The stats

I created a spreadsheet to track the energy use of the Metro. It can be viewed here:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pqkXLgw4FcoLQX9v1NgZjbQ&hl=en

What the.....

What you see here on the right is a relay. On the left is a 1000 ohm 10 watt resistor. It's wired so that when the key goes to the first position the circuit across the contactor is closed through the resistor. That way there is no sudden rush of current through the contactor when I turn the key to the second position. I did this because the contactor had stuck a couple of times.

I'm on the third charge cycle. After 21 miles my hydrometer read 1.185, which would normally be about 45% charge. This may be close. I could have up to about 9 KWH of capacity in my battery pack. I put 5.54 KWH of juice in on this cycle. That = .26 KWH/mile. I will try to go around 30 miles on the next charge, monitoring with the hydrometer, and see how it goes.

I'm figuring out the shifting. I'm driving mostly in 3rd, then at about 30 I can pull it out of gear and it slides easily into 5th.
It has good pick-up and is fun to drive.

How much per mile?

Here is my preliminary calculation;
I used a device called a "Kill-o-watt" to measure how much Juice came out of the wall.
After a full charge I drove 9 miles. Then I did another full charge. the meter said that I used 2.55 kilowatt hours.
My electric bill says I pay about 20 cents/kilowatt hour. So the 9 miles used about 51 cents.
So around 6 cents a mile.
If I got 40 miles/gallon at $3.30 gallon that would be 8.25 cents a mile. Not a huge difference.

Moving out

Saturday
We wanted to build a box for the rear batteries and install the on board chargers before the final move out. Here is the box open:
and closed:
Matt found a great place to install the on board charger on a plate at the front of the engine compartment.Can you see Matt's fingers, putting in one of the final bolts?