Its fast, its cool,
its sleek, and its too tall for my short little legs. I am 14 years old all over again. My entire life I had to deal with bikes that were too tall, clothes that were for older kids, amusement rides that wouldn’t let me on and now here comes the coolest motorcycle around and my feet don’t touch the ground. And no one needs to mention Deja vu. So if you have an inseam over 30 inches come on in and you can take it out for a spin.(maybe handicapped shoes will work?)
The ZERO Street Motorcycle is Here!
August 17th, 2010Lifted from Car and Driver Magazine Aug 2009
August 17th, 2010My neighbor who is a huge car guy, all gas of course gives me his older car magazines and by chance he gave me this Car and Driver which had a front page aricle about the upcoming electric cars. The article talked about the usual cars; Volt, Fisker Karma, Mini E, Dodge Circuit EV. What was interesting was an article about the EV1 written from a true gas car point of view. Interesting points; There were just over 1000 produced within the three year window starting in 1996. Lease was $477 per month. When the leases were up they had them crushed because of liablility issues and parts-availability regulations. (we all forget about this government regulation)
The article states that the low demand and high cost sealed the EV1 fate for the dumpster/crusher. Initially they priced the car at $33995 when the actual costs were closer to $80-100,000. Doesn’t that number sound very Tesla’ish? In today’s market cars priced at $40,000 make up 5% of the car buying market. So imagine what the market was in 1996 for a $34000 car.
More thoughts on Lithium batteries
August 5th, 2010Its been about four weeks of driving the Lithium Zenn around and you can really see the advantage of being ‘range anxiety free’ It reminds me of being out late with no parental curfew. The other day, I accidentally pulled a wire loose and the battery gauge died but it didn’t matter, this car has such great range, I said “who cares” When I get up in the morning I reset the trip meter and take off. Next thing I know, its three days later and I still haven’t plugged in….
But my joy is about to end, I sold the car to a nice couple in Ballard. They take delivery on Monday and it will be back to curfew for me….
18th Annual Greenwood Car Show June 26th
July 1st, 2010
Part of the $500,000 Electric Car Lineup
The Seattle Electric Vehicle Association made a powerful statement at this years show. The club brought 28 vehicles of which there were two $100,00 Tesla’s. You could say we had nearly $500,000 in electrified iron. A special shout out and a tip of the lightning rod to Steve Lough our beloved president for putting this event together again.
For our company MCEV we brought a 2009 Wheego Whip and a 1996 Ford Ranger that had been converted to a 144 volt highway pick up truck. This truck is for sale and you can own it for $12,000. We aren’t too excited about selling it since it runs real real good.
Most of this show was spent repeating yourself to interested parties. Its always the same questions; how far? har fast? and how much? Sometimes I get bored and I will throw out some totally outrageous numbers just to see what people will say. I told this one guy the car will run forever and he nodded, smiled and walked off. I said it with true conviction so he had to know I was telling the truth. I think he was not registering. I wonder if I gave him my card?
There were some other very interesting vehicles in the show. One was a 1919 Cadillac Limousine. This vehicle actually was in driving condition and has not been restored. For a car that is 91 years old it looked much better than my Aunt Nakoa on Beacon Hill.
Also roaming the streets of Greenwood was my buddy Randy from Pacific EV in Bellevue, I noticed him more for the shirt he was wearing, he called it Petrosuicide. Maybe BP ought to start selling this shirt.
Is 25 mph all that bad?
June 8th, 2010
The last month I could be seen driving around MC and Beacon Hill in a Columbia Mega Truck. When we first received this truck I hated it. To me it was right out of Hanna-Barbera Studios, home of Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble. But after driving it I soon fell in love with it.
This little truck has big windows and big mirrors, granted it only goes 25 mph but it climbs hills just fine especially when I discovered that it was a 48 volt DC truck. Everything else out there is 72 volts! The range of this truck is terrific I could get close to 40 miles on a charge and it was so reliable I stopped looking at the gauge. It did die on me once, but after pulling over and letting it rest for 5 minutes it got me home. I never was a believer in driving just 25 mph but after a month of experiencing it, its just fine for me.
The best thing this truck did for me was get me pulled over by officer Chinn from the Seattle PD. Mr Chinn could not see my license plate which was hanging behind my head. I really think he wanted to see what kind of truck this was. Thanks Officer Chinn for making this photo happen.
Is there a $9999 Lithium powered EV?
June 8th, 2010
Uh, no way Jose! Lithium costs as much as the darn car, are you smoking crack? Well crack is almost as expensive but for this discussion I believe the low cost Lithium EV is available NOW.
Here is how I calculate it….Right now a 100 amp hour Lithium pack with BMS costs about 6K. A used Zenn or used Miles in near perfect condition can be bought locally for $3K. Now add a few bucks for clean up and installation and there you go. A Lithium EV with a range of 50+ miles in a ZENN and 40+ in a Miles. And thats just the beginning, if you want to go further and possibly faster, install the 180 amp hour Lithium cells and you have almost doubled your range. The expect life of these batteries is 3000 cycles (charges) or 120,000 to 150,000 miles.
So the last I heard, the Nissan Leaf was going to be 25K but that was with a 7.5K tax credit which you don’t get until your 2011 tax return. So the real cost of the car is about 33K. And with that you get to go on the freeway for about 150 miles.
Choices, choices, choices….
Battery Balancers
June 8th, 2010When your range goes down and it turns out its one of your six batteries, you tell yourself, no big deal, I will just get the bad battery replaced. Well that won’t work. What happens is the new battery you replace will get overcharged and go out again. Most EV mfg. suggest replacing the entire pack when you have over 1800 miles on your battery pack. The reason is that when the car is charged up the new battery will fill up sooner and the charger will keep charging the other batteries until they are charged up. This causes the new battery to become over charged and soon it will fail. The answer is a battery balancer. There are several balancers out there but the one we like comes from a small company in Utah. This little device keeps voltage under 13.8 volts in each battery so you can safely charge the entire pack. The set costs $234 and can easily be installed by anyone capable of turning a 11 meter wrench. Call or email me if you want a set.
Lithium Iron Phosphate for ANY ZENN, especially our dear friend Zoe!
June 7th, 2010Last Wednesday I took an older DC Zenn on a test drive with Thunder Sky Lithium batteries. After my butt started killing me at 48 miles, I decided to come home. The reading on the amp meter said I used 85% of the available power. I could have driven to 100% and not damaged the batteries. If I would have done so, I would have achieved 61 miles, Yikes!
So the big question is the cost. $5800 covers the cost for 100 ah lithium iron phosphate batteries, and a very good BMS system. The one thing I am missing is the cost for installation. I should have that figure soon. My best guess is that installation will include a few more parts since the Lithium needs to communicate with the charger, controller and the dashboard. I am also thinking that we may want to install a new gauge since most EV gauges are pretty poor. Personally I don’t think this cost will be much since the BMS is very very good. More later.
Steve Mayeda: Welcome to the News Page!
January 4th, 2010Welcome to my news page!
I’ll be updating you on news from the EV world as it happens: new cars, models, batteries, chargers, legistlation, tech support ..and more!
Feel free to comment and share tidbits of your own regarding electric vehicles of all kinds.