Quote:
Originally Posted by pawoSD
One of my uncles converted a ford focus to electric....it can go about 40-50 miles on a charge in the winter, with a heater/lights on etc. Total cost of the project was roughly $11k....including buying the running driving Focus to begin with. It fully charges in about 6 hours on 120V I believe....less if it is not drained most of the way. If he added a generator like the Volt....it'd probably only add another $1500 to the car's cost....and would give much longer range. Pretty bad that you can build a car superior to the volt yourself for 1/2 the price.
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Dude, no disrespect, but I think your uncle is exaggerating just a tad.
Look, I own an electric pickup (81 Ford Courier/Mazda B2000) that was converted new by Jet Industries in Austin TX, and I picked it up used in WA state back in '93. By 2000, I'd upgraded nearly everything to what could be considered hobbyist state-of-the-art then, and spent a year and a half using it to commute to work. Before I got tired of working with it, I spent over 10 plus years modifying, maintaining, and driving it.
From the price quoted, your uncle had to use lead acid batteries, and from the size and weight carrying abilties of a Focus, even the wagon version, he had to be using 12 V marine batteries. Unless he drove no faster that 35 to 45 mph everywhere he went, there is no way he could have gotten 40 to 50 miles range on a single series string of 12 V batteries - they just don't have the amp hour capacity - the best small car conversions using 12 V batteries I saw during my EV years had a realistic range of about 30 miles. If he did use 6 V golf cart batteries, then he had to be running a low voltage system (ie, 96 V or less) and I'd wager a good part of the car's interior was taken up by batteries - essentially it ended up being a two-seater.
By way of comparison, my pickup had a curb weight of little over 2000 lbs as built by Ford/Mazda. Even with all the EV tips and tricks in the book, to RELIABLY get even a 40 mile range at highway speeds took a series string of twenty 6 V golf cart batteries at 120 V, that weighed upwards of 1400 lbs - essentially 3/4 of a ton of batteries - essentially I had to nearly DOUBLE the weight of the vehicle to get even a 40 mile range.
40 to 50 miles in summer? A long stretch, but not entirely outside the realm of possibility without seeing the car first hand. 40 to 50 miles in winter, ie, freezing temps? Gotta throw the BS flag on that one - unless his batteries were in insulated and temp-controlled enclosures - which would take up even more space and weight - then he would be losing HALF his range in anything close to freezing temps - been there, done that.
And unless he was using a propane or diesel fired cabin heater, electric heat would cut even further into his winter range. Think it's fun trying to stay warm on a cold winter's morning until your old MB diesel heats up? Try doing it in a converted EV with only a 1500 watt ceramic heating element from one of those $30 cube floor heaters - you discover in short order that modern vehicles are piss-poor when it comes to insulation and heat-holding ability.
6 hour recharge on 120 V doesn't jive with 40 miles range - the better converted EV's I saw in my years would average 4 miles/kilowatthour (kwh), or 10 kwh to do 40 miles - even with the most efficient charger out there available to the hobbyist, there's no way you can pull 10 kwh out of a 120 V 15 amp outlet in 6 hours - off of 240 V, yes, that's in line with my own experience.
The recharge times listed for the Volt - 11 hours for 120 V, and 5 to 6 hours off of 240 V - and the ranges PM was able to get on battery power - leads me to believe they've got a battery pack with 10 kwh or less useable capacity, and likely lead acid batteries to boot. What they're describing is so close in operating and charging characteristics to my pickup with 120 V of 6 V golf cart batteries, a 30 hp DC series motor, and a forklift motor controller, it isn't funny.
Not knocking your uncle by any means - all EV'ers tend to exaggerate and brag a little about what their vehicles can do - heck, I was guilty of it myself - the old saying that there's none so devout as the converted - for several years I was one of the converted myself when it came to EV's and hybrids - it took a couple years of real-world commuting experience with an EV to "deprogram" me.
But your last sentence is still spot on - that for around 10 grand or so you could convert a suitable existing vehicle on your own and get just as good electric performance and range as the Volt. And that just goes to show that the main limiting factor on electrics and hybrids is STILL the batteries.