Earthday festivities

I took the car up to KCC for their sustainability festival. Here is the news story which includes a couple of clips of the Metro:

Battery tests

One of the folks at DeltaQ (where my charger is from) was kind enough to forward me this battery testing procedure. I am going to try it out today:

- The battery packs health can be determined with these tests:

1) Charge pack until green LED is on solid, then wait a few (>2) hours and measure the voltage of each battery. Voltage level indicates state of charge. i.e. Lowest voltage indicates battery with lowest charge.

2) Drive car around for a while to drain the batteries a bit, then wait a few (>2) hours and measure the voltage of each battery. Voltage level now indicates a batteries capacity. i.e. Biggest voltage drop compared to readings taken in step one indicate which battery has the least capacity.

3)Load batteries by turning on heater or minimum throttle and measure the voltage of each battery. The drop in battery voltage indicates internal resistance. i.e. Battery with biggest voltage drop compared to readings taken in step two has the highest internal resistance.

Batteries with lowest charge/least capacity/highest resistance are the weakest ones and should be replaced if performance is subpar, however, replacing all batteries at once for matched performance always gives the best chance of extending the life of each battery.

Pretty Plates

I got all my ducks in a row and picked up my "ELECTRIC VEHICLE" plates.
I needed a new saftey inspection, the new weight certificate, and the paper from the DOT certifying the car as all electric. Went down to the satellite city hall and got set up. I wonder how many other cars in Oahu have these plates??

I got

Weighing in

As part of the registration process I needed to have my car weighed. Here I am at the Toledo scale. The other part of the process is a new safey inspection and a a document from the DOT stating that it has been verified as an electric vehicle. I have that document. Now all I need is safety inspection.

Inside, in the AC comfort you can see that she comes in at a very trim 1840 lb. Only 90 lbs heavier than what is shown on the registration (1750 lbs)

Longest trip

I went 27 miles on a charge, but I had to stop to let the batteries recover, and limped in at about 20 mph max speed. Seems like anything over 22 mies is pushing the limit. Otherwise everything is running good. I am working on a vacuum system for the brakes.

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.