I talked to Joe Lado with the yellow car, and he uses about 8-12 kwh per night to charge his car. He runs about 35 miles round trip to work per day. In Wichita, electricity is about 5c per kwh right now. So thats about 40-60c per day. We had 114 degree temps last month, and my electric bill was only $106. Not too bad, So your looking at 1-2c per mile. Not bad considering my car gets about 26 mpg, and gas is $3.15.

quote Originally posted by fieroX: In Wichita, electricity is about 5c per kwh right now. So thats about 40-60c per day. We had 114 degree temps last month, and my electric bill was only $106. Not too bad, So your looking at 1-2c per mile. Not bad considering my car gets about 26 mpg, and gas is $3.15.

Daaag! When I retire I'm moving to Wichita. $0.13/kwh is considered cheap in Houston.

My round trip is 50 miles and and I was hoping to build a 100 mile range car with a/c and it's not an easy thing to do.

You have a point though, even at $0.03/ mile my commute would only be $1.50 a day. I pay more than that in tolls.

The real cost of the electric car is in the batteries. You will spend a couple of grand on the lead acids, and they may only last you a year or two depending on how well you take care of them, so you have to figure that into the cost as well.

Yeah, I found some exide batteries that are the replacement for the trojan t125's, and supposedly they have more amp hours than the stock battery. A set of them will cost $1100, and they carry a 6 mo replacement, 3 year pro rate warranty. So say they went out in 2 years, you would be able to get another set for about $700. How many miles do you drive in 2 years? Just driving to work and back 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year, 40 mile round trip, adds up to 10,000 miles. 2 years, 20,000 miles. Thats just to work and back for me. Figure 26 mpg, $3.15 a gallon for gas (if it doesnt go up more), your looking at 12c a mile. So about $2400 dollars just for gas, to and from work. And you spent $1800 on batteries (actually $900 for the 2 years, cause now you have new batteries again). Thats not bad.

Besides, you get the rare opportunity to stick it to the oil companies!

quote Originally posted by fieroX: Besides, you get the rare opportunity to stick it to the oil companies!

This is the best reason to do it Even if electricity doubles in price it's still cheap compared to gasoline. It would be nice to be able to laugh as the price of gas continues to go up.

The T-145s are a little bigger and give you increased capacity. I was planning to use those.

im going to go with the exides. They are cheaper, and weigh less than the trojans. The 145's are really heavy. im already looking at 1300 lbs of batteries alone.

:::shakes fierox's hand in apology for all my prior idiocies, age has humbled me as I percieve it has you:::

That being said,check this link out it's very informative

http://www.electroauto.com/catalog/battery.shtml
I also highly reccomend US battery, great performance to price ratio and you can order them out of the same run wich garuntees your batteries are matched wich helps longevity

(am also planning an electric fiero build)
Tyler

quote Originally posted by GT-X: (am also planning an electric fiero build) Tyler

I haven't decded to start mine yet, but when gas hits $4 a gallon I think I'll pull the trigger and start my conversion.

This is what I really want to do with my Fiero also. Convert it to electric.

Lithium Ion batteries are still too expensive. But lead-acid is to heavy. Best bet is going NiMH, but I don't know how expensive they are.

Solar panels will only do a trickle charge at best, so I'm not for sure if it's worth it.

Let me know about this Project X. I'm very interested.

well if you drive it to work in the morning then you will have a loss in power but while your at work for 8 hours of the dat and leave you car in the sun then the solar panels will give you a little more power for your trip home when the sun is going down. A little flaw I see is durring the winter and when the sun sets at like 5-6 and the winter overcast clouds, and you are driving home at night with lights going and the electric motor and heater and the radio so I think the batterys will not like that.

I should be able to keep mine charged for free! Where I work there are posts with outlets at almost every parking spot cause most of the people I work with drive big diesel trucks and the company put in outlets for there block heaters. So drive to work, plug in, charge up, drive home, repeat.

BOOOO Rich oil companys!!

HOORAY Free transportation!! (and beer!)......(but not at the same time) lol

Tyler

quote fieroX:... So im going to see what it takes to make it go 150 miles on a charge. I would also like to look into more effecient solar panels, and more effecient batteries...

Nickel metal hydride batterie$ or better.

That's w/ no A/C! Some of us know how moderate the climate is in Wichita.

If a little sweat is good, a lot ought to be better.

NiMh may be better for range and slightly better for weight but they're a pain because the devolp a "memory" if they are charged without being fully drained first. Which isnt a problem in many applications ie: RC cars but it would be a P.I.T.A. for a road vehicle. Lithium ion batts. do not have this problem but as mentiond they're BIG bucks so I still think the best deal is a lead acid

Tyler

quote Originally posted by crytical point: well if you drive it to work in the morning then you will have a loss in power but while your at work for 8 hours of the dat and leave you car in the sun then the solar panels will give you a little more power for your trip home when the sun is going down.

The panels would help, but you would need an array hundreds of square feet in size to make a meaningful contribution to your traction batteries. The solar panels on the destiny 2000 just give your 12V battery a little boost.

A/C is going to be a real drain on the system, but I can't live without it. The motor to drive the a/c will consume quite a bit of power, so you better have a lot of power on board.

Realistically, if you could get 50 miles out of a home converted DC system it would be amazing. 150 miles or even 100 is not going to be possible with lead-acid batteries. And if you can afford Li-ion or even NiMH then the price of gas shouldn't be worrying you too much.

quote Originally posted by fieroX: In Wichita, electricity is about 5c per kwh right now. So thats about 40-60c per day. We had 114 degree temps last month, and my electric bill was only $106.

Time for me to start packing to move to Wichita!

Just got my $400 electric bill and the price in Houston is now 16.7c per kwh. And I noticed gas is dropping a bit, down to about $2.79 so the economics for the electric car are going in the wrong direction.

saw this and thought it looked intresting...
http://www.sigmaautomotive.com/electrocharger/electrocharger.php
Even if only used during acceleration, which should take less then the 8min battery life, this should be able to increase fuel economy. the only issue I have with it is that the motor is not that large, so I don't know if the increase will be significant enough to make this a decent solution. Though, the idea behind it is relativly simple, why couldn't a guy make his own? mate this with say, a duke and you might be able to get some good milage

just a thought... how hard would it be to add something like an alternator geared way down so that is doesn't produce much drag on to the motor or drive shafts of an electric car to keep the current flowing? there has to be a way to do that so while your moving your recharging your batteries at the same time... eh... i don't know enough about the subject but it's just a thought.

quote Originally posted by Finally_Mine_86_GT: just a thought... how hard would it be to add something like an alternator geared way down so that is doesn't produce much drag on to the motor or drive shafts of an electric car to keep the current flowing?.

If you are talking about using an electric motor to recharge batteries to run the electric motor you would have to break several laws of physics to make that work. Conservation of momentum, perpetual motion, not to mention the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Put another way there is no free lunch. The energy has to come from somewhere, you can't create it on the fly from nothing.

That's why hybrids are attractive, you CAN use the gasoline engine to recharge the batteries on the fly, and use the electric motor where it's more efficient, like in stop and go traffic where the gasoline engine is most inefficient.

By the way, after hanging out at about $1.99 / gallon for several months, gasoline is headed back up to about $2.09. I expect that by next summer it will be back up around $3 and I'll start working on my Fiero hybrid.

[This message has been edited by jscott1 (edited 12-02-2006).]

kinda... i was thinking more along the lines of epicyclic gearing for less drag on the drive system in order to decrease the total electrical power output... granted your not going to be able to recharge the system 100% but maybe give yourself an extra 20 miles or so added to your total distance... i have it in my head... just not sure if it'll work.

quote Originally posted by Finally_Mine_86_GT: but maybe give yourself an extra 20 miles or so added to your total distance... i have it in my head... just not sure if it'll work.

It won't work at all. Unless you input more energy into the system from somewhere else, no matter what type of gearing, it will take more engery to spin that generator than you get out of it. That is the basic principle of physics, there are losses any time you convert energy from one form to another.

What you are proposing is a little like this...just because you can visualize it doesn't make it possible.




The only way to extend the range of an electric car is to either have solar panels, (very weak and not worth the trouble), generate the electricity as you go from a gasoline engine (as in hybrids) or install bigger more powerfull batteries, ($$$$). Right now the hybrid is the most feasible method.

[This message has been edited by jscott1 (edited 12-02-2006).]

he is right, hybrid power is the most promising system that is out there. Rigth now I would love to do a bio-diesel based hybrid fiero, the only thing I am missing is the money, time, and a garage to do the work lol... that is why I posted that link, If you manage when you fire off the very small electric motor, you would basically be doing the same thing as say a prius would do, but you would have to engage the system manually and the electric motor would have a far smaller output... but the concept is for the most part the same, just different ways to go about it.