Nice work, but kinda silly if you ask me.

ELECTRIC CAR - 2001 Mazda Miata
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That's gotta be one heavy sumbitch.

 

3,200 pounds according to his website.

Makes sense. The Miata engine is a surprisingly heavy beast, so eliminating it probably offset a lot of that lead. Twelve flooded deep-cycle batteries, probably >120lb each. Granted, Li-ion is not for the meek, but he coulda saved some weight by using Odyssey Hawkers or some other starved-electrolyte battery. Or even NiMH batteries- they're fairly popular in EV conversions.

Still, my primary concern is not total weight (after all, a BMW M3 Coupe weighs 3,700 lbs) but rather weight distribution. He's clearly shifted the weight rearwards, with a substantial amount of it hanging aft of the rear wheel centerline.

He should have eliminated the transmission altogether, put the electric motor in the tunnel, and connected it directly to the diff. That would have freed up more space in the front to relocate some of that lead forward.

It'll be a fine short-range commuter car for FL, but I expect it would throw itself off the first cliff it encountered in the SoCal twisties...

 

I just don't see paying 20k for a car that can't go farther than 20-25 miles. You can no longer put anything in the trunk so there goes the grocery getter. About all you could do with it is pick up a pack of smokes and a 6 pack.
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There's one around here that pops up for sale fairly often. 20 miles? No thanks.

 

That's a pretty neat little car but way too heavy and too much weight in the back. I love the idea of replacing the trans with a motor and putting the batteries in the front, but then how do you get reverse? Will a motor controller do that for you?

 

http://www.evporsche.com/






Can't blame the guy for trying. Too bad he went cheap on the batteries. The Lithium Ions would have saved a ton of weight and given better range.

 

**** that. I agree with Joe, weight distribution is probably a joke.

Lets take a small car with perfect weight distribution, already gets good MPGs, and is fun to drive for a couple hundred miles. Now...mess with the weight distribution in a way that negatively effects the way the car drives. Then make it so you can barely keep up with traffic on the highway, none the less can barely make it anywhere in 20-25 miles. Now....I wonder how fun it is to drive, even compared to a bone stock NB.

$20K? :roflcopter:

Vash-

 

It still has a transmission. It just replaced the 4cyl motor with a little electric motor.

Either way the car is a joke..10 hour charge time to drive 20 miles. I think I can walk faster then that.

I had a teacher in college talk about his old friend who had one of the few all electric Rav4. 150 miles per charge. If the miata could got 100 mile round trip and could keep the trunk it would a great electric car. If you lived somewhere like Socal, you could buy solar panels and not have to pay for gas anymore(atleast of intown trips).

 

I'm pretty sure he was responding to where I said "He should have eliminated the transmission altogether, put the electric motor in the tunnel, and connected it directly to the diff. That would have freed up more space in the front to relocate some of that lead forward."

In a lightweight application such as a Miata, I'd rather see the builder sacrifice some range in favor of lightness and system voltage- the latter being the primary factor in determining peak torque.

Say that he spent a few extra bucks and went with an Li-ion battery system. There's no need for a $50,000 Tesla-style battery, just enough to make 200 volts and give him 40-50 miles of useful range. That would keep the weight down and the performance up (both handling and acceleration.)

Now, put a class 1 trailer hitch on the back, and build a small trailer carrying an ICE / generator. These are not uncommon, actually. They call 'em towable range extenders, and with one connected and running, your EV is now a plugin Hybrid. The idea is that for everyday around-town use you leave the trailer at home and run on the batteries. When you need to make a longer trip, you hitch up the range extender and run the gas engine. A properly sized TRE will allow you to run the car at normal speed even with zero charge on the battery, and a well-designed system will permit the TRE to both power the traction motor and recharge a depleted battery at the same time.

 

That is brilliant. I love it.

 

The really sad part is that 10 hours x 15 amps x 115 volts= 17.25 kwh...which around here costs twice as much as a gallon of gasoline.

 

My biggest problem with that conversion is it's being sold for more than double the cost of the parts, and low end parts at that (except for the motor).

It's not even using a nice controller such as the Zilla and not even orbital or hawker batteries (which weigh 2/3 to 1/2 and have higher energy/weight ratios)....this was done as cheap as possible and is being sold for an exorbitant amount. This car should be $10k-$12k.

 

It's not a revolutionary idea. AC Propulsion offered them as an accessory with the tZero, Tesla is talking about them, and folks have been home-brewing them for as long as there have been EVs. The engine need not be all that large, either. Lots of folks doing this are using motorcycle engines in the 500-600cc range, which is more than enough to deliver cruise power- remember that the battery (assuming it is charged) is still providing the grunt for acceleration off the line. Here's an example: Rav Long Ranger A 500cc engine driving an SUV. Not bad. And if you really wanna be a green weenie, you can run the aux engine off LPG, CNG, biodiesel, cooking oil, or whatever floats your boat. (Obviously this somewhat compromises the "go-anywhere" capability of the TRE.)

A while back, I remember seeing a couple of folks who had done something similar to this on the ultra-cheap. Imagine an EV-converted VW Rabbit. Got the picture in your head? Ok, now imagine that Rabbit being pushed along (mechanically) by the complete front end of a second VW Rabbit attached to the back of it via a trailer hitch. Think I'm insane? EV Pusher Trailer

 

Or hairy armpit chicks.

 

 

how does it make vacuum for the brakes?

 

The same way they make hydraulic pressure for the power steering; with aux motors.

For brake vacuum there are some aftermarket units available, or you can take the vacuum pump from a diesel and attach an electric motor to it.

For the steering, a number of cars actually came from the factory with electric power steering pumps, and these are often scavenged. The Fiero and MR2 used electric steering pumps, as did a couple of Euro-only vehicles.

 

Screw electric.

For the truly green consumer I've created a minivan that runs on cadavers and goat urine. I sold the 1st two I built to Daryl Hannah and Sean Penn.

 

2 words....


GAY!