16-year-old converts gas truck to electric, reminds us of our wasted youth

We don't know about you, but we were doing far, far less productive things than Andrew Angelloti when we were 16. The green-minded youth -- a forum member over at Ecomodder -- has taken his 1988 Mazda pickup truck and converted it to run solely on electricity using $6,000 he'd earned as a part-time lifeguard. According to Andrew, the truck reaches a top speed of 55 MPH, sports a range of 40 miles per charge, and has acceleration that's, "Not that bad." The mod uses 20 flooded lead-acid batteries (for 120 volts), and a 60 HP, 9-inch electric motor. For most of us, that one major conversion would be enough, but Andrew is cracking away on his second EV mod, working his magic on a 1992 Toyota Tercel and gunning for more speed and a larger motor. Who said kids were lazy these days?

[Via Digg]

[trancer @ Jan 27th 2008 5:30PM]

$6000 as a part-time lifeguard? He must have started working when he was 12?

[shawnmos @ Jan 27th 2008 6:08PM]

I made 6 grand in a year working part time at Publix when I was in HS. It's not that hard.

[Kr4t05 @ Jan 27th 2008 8:15PM]

I made about $5500 this past year working part time washing dishes at the "new" minimum wage. ($7.25/hour) Most of it ended up going towards stupid shit, though. ><

Kudos, kid. Keep it up and you might be noticed by someone and could land a sweet job/scholarship in engineering.

[BatteryAcid @ Jan 27th 2008 8:48PM]

A friend of mine makes $55/hr as a lifeguard at a school.

[Bassir @ Jan 27th 2008 5:32PM]

"Not bad."

[Peppie @ Jan 27th 2008 5:34PM]

"Impressive...MOST impressive"

[Zach @ Jan 27th 2008 10:26PM]

just watched that on HBO on my new hdtv :)

[Ellianth @ Jan 27th 2008 5:36PM]

not to downplay this kid's achievement but... WHAT AN UGLY CAR. Gawd!

I'd go tinker with my parents car so that I could get a story on Engadget, but my parents would probably kill/beat-me-to-within-inches-of-my-life when i got bored and decided not to follow through on the project. :P

[Chris Taylor @ Jan 27th 2008 5:43PM]

“They can BUILD them, but they can’t SELL them.”

This is the crap that keeps us in trouble. TRUST ME an EV is something NO auto maker could PREVENT selling if they actually made one in quantity. All it would take is ONE test drive and the KNOWLEDGE that its $1 per 100 miles driven in Electricity to sell pretty much ANYONE instantly.

Its not that they can not sell them its REALLY is as simple as THEY REFUSE to build them. EV’s built right (IE not conversions ground up EV’s) are virtually everlasting and virtually maintenance free. There is simply not a whole heck of a lot to break.

THE ONLY reason this kid is limited to 40 miles has NOTHING to do with EV’s. IT DOES have to do with Chevron SITTING on the patent for large form factor NIMH packs that would have let this kid get TRIPLE that range for the SAME price AND the pack would last longer than the truck likely would last. GM Developed the LFF Nimh pack out of michigan for the EV They promptly crushed every EV they made and then sold the patent for that NIMH pack to Texaco. (Chevron later bought Texaco which is how they got it) Chevron REFUSES to license the patent for these batteries which could put EV’s with 100-200 or more ranges on the road right now. This kid could toss a $4k battery pack in that truck and go well over 300 miles on a charge easily. He could also dump more amps and accelerate faster. His top speed is a limit of his transmission not his battery pack unless he does not have enough amps available.

ON TOP OF THIS if you consider Nano Solar just sold germany some solar panels at 90cents a watt. If they can get them to consumer hands at that price a $500 solar panel on your roof would be MORE than enough to produce MORE “E” than you would use every month to drive your electric car. DO NOT try to charge the car solar just sell the E back to the Utility. you would SAVE more money on your E bill each month than it would cost you to charge that car each month. This mens you would be driving for FREE NOTHING No dollars per mile at all AND you would be 100% pollution free.

And you wonder why they “WON’T” build EV’s

THATS why it was not enough for them to STOP MAKING EV’s they could NOT permit regular consumers from getting there hands on a reliable viable EV because WE WOULD DEMAND THEM if we knew about them.

THATS why they CRUSHED every single one (yeah GM made over 800 VIABLE Practical EV’s over a DECADE ago it was called the EV1) and thats why they sold the patent to someone who would drop dead before releasing the technology to the public.

Want a good video to watch? Go rent or download “Who Killed the Electric Car? Trust me you will be quite angry after watching that movie.

I spend $3k or MORE per year on gasoline. thats over $30k in the last decade.

TRUST ME if I had the cash to build an EV I would do it in a HEART BEAT but I need a drop dead range of no less than 70 miles (54mile commute each way and I can plug in at work) The only practical way for me to do this is with NIMH D cells (yes I said D cells there is NO practical way to buy anything larger they just don’t make them)

for a 96v pack thats EIGHTY 80 cells. and thats just 10ah I need 50ah. DO the math. thats 400 cells !!

The nature of mega cell packs means I NEED to individuall charge EACH cell or its not going to last very long. that means I need 100 battery chargers (there is no charger that will charge more than 4 D cells at a pop and these things are $22 a pop. thats $2200 JUST for the charging system and then I still need to wire up a diode system to isolate the cells during charging.

NOW you know why people “DEAL WITH” the horrible range and lifespan of Lead Acid batteries. its a LOT easier and cheaper. I am not even sure if my D cell method will work.

To get the same range from Lead you need TWICE the amp hours. you see if you drop LEADs below 50% you HARM THEM. they are not designed to be deep cycled like that not even deep cycle leads are designed for that. NIMH however (and lithium) can bee fully depleted. IE you need HALF the amp hours so 50ah nimh pack will do the same as a 100ah LEAD pack (I am guessing he is running a 50ah lead pack so he only has 25ah at his disposal OR worse he is using a 25ah pack and fully depleting it which will insanely shorten the lifespan maybe to even less than a YEAR !!

the NIMH pack on the other hand could last a decade.

Lithium is just too expensive right now. First same problem as NIMH. no “LARGE” lithiums are available. so you have to use a ZILLION small cells. (go look up how many cells they use in the tesla roadster and you will understand why its $85,000 :-)

Second NIMH’s are KNOWN reliable and usable. The reliability and lifespan of lithiums are still a complete unknown.

Well there you go a bsic primer on Electric Cars and why YOU don’t have one. It has NOTHING to do with trouble selling them. They would not be able to keep them stocked if they actually built one.

[Andrew @ Jan 27th 2008 5:52PM]

Chris Taylor in the house!
Boom!

[treetrunk @ Jan 27th 2008 6:22PM]

@Chris:

What a load of nonsense. The reason electric cars haven't taken off is that they simply can't offer the same price/performance ratio at present compared to petrol, because no existing battery technology offers the kind of energy density found in liquid fuel. Hence there has to be a compromise- you either make an affordable car like the Reva, which is substantially smaller, slower, and worse looking than a comparably priced petrol car, or you make a more expensive car like the Tesla roadster, which performs almost as well as petrol but is out of most people's price range. The other problem is infrastructure and convenience - you can't just pull in to a gas station and do it (the power grid wouldn't have capacity for it on a large scale anyway) and even if you could it'd take a lot longer than filling the tank.

As for your supposed "problem" of rechargeable batteries only coming in small sizes- you realise that even lead acid car batteries are just 6 smaller cells in series? Also, why on earth would you buy 100 pre-made battery chargers? Build your own frickkin' charger! You're considering converting a car to run on batteries- if you cant build something as simple as a battery charger, don't try!

[Chris Aubeck @ Jan 27th 2008 6:44PM]

@ E

That's one sad Blog you have there, Eric. And confusing, because it makes me want to cry and punch you simultaneously.

[Ellianth @ Jan 27th 2008 7:02PM]

Was that 10 page essay aimed at me or were you trying to get your comment near the top. Hopefully the latter, cuz I ain't reading that.

[Andir3.0 @ Jan 27th 2008 7:03PM]

Don't encourage the spammers... STOP clicking on their links!

[Ellianth @ Jan 27th 2008 7:05PM]

Time to turn off notifications for this post.

[Ellianth @ Jan 27th 2008 7:08PM]

I just realized one of my teachers at school has the same name as essay guy. I wonder if they're the same person. Are you a teacher chris taylor?

[BatteryAcid @ Jan 27th 2008 9:04PM]

I'm sure he got it cheap because of the engine. My farther recently sold a $8000 99 GMC 350000 for $3,500 because the engine was fried (the oil change place installed the wrong filter causing the truck to overheat). With a newer truck he would have had to remove and sell the engine cheap.

[sr20vet @ Jan 27th 2008 10:40PM]

Why do people fall for eco-propaganda so easily? Sure in theory electric vehicles are great, as are hybrids. In practice they're garbage. A current hybrid (when you consider the premium price, battery disposal, expensive maintenance, and minimal MPG gains) is far less environmentally friendly than an efficient diesel. Bio-diesel is a nearly viable alternative fuel, and requires almost no effort for the conversion. Fuel cells are still the most promising solution to the issue, but the technology needs more time to mature.

If the fuel/car companies were trying to keep a stranglehold on the market they would be targeting bio-fuel, and hydrogen cell technologies. They are more likely to invest in alternative fuel research, and infrastructure to ensure their future profitability.

[Ignatius @ Jan 27th 2008 11:02PM]

Oh gee. What else is in hydrogen powered cars?

Oh, that's right.

BATTERIES. Whoops. It's an electric engine with a fuel cell to convert hydrogen into ELECTRICITY.

[skulldriveshaft @ Jan 28th 2008 2:05AM]

Right now we're testing and developing batteries using nano-tubes.

How long before we get to see those in production?

Who funded the research for those batteries?

Many alternative energy patents are now owned by petroleum companies.

It would disrupt their complete acquisition and distribution channels, markets would lose the foundation under them across the world.

Chris may be overzealous, but the points are valid.

This is not Eco-Propaganda, it's reality, just imagine if you made $100/barrel oil worthless overnight.

[johnzilla @ Jan 28th 2008 9:08AM]

@Chris Taylor:

I work for a major automaker. You have no clue what you are talking about.

Automakers are not stupid: they build what people want to buy. You cannot expect a large company to make a product they "hope" people will buy due to some altruistic mumbo-jumbo from people who don't have a clue.

If everyone wants to buy EVs, then why did Toyota just spend $1 billion building a plant to make large trucks? Isn't Toyota supposed to be this wonderful green company that can do no wrong? Gee, do you think that maybe they spent $1 billion building a plant to build large trucks instead of building a plant to make plug-in EVs because nobody wants plug-in EVs?

Your emotional altruism is cute, but seriously, get a clue.

[OneLove @ Jan 28th 2008 1:11PM]

@chris: take your pills already, damn.

[Chris Taylor @ Jan 28th 2008 4:37PM]

@johnzilla you are either a corporate shill or you have fallen 100% for the corporate propoganda. Almost EVERY single person who drove an EV1 LOVED IT and that was a 12 year old prototype!

@treetrunk

Education time. ANY "decently built" EV (ie not a homebrew) Will outperform 95% of the liquid fuel cars out there in EVERY WAY you can think of.

And this was 10 years ago. Better Acceleration. Better top speed Better economy Better safety. There is just so few downsides to an electric car. There are in fact ONLY TWO downsides to an EV.

Range and Refuel time. Range is simply a matter of more batteries. As production is ramped up batteries will get cheaper making it easier and easier to "add more batteries" till you get your desired range. 350miles on a charge is EASY once you ramp up production. Even making less than 1000 of them they got the battery pack price of the EV1 down to $4500 and that was over a freaking decade ago! What would that battery cost once they were making them in the MILLIONS ? $1500? less?

Charge Time. This is an issue of amps. Most homes do not have the AMP output to push that kind of current. BUT your home does not refuel your gas car either does it? so when your in a rush you would goto the "E" pump at the gas station where they can PUSH 200 amps and recharge you in 10 minutes or less. When your not in a rush you plug in before going to bed.

As for charger. Well there is a problem here that YOU clearly are uneducated on. Multi Cell batteries are HARD TO CHARGE (why the hell do you think the tesla is $85,000 ??)

EVEN if you an afford to buy 5-10 times the number of cells you need to "match" the cells they become UNMATCHED over time.

This results in some cells dieing at DIFFERENT TIMES than the rest of the cells in the pack. HOW do you identify these cells? its not as simple as simple as building a 7 cell RC car pack here. I am talking 400 cells. I need to be able to CHARGE each cell INDIVIDUALLY to avoid overcharging or under charging any cells. I also (have not solved this yet) need a way to individually measure the DISCHARGE level of 400 cells IN FREAKING REAL TIME. Yeah build my own charger. WHY the hell would I do that when I can solve half this problem by just BUYING the damned chargers that are "smart" ie they charge EACH cell individually.

I figure then I will "rig" meters for each 10amp pack. so thats just 5 meters. Even doing that this will only reduce my load to 80 freaking cells that I will have to MANUALLY check one cell at a time. (and you wonder why no one has done this yet)

Clearly you have NEVER tried to build a battery array before. ITS NOT FREAKING EASY.

AGAIN where do you think the MAJORITY of the tesla's $85,000 cost comes from. THEY are in the same damned boat I am. having to use INDIVIDUAL tiny cells in massive quantities because they CAN NOT use NIMH cells because the controlling patent it being sat on which SCREWS US till 2017 when it expires by which time we WILL have new technology or it will just be too late.

I hate when people reply without a clue. DO SOME DAMNED RESEARCH.

I KNOW how auto makers work. GM sent a rep with EACH truck load of EV1 to WITNESS personally everyone of them being crushed. They did not want to take the chance of the yard or someone at the yard "sneaking" one of these cars off.

The EV1 was special because it was the only REAL EV made to date. It was designed FROM THE GROUND UP blueprint to production to BE an EV. it was NOT a conversion.

I am currently looking at converting a minivan. A plymouth Voyager. I plan to eliminate the rear bench seat and use the back for batteries and chargers. I m going to take a hit for its size and mass but I want comfort and I want to be able to drive 4 and 5 people not 2 like the EV1. I am going to have to oversize the battery pack to compensate for this. MINE will be slow with low acceleration NOT because its an EV but because I AM NOT FREAKING RICH. If I had $10 grand to dump into this I could afford a higher voltage and therefore higher speed pack. My only criteria is 0-60 in less than 30seconds with 60mph the top speed being perfectly acceptable and able to go 100 miles. THATS IT. thats all I want. To save $3,000 a year in gasoline? HELL YES.

Sure I could just make 5 parrellel packs with a single or 5 chargers but the thing would probably FRY itself within weeks as a few of the cells got out of sync with the rest or died completely.

No the only way "I" can effectively make an EV using 400 cells is to CHARGE 400 cells INDIVIDUALLY and work out a way to detect bad cells. GO do some research on the problems with massive multi cells batteries.

Leads are multi cell but they are HEAVILY refined and HEAVILY developed. They are DESIGNED for it. The problem is they are heavy as hell NOT friendly with deep discharging and EXPENSIVE. they are cheap at first but you have to replace the damned things every 2-3 years. ANY idea how many I would need to go 100 miles? NOW you know why they tend to have 40 mile ranges. I would need some 60 lead acid batteries!! shit I would need a god damned F450 frame to carry the freaking things OOPS that frame is so much heavier that NOW I need 80 leads. Dream on. The thing would be a pondering god damned tank and dangerous as hell just from a MASS perspective. I would have to massively upgrade the brakes maybe even air brakes to be able to stop the damned thing.

THATS why these conversions tend to have such short ranges and thats why I can NOT use leads. This kid is lucky 40 miles is all he needs. For me ONE way to work is 54miles minimum. That means I need a drop dead range of 70 miles to insure I won't get stuck going to work or coming home. I am shooting to exceed 100 miles so if "something" goes wrong say some douche unplugging the damned car or something I will have enough range for the return trip home at least.

ALL WE NEED is a LARGE battery. Go talk to chevron about that. See how far you get.

NIMH is tried and true. There are EV's on the road now (from the GM era others manufacs also made EV's ie conversions of existing frames using the same NIMH battery) 12 years later they are STILL going with 90+% of there original range. its the ONLY battery tech that we KNOW works that we KNOW is affordable that we KNOW hs the range and lifespan (some exceeding 150,000 miles OR MORE)

THAT is the ONLY reason we are not ALL driving EV's right now and ALL those figures I gave you are over 10 freaking years old. DO YOU REALLY THINK that if they switched to EV 10 years ago NO advancements would have been made in Battery and car tech in that time? your kidding right?

I can say with 99% confidence that if GM had not killed the EV1 and automakers had gone full force into EV's we would be driving 500mile range sub $10,000 EV's today.

No doubt at all. Look how much imrprovement ONE MANUFACTURER (GM) made in EV tech in just 3 years of R&D and money spent to come up with the EV1. They went from solar prototype in 1995 (the design was based on a solar car IIRC) to WORKING DRIVING over 120mile range production electric car by 1997.

Do the math. I would be happy as a pig in you know what with the EV1 AS IT WAS 10 years ago. It had heat it had AIR it carried 2 people and it went 120 miles and could do 80mph (a lot more IIRC I think someone had one over 100mph even though it was not really geared for it) it had better acceleration than easily 50% of the cars sold today 10 years later. 0-40 it could trounce most SPORTS CARS IIRC.

The car cost 80grand to make (they only made a few hundred of them) so once production ramped up it would have been under 10 grand for that car. IE an EV1 would PAY FOR itself in less than 3 years for me in gasoline savings. In fact I estimated 2 years before the car was FREE since I would "drive" a lot more with the cost being near ZERO to do so.

If you think EV's are not practical then you are either BLINDLY shilling or BLINDLY obedient to propaganda. Period.

Hybrids are a FARSE a CON on the american people. DO THE FREAKING MATH folks.

A prius is $24,000 a Mid Grade 35mpg car can be had for $10 grand OR LESS. brand new!

every 300 miles the prius would save you $7 in gasoline. DO THE FREAKING MATH FOLKS. you would have to drive that PRIUS for 600,000 MILES just to freaking break even !!!

600,000 MILES before you saved a god damned dime. its a CON a RIP OFF.

Hydrogen? makes me sick. the LEAST efficient fuel imaginable. 35mpg at $7-$8 a gallon. AND YOU DO REALIZE a Hydrogen car is LITERALLY an ELECTRIC CAR where the Electric Power Source is a fraking HYDROGEN FUEL CELL.

Yeah right. Converting E to Hydrogen pumping storing transporting pumping and storing just to covert it BACK into E is so much more efficient than JUST USING THE DAMNED E to power the car. Dream on. 3rd grade science folks. Thats why they don't make it obvious they realize if any normal person fully realized how they worked they would call you NUTS for considering it.

BIO FUEL. God that makes me mad. Ethanol. SO let me get this straight. They replace 10% of my gasoline with Ethanol to reduce the need for foreign oil BUT WAIT I lose 14.5% of my fuel economy (actually measured loss)

Hmmm my 2nd grade math skills are a bit rusty here but hmm that means I am actually now buying 4.5% MORE GOD DAMNED GASOLINE !!! HELLO PEOPLE do we NOT see a problem here. oil companies are LAUGHING all the way to the bank with ethanol!!

Bio Diesel. Sure if you had access to waste oil it makes sense. Just how much waste oil do you think there is? lets GROW IT.

Have you DONE the math on how much ACREAGE you would need to supply the US with BIO D ? Let me help you out here. THERE IS NOT ENOUGH ARABLE LAND IN THE ENTIRE NATION to do it. Yeah thats gonna work.

What we need is NO MORE FUEL. by that I mean is fuel that you MUST goto a PUMP to PURCHASE.

Electricity is SO damned efficient a $500 solar panel will provide MORE ELECTRICITY than you will use in an entire month of driving if you are one of the average 90% of drivers in the US for your daily commute. Me personally I would need an $1100 panel since I drive so much (around 1600 miles a month) Add in the $1600 grid tie in and it would cost me $2700 to COMPLETELY eliminate ANY cost to driving AT ALL once I had the EV car. Do the math. I spend in excess of $3,000 a year in gasoline (not counting driving that a short range EV could not be used for I spend over $4k a year in gasoline)

The solar panels and Grid Tie in would PAY FOR THEMSELVES in less than 1 year. After that I drive for NOTHING. No charge NO mpg NO cost per mile. ZERO COST for fuel AT ALL. JUST STOP for a moment. FORGET the arguments and nay saying. JUST THINK about the positive effects that would have on our economy. It would literally be a new golden age for america. One problem. This golden age would only benefit about 90% of the US population. the 1.5% of the population who now OWN 90% of the WORLDS wealth would have a bit of a problem with that.

NOW you understand why we DO NOT have Electric Cars. It has nothing to do with range speed or performance of any kind. It has nothing to do with cost it has nothing to do with technology. It has simply to do with GREED. nothing more. Just simple greed.

Want to solve this? here is how. IF YOU CAN AFFORD IT make an EV. If not. DO NOT BUY A NEW CAR. EVER AGAIN.

We can NOT beat them with money directly. WE WILL LOSE. WE WILL blink first. Don;t buy gas today. YEAH that will work. That only works if you have an alternative to gas DUH. otherwise your just buying MORE the day before or the day after.

BUT auto makers can NOT survive if you do not buy NEW CARS. you see WE DO have an alternative to NEW CARS. we have enough of a USED CAR market to survive a decade at least before we started to run out of cars. THEY WILL BLINK long before a decade passes. In fact I think if 30% of the new car buyers STOPPED buying new cars we would have an EV in 2 years of less. Its that or go out of business for them.

SO go to buy a new car. Pick one out and then you start going over the specifics say ok I like this car but where is the Electric Powerplant option? When they look at you confused say you know the Electric Motor and batteries instead of the gasoline engine? when they say sorry not available. You say hmm thats a deal breaker for me. Whatever new car I buy must be electric. Let them know ok I need car so I am going to go buy a used car. I will come back next year and see if you guys have an electric option by then.

Thats it. If we can get enough people to do that they will have a choice. MAKE EV's or go out of business.

We can not force them to make EV's but we can REDUCE there options until EV is the only viable option left so they CHOOSE to make EV's and not just ANY EV but EV's on OUR TERMS.

Under 20 grand 4 door normal sized normally outfitted family sedan with at least a 250mile drop dead fully loaded range able to plug in at home etc.. With a battery life span rated in excess of 150,000 miles a warranty FULLY covering 100% of the E components for 100,000 miles and assured battery replacement for under $5k. (ie about the same as what they were already doing 10 years ago with an up in the range and capacity department which is why I upped the price cap)

That would do it. within a couple of years automakers would be all over it (what choice would they have?) and the range would rapidly climb and the price would rapidly fall.

[treetrunk @ Jan 29th 2008 5:32AM]

@Chris:

Education time? First off, I'm an engineer that studied at Oxford. I know what I'm talking about. You, by the sounds of it, are a naive uneducated teenager. If that's not the case then perhaps you should work on your debating style, as that's how you come across. I've never seen such unnecessarily long, poorly thought out, over capitalised, and above all - wrong- drivel before.

If you want to build a battery array you do not charge it with domestic battery chargers. Sure, go and buy 100 pre-made battery chargers and individually stick your 400 cells in them if you want, but that's just stupid. The proper way to do it would be with a battery controller IC like you'd find in a laptop battery or in one of your "smart" chargers. If you can't find a standard IC which meets your specification then use a programmable one. It's not hard if you've got some electronics knowledge - if you don't then perhaps you should try something a bit less ambitious.

[Chris Taylor @ Jan 30th 2008 12:05AM]

@treetrunk

How many cells are in a laptop. Any idea how a laptop battery is made? Any idea the challenge of SYNCING 6 cells in a LARGE laptop battery compared to 400 cells? what happens when one cell or 12 random cells "die early" because it has less capacity than the rest? How do you handle that without frying the cell or worse?

I do not have the SKILL or FINANCES to design a circuit capable of properly charging a 400cell pack and somehow I doubt you would even know where to begin.

My consumer charger idea has a distinct advantage for me. Its cheaper and its something my technical capacity to do. In reality it only solves 2 of my 3 problems. How do charge the batteries and how to prevent OVERCHARGING the batteries IE how to fully charge each cell.

I still have the DISCHARGE issue to be concerned with. I am probably going to have to break it up into a few packs with volt meters and "note" which pack dies or "drops voltage" from a cell wonking out early and just make that my drop dead point. If it leaves to much power in the back I am going to have to remove EVERY SINGLE CELL and individually stress test them to find the bad cells. The idea would be to find "enough" cells "close enough" to each other in capacity and discharge curve so that I can just stop using a back at a certain point to avoid damaging the cells. Ideally these batteries should not be charged at more than 1 amp. thats 10 hours recharge time. to test each cell I have to charge and discharge at least twice minimum. your talking over 30 hours to test a SINGLE CELL and I can do more than a few at a time because I can not afford so many expensive monitored charges (there not cheap) NOW multiply that by 400 cells.

If you could design an affordable practical charger to manage a 400 cell pack you probably would be in a financial class of people not having the time to post to forums like this.

Here is good link on the balancing issue I am describing.

www.mpoweruk.com/balancing.htm

My consumer smart charger idea solves the charging all batteries to full problem (these 4 bay chargers have a seperate IC for each bay so each battery is charge to full and stopped individually THATS why I want to use them.

BUT how do I solve the discharge issue. Technically I would need 400 volt meters and "turn off" a pack when the first cell reaches its cutoff. but how do I both afford install and mount 400 volt meters ?? I was thinking use a computer but thats 400 inputs. OR 80 inputs and every second I jump to the net pack so every 5 seconds it cycles through the 5 packs.

I have not a clue where to even begin on designing such a beast if its even possible with off the shelf components. And then programming the software? I could not program my way out of a wet paper bag. Theoretically I could install 80 volt meters and every week "change" packs until I slowly weed out the bad or problematic cells. but that has its own associated problems.

Ideally I need matched cells. Do you have ANY idea how may cells I would have to buy in order to pull 400 matched cells? If I had that kind of money I would just buy the damned tesla roadster. If I had that kind of money I would not be concerned over gas prices (I would have to buy several thousand batteries) I am not even sure how I am going to afford 100 chargers and 400 batteries. Then the time NEEDED to test so many cells on a budget. it would literally take me YEARS to test so many cells. SO LONG in fact that the first cells I got would probably have aged and changed by the time I got done them. Kind of defeats the point ehh ?

TO TOP IT OFF its probably going to end up needing a lot more than 400 cells. I would not be surprised to find out that to go 100+ miles on 60mph will require probably a 100ah pack (by the time you factor in waste and ISSUES with cells etc..) thats 800 cells man !!! (the Tesla Roadster uses 6,831 cells !! and you wonder why it costs $85,000 !!! thats nearly 14,000 WIRES just to hook up the batteries!

I estimate my car IF it can work on 400 cells is going to need some 5,000 feet of wire !!!

OH and I need 400 diodes so that the batteries do not "link" with each other when charging or I defeat the point of Smart charging to charge each battery separately.

Go back to an EE professor at Oxford and ask him what kind of issues he would foresee with trying to build a 400 cell battery pack using consumer D cell rechargeable batteries.

[treetrunk @ Jan 30th 2008 5:53AM]

@Chris:

Buying consumer chargers is a waste of money. All you need is the controller IC. Buy some of those, eg. MAX713:

http://docs-europe.electrocomponents.com/webdocs/0815/0900766b808155f3.pdf

Each of those will charge 16 cells, so you'll need 25 (about £80). Provided the each "set" of 16 is reasonably well matched (if you buy them all at the same time they should be) you should be fine.

Now all you need is some way of connecting all the 16-cell "batteries" together when you want to use them, and disconnecting them for charging. I'd use some power MOSFETS for that, eg. IRF740 (handles 400V). Using relays may be simpler, though might be a bit less reliable. Either way you need to design it to be fail-safe, so that if your connection/disconnection system fails you don't fry something (eg while charging).

Obviously there are other issues, but that's how I'd start.

[Chris Taylor @ Jan 30th 2008 4:34PM]

Hey thanks for the info! I still see a problem with over charging and mismatched cells but its something! I was thinking of buying "matched" cells for RC for example but they are sooo damned expensive and lower capacity (I really need the 10amps to make this practical) SubC's top out at around 4-5 amps.

It still requires me to match cells which is beyond my financial means for so many cells. at least with an individual cell charger I can just "oversize" the capacity I need and never run it down too low avoiding killing any of the cells.

I also realized the problem of connecting them to both a charger and and car and I think I have a solution for that. In solar application we install a diode basically a 1 way valve for electricity. It can run one way but not the other. If I put one of them on each cell they can "output" the power to the car but not to "each other" individually keeping the cells isolated for charging. I have a 12v scooter that I plan to play with converting to D Cell nimhs to test these Ideas out and see if they work. They if that works I plan to move up to 48v golf cart style setup and see how that works out. If that works I just duplicate the 48v system for the needed 96v system. I am hoping I can get away with 96v since more just ramps up the cost so much. It would require another 100 batteries to get to 120v :-( I would rather go 96v so later I can add 80 more batteries and another 10amps capacity for more range.

[NovaLand @ Feb 4th 2008 1:05AM]

@Ignatius: Batteries are optional. You can use high effectivity capacitors instead. You can also reduce the ammounts of batteries to a minimum compared to a pure electric car. If you cut down the ammount of batteries to 10% or even less, you can make 10 times more cars instead for that ammount of batteries.

[jake3w2 @ Jan 27th 2008 5:53PM]

@ Chris

Man, at least we know your times been productive. That's got to be the longest reply I've see around here for some time.

[Hung @ Jan 27th 2008 9:35PM]

@jake3w2

It's ironic that you call Chris's reply the longest you've ever seen, because yours is the least "reply" reply I've ever seen.

[Tom Chandler @ Jan 27th 2008 5:55PM]

Rubbish. Should have built an electric hovercraft, much more cool factor.

[Passarinhuu @ Jan 27th 2008 6:05PM]

I think I would have worked 3 more years as a lifeguard just to be able to build a more aerodynamic and light vehicle, resulting in an increased range... or maybe get some funding from local companies?

[Leon @ Jan 27th 2008 6:16PM]

Here is my question. How much is he actually saving? Obviously it still costs energy to charge the car. How much does it cost per mile of use? And using energy to charge it most likely still has environmental impacts if his Utilities company uses non-renewable energy. Not to mention batteries are not the most efficient means of energy ever, and those batteries will degrade and eventually die.

[Euripides @ Jan 27th 2008 8:01PM]

IIRC, electric motors are somewhere in the 90% efficiency range and combustion is somewhere near 25%?

Has anyone done a complete comparison of both systems, electric vs. petro? And I mean from drilling the oil to refinement and distribution vs. producing electricity, transmitting it, and the losses of charging a battery.

[Jeebus @ Jan 28th 2008 1:20PM]

"IIRC, electric motors are somewhere in the 90% efficiency range and combustion is somewhere near 25%?"

Right, but how much is lost going from the plant (coal, nuclear, whatever) to the outlet?
Still, heat generation kills gas powered efficiency.

[Leon @ Jan 28th 2008 5:00PM]

So does electric power. Things like light bulbs are so efficient because most of the energy they use is given off as heat. And in relation you then use more power in your air conditioner to negate that heat. It's a vicious cycle.

[Chris Taylor @ Jan 29th 2008 11:05PM]

OK first I am going to ignore the cost in energy and pollution that is needed to actually GET gasoline to the pump for you to use. Lets pretend fairy dust gets it there (really its that huge a difference I don't even need to factor it)

Gasoline. Even the best right now a European Volkswagon Jetta 1.6TDI gets 52mpg at 75mph with the air on :-)

I am going to ignore cost of the car for now IE assume that your BUYING a new car and choosing between Ev and Gas (BTW EV's are by nature CHEAPER than gas cars there are far far fewer parts involved)

OK now we have the setup. First lets look at consumer costs.

Lets say you drive 1200 miles per month or 14,400 miles a year (thats actually pretty close to the consumer average of 15,000 miles a year). (I drive 1600 miles a month not counting leisure driving but I am an exception)

to go 1200 miles in an electric car will add $12 to your electric bill. No thats not a typo no thats not unusual not thats not a fluke. It really does cost about $1 per 100 miles (a little more in places like NYC cali etc.. where E costs more) so in a YEAR of driving you will spend about $144 in electricity. Not a typo $144 One Hundred and Forty Four Dollars PER YEAR in E to power an electric car.

That VW lets assume it holds 20 gallons of gasoline. at 52 miles per gallon you would need 23 gallons of gasoline every month. (your ONLY gonna get that 52mpg on the highway but again lets assume fairies are helping out and you always get 52mpg (nay sayers note I am severely stacking the deck in favor of GAS here)

At todays prices (I get cheap gas in NJ) at $3.39 a gallon (Diesel remember but your getting 52mpg as a trade off) so $78.23 PER MONTH in Diesel Fuel. As you can see here I do not even have to go any further. in less than 2 months you will have spent more in diesel fuel driving the Gas car then in an entire YEAR driving the EV. What do you know 1/6th the amount of Fuel. Interesting ehh?

So what would it cost to drive the 52mpg Fairy powered Diesel car with Fairy supplied fuel? $938.76 and if you think its going to STAY at $3.39 your delusional :-) hehehe

We do not even have to do any more math. If you think that a power plant producing $144 in electricity produces more pollution than your car burning 276 gallons of Fuel then well its gonna be hard holding a reasonable conversation here. The power plant produces that much power in a MICRO SECOND. How MUCH pollution do you think comes out of those things per second?

I do not know the precise numbers but I am betting that your car burning 1 tank of gas produces more pollution than a power plant making $144 in electricity! I mean thats only a million watts of electricity for an entire year of driving. My dad's small business uses 7 million watts every month. One building. How much power does your house use a month. We are talking a truly small amount of power here (relatively speaking)

NOW add in a $500 solar panel and your pollution is ZERO. No pollution whatsoever AND no cost whatsoever either. $0 per year to drive that car.

On top of the above costs there are OTHER costs of ownership. No more emissions testing! because there is none.

Repair bills go poof. The cars are so simple and so durable (drive train) that they just don't break. Sure you got the normal stuff brakes tires wipers etc..

No more power steering (eletric) No more AC/HEAT issues (again electric heat pump) No more compressors. No alternator. No water pump. No more gaskets and seals. No more spark plugs no more valve covers or "head gaskets" no more fluids at all in the drive train. No tranny fluid no power steering fluid. I would even get rid of the brake fluid and go with electro mechanical brakes. No coolant no oil. Even your every 3 months "oil change" goes poof. Another $60 a year saved minimum.

Designed right the only things the consumer would not be able to fix themselves (Motor Controller Charger) are also the things you will never have to fix.

Go ask a mechanic how many moving parts are inside a gasoline engine? GONE. How many in the tranny? GONE.

you are going from HUNDREDS of moving parts down to precisely ONE moving part. The only moving part in n EV drive train is the Electric Motor itself which is also the least failure prone component in the car.

Wait till you have to replace a water pump. 7 hours labor at $60 an hour to replace a $31 water pump (I know I helped replace it 3 bad bolts grrr) I did not have to pay $60 an hour because I helped DO IT but thats what the average consumer would have paid if not MORE!

The REPAIR costs are where the gas cars REALLY start to get you. ONE relatively minor parts breakage in that engine could cost you more than your years supply of diesel fuel (again I gave gas the advantage since Diesels last a hell of a lot longer than gas cars)

And all this assumes you always get 52mpg and that the fuel magically appears at the gas stations. :-) its not looking so good for gasoline now is it ?

[Chris Taylor @ Jan 28th 2008 5:43PM]

Hmmm my lights give off almost no heat. I would not dare use an incandescent bulb. Silly how inefficient they are. I used LED's Elusively. CFL's everywhere else as I save for the LED's I illuminte my room as bright as daylight (actully bout 30% of daylight but it "feels" like daylight to most people) Brighter than 2 300watt halogen floor lamps brighter than 3-4 100 watts bulbs. Total power consumption 27 watts. (big room too not some closet space) I use about 1600 LED to light the room. (8 tubes 198led's each a little under 4 watts each.) Oh and they will last nearly forever if they were designed right. IE at rated span of 80,000 hours thts some 73 years in my bedroom AND thats not counting that I am running them well under rated amperage so they will probably have 2-3 times rated lifespan as a result.

Even just going CFL saves immense amounts of energy and DOLLARS. I replaced all the Incans in my dad's place with CFL's (I will eventually go LED) and already knocked a hundred bucks off his E bill every month. 100watt bulb cost $7.34 cents a month to power (18 hour days) actual cost. The 13watt CFL I replaced it with costs 95 CENTS a month to run. Saving us $6.39 EVERY MONTH the bulb only cost $5.34 it will last about a year (because we run it 18 hours a day in your home it would last 3-4 years most likely). Saving us $64.07 over its lifespan AND using 13% of the amount of electricity. This is probably the first bulb I will make into an LED reducing the power usage to around 7 watts. The payback time will be longer over the CFL (the LED bulb is $20) but since this bulb will last 12+ years instead of 1 year ....

[Christian P @ Jan 27th 2008 6:18PM]

kudos to this kid. hes amazing

[Artr @ Jan 27th 2008 6:25PM]

Great job! for only $6000 too! If he had a lighter car his top speed and acceleration would probably much better as well!

[James @ Jan 27th 2008 6:33PM]

Go ask any firefighter what they think of vehicles carrying around 20 or more lead acid batteries at highway speed. (except that thing won't go highway speed)

Besides, everyone saying they should mass produce these, they already have shit-slow electric cars that can't go the distance. What are you waiting for? Put your money where your mouth is and go buy one.

[Dave @ Jan 27th 2008 7:11PM]

I talked to a rescue worker not long ago about the dangers of Hybrid and Electric cars. He said that yes they have been trained on them, and that there is little or no concern. When it comes to stuff leaking out or cutting into power he said the risk level was about the same. As for cutting wires, he said it is the same as NOT cutting fuel lines. If anything they would be happy with the reduced risk of the car catching fire in all electric ones.

[David W. @ Jan 27th 2008 7:35PM]

yea...because battery acid is worse the explosive gasoline?

[Bill @ Jan 27th 2008 6:57PM]

Lead-acid means a very short lifespan when used in EVs.

NiMH has also been surpassed by lithium technologies.

Though lithium-based batteries are tres expensive right now

$1,000+/kWh for large-format batteries suitable for EV use (not the laptop battery kludge Tesla uses)

[Sam_Smith @ Jan 27th 2008 7:08PM]

This kid did great!

All you people that are bitching should do a little research before you run your mouths. Hell, take a minute to go watch "Who killed the electric car" and learn about the EV-1 for example.

Look, big oil is sitting on every major battery patent that would allow us to all have 500 mile per charge vehicles that take 5 minutes to charge. For every electric car there is, thats: 10 gallons a week, 40 gallons a month, 480 gallons a year, 4800 gallons after the life of the car that they're not selling. at $3 thats damn near $14,400 for the lifetime of my car. And hell, those are the numbers from my 35 mpg civic. its 3 times as much for a v8 pick up truck!! Why the hell would they let electric cars ever be built!!

And lets assume that 50% of American cars were electric. Well then the oil companies wouldn't sell gasoline for these vehicles AND they would have to sell gasoline cheaper. THERES NO WAY IN HELL IT COSTS $3 WHEN HALF AS MANY PEOPLE USE IT. Thats like a double whammy there.

[Luke @ Jan 27th 2008 7:17PM]

If you believe what you hear on "who killed the electric car?" you shouldn't be allowed to read a gadget blog.

Sandisk stock is at 50% of what it was last year because of comoditization and Asian ripoffs, and yet these battery patents you crow about are magically keeping the entire world from building a decent EV? If the technology has already come that far, you'd see a company like Aptera starting up in every city, and even the Apple lawyers couldn't do *** about it.

Seriously Sam, you have no idea what you're talking about.

[Joe @ Jan 27th 2008 7:39PM]

Patents are public. Big oil isn't sitting on your alleged magic wand patents. Check for yourself.

[Kevman @ Jan 27th 2008 9:59PM]

"And lets assume that 50% of American cars were electric."

At 10% we'll experience major blackouts. Electric cars only make sense if we start building some nuclear plants to charge all those batteries.

[Sam_Smith @ Jan 28th 2008 12:50AM]

@lUKE

Your post made no sense as a response

@Joe

Patents may be public record, but that doesn't mean i can USE THEM if they're already pattented. You cant say they're not "sitting on my magic patent" unless you look at EVERY LAST PATENT. You may have the time, i dont.

@Kevman

Well im glad you understand the electrical grid, because you surely dont understand what an example is...

[Cornelius @ Jan 28th 2008 2:24PM]

@Joe

"In 1994, General Motors acquired a controlling interest in Ovonics's battery development and manufacturing, including patents controlling the manufacturing of large nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries. In 2001, Texaco purchased GM's share in GM Ovonics. A few months later, Chevron acquired Texaco. In 2003, Texaco Ovonics Battery Systems was restructured into Cobasys, a 50/50 joint venture between Chevron and Energy Conversion Devices (ECD) Ovonics. Chevron's influence over Cobasys extends beyond a strict 50/50 joint venture. Chevron holds a 19.99% interest in ECD Ovonics. Chevron also maintains veto power over any sale or licensing of NiMH technology. In addition, Chevron maintains the right to seize all of Cobasys' intellectual property rights in the event that ECD Ovonics does not fulfill its contractual obligations."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel-metal_hydride_battery#Patent_encumbrance_of_NiMH_batteries

There are multiple patents. Searching for "NIMH" and "Ovonic" at uspto.gov and you'll get quite a few hits.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=0&f=S&l=50&TERM1=NIMH&FIELD1=&co1=AND&TERM2=ovonic&FIELD2=&d=PTXT