

[Okibi]

Almost every week some stoner will ring in to Dr Karls program on JJJ and ask about HHO conversion kits flogged off on the internet.

These were systems that are meant to create some HHO that goes into the intake to give your car a bit more power.

Based on some investigation by a Queensland? farmer, Dr Karl seems to this its just not worth the time and effort.

You might have to scan through some Podcasts to find his comments, I think it was defiantly discussed in the episode he did on the BBC.

[Hammer]

What the????? Great work!!!

Have you had problems with other motorist of pedestrian in malls etc not hearing you're there since electric motors are very quiet?

[Hoops]

The noise usually isn't a problem at high speed because there's plenty of wind and road noise (as per a normal vehicle, except you notice it more without the engine noise), but it definitely is a problem at low speed e.g in car parks - gotta watch out for people walking in front of the car who don't hear it!

[Okibi]

Can't you just stick a card in the spokes BMX style or just get a bull bar and run them down.

[Keith]

Great work, Hoops. Surely battery technology can only continue to imprtove in the future, and hopefully prices will fall. Look at computers for an example of improving techhnology but reducing prices as they sell more.

Id like to ask 2 questions 1) how does it handle compared to a standard mx5 , and (2) , how does the power/torque/throttle response feel like compared to a normal mx5 when you are driving it hard?

[Hoops]

1) Handling is pretty similar. Weight balance is still close to 50:50, though it's about 10% heavier than stock and with a slightly worse polar moment of inertia (due to having some batteries outside the wheelbase).. but it's got the coilovers in there to keep it feeling snappy. Still handles a lot better than most things on the road!

2) To date I've only had a pretty modest motor controller in there (500 amps max = around 200Nm from the motor), so initial acceleration wasn't overly impressive. It drove much like say a 4-cylinder automatic vehicle. I'm still waiting on the "proper" motor controller for it (2000 amps max!) which will be a whole different ballgame..