Taking a rest and just driving it

I haven't blogged on the subject of the EV ute for quite a long time. I'm reminded of the title of a post that Jerry Halstead had on his website (http://www.evconvert.com/), along the lines of "Still crazy after all this time". He was reflecting that even though his entire home and life had been turned upside down by the arrival of his first-born last year, and that his previous energy put into the Probe conversion or website maintenance had fallen flat, that he was still hooked by the thought of getting back onto it.
I've been taking a rest from obsessive EV conversion activity since completing the Courier and the seminars that we ran on EV conversion in Dunedin, Invercargill and Christchurch. But, I have been fortunate that the EV ute has been performing flawlessly for almost a thousand kilometres. It takes time to run up a 1000 km on around-town trips, but it does eventually happen. On the technical side, I made a minute adjustment to the control circuit that solved the tendancy for the two breakdowns of the EV. In June and August the EV ute rolled to an unplanned halt due to the main contactor sticking open. I had set up the PB6 potentiometer ('pot-box') as recommended with the micro-switch switching the control circuit. This meant that whenever the foot was raised off the accelerator that the micro-switch would open and the main contactor would open. You could hear it going 'thunk, thunk' as you eased off the accelerator and applied it again. The breakdowns occurred when the second 'thunk' didn't happen and the contactor stuck open. I thought about and asked other EV drivers with the Curtis configuration. Eventually, I cut the micro-switch out of the control circuit. Now there is a single 'thunk' of the main contactor closing when I turn the key switch on and it stays closed until the end of the journey. The breakdown has never repeated itself.
I have also learned to use the gearbox of the ute more effectively over the last few months. I routinely pull away in second gear rather than third. I am also changing up into fourth gear as soon as I reach 50 km/h, instead of whining away in third. It's making for a more positive and quieter drive. I also suspect that the the gear shifting is saving the range through fewer amps drawn during a typical acceleration / deceleration cycle. We have also been getting more adventurous in hill-climbing some of the steeper Dunedin hills, going routinely up to Pinehill using the state highway.
What's been happening in the New Zealand EV scene. Quite a lot, and not as much as I thought might be the case. Gavin Shoebridge (a.k.a. KiwiEV) has continued adding to his website and throwing the net further. I thoroughly recommend his site for the information, dry wit and broadcaster standard presentation (on a beer budget). The Christchurch EV scene has livened up considerably as emphasized by the success of the EV Open Garage events. David Newton is a key person up there. Check out his www.greenev.co.nz website, complete with links to YouTube step-by-step descriptions of his Alto conversion. The NZEVA section of DIYElectricCar gives us a bit of a window on the Christchurch happenings, plus the news from Auckland, Nelson and a number of centres (http://www.diyelectriccar.com/ if you haven't been there already).
For the first time there is a commercial angle to EV conversion in New Zealand. Hyundai announced earlier in the year that they were introducing the commercial conversion of their Hyundai Getz. The conversions are being done on petrol Getz' using the approach of Ross Blade (BladeRunner) of Melbourne, Australia. But the conversion are being done in New Zealand. The production target for 2009 is 200 conversions. Also arriving on New Zealand shores next year is the Mitsubishi MiEV factory production EV based on the 600cc Colt.
I got the impression in the winter that things were really building up. EV converters were becoming minor celebrites, Gavin starred on TV news and then a TV ad! I was invited to deliver a Tech course on EV conversion and asked to endorse a proposal for a commercial conversion service (I was interested in the first and not in the second). But, there was a real bubble and bounce to the EV conversion movement.
What happened? I suspect that Business As Usual changed in a few important ways. Firstly, the ever-increasing oil price, peaking at $147 a barrel, scared a lot of oil-importing countries silly. So, a lot of direct country-to-country deals and oil sales agreements were concluded between net importers of oil and oil-exporting countries that bypassed the international oil auctions. Secondly, the credit crunch bit sharply in September 2008. Capital fled the commodity markets to shore up liquidity and a massive amount of debt was called without being rolled over as the markets / institutions reacted in fear and self-preservation. The oil futures market lost volume of trades and therefore ceased to influence the day price as much. The almost immediate demand destruction for fuel hit at just the point that the increased production from the OPEC countries arrived in the importing countries. The result is an oil price that has fallen over US$100 in a few short months. The gathering recessionary pressures cutting spending on commodities are keeping the oil price low. The price at the pump has fallen to levels last seen several years ago and this gives the appearance that the relentless climb of the oil price was just a bad dream.
A lot of interest in EV conversion centred on the relative price of the "fuels". At the top of the oil price spike this year, the average fuel cost was about 12 cents a kilometre. The average recharging cost for an EV (on electricity tariff only) was (and still is) 4.5 cents a kilometre. Of course, the conversion cost and the need to continually save up for new batteries jumps the EV running cost up substantially, depending on how you calculate the per km cost. But, the perception was out there amongst people that converting to EV was a way of insulating themselves from the rising fuel price. With the perception that fuel prices are back to Business As Usual, the urgency around EV conversions is dissapating. This is a taking a lot of the wind out of the sails of a viable EV conversion movement. The other effect of the credit / share market / economic crisis is the cost of securing EV conversion parts has risen. ZEVA announced in September that the crisis was forcing a revision of pricing and it can't be easy for on-sellers like Ian Hooper at ZEVA. The New Zealand dollar dropped from almost 80 cents against the US dollar in August to about 50 cents currently. That is a lot of purchasing power lost to the New Zealand converter for buying equipment and specialised batteries like LiFePO4.
Maybe the response is to look at home-grown approaches to EV conversion? I am really interested in the application of used AC induction motors and used Variable Frequency Drives (VFD) from industrial cast-offs to be used in EV conversions. Graeme Church of Ashburton is doing a Ford Courier conversion using just this gear. He was inspired by Tuarn Brown of Perth who had successfully done a Suzuki jeep and is currently converting a flat deck ute. Within innovation such as theirs lies hope.

Spreading the Word

Now don't think I am going to go all preachy with a title like "Spreading the Word", but I have been out singing the praises of converting to battery electric in the last few months.

It all started with a suggestion for Adrianne. "Shouldn't you being giving a talk on EV conversion now that you're almost finished", she asked one day in April 2008. I muttered something about that being a good idea and promptly forgot about it, mainly because I was bogged down in the minutae of actually finishing the conversion. But Adrianne didn't forget. She got onto the details of finding a venue and setting up publicity. While I was pre-occupied with spending every waking hour doing the conversion or thinking about, she set the date for presentation and made all of the necessary arrangements. While I was immensely grateful, I started to freak out a little bit as the date approached and I hadn't prepared my talk, finished the conversion or got it road legal!

On 8 June 2008 we opened the doors on a lecture hall provided by Otago Polytechnic and it almost immediately filled up to its 100 person capacity! At 10 minutes before the presentation was due to start we had to close the doors and Adrianne had the awful job of turning over a hundred people away. Luckily, she had the forethought to collect 76 names and details of folks who were still keen on coming to a second presentation. Those excluded from the main act behind closed doors had to console themselves with looking over Mike Laba's EV Mini. In the days leading up to the presentation date, the price of oil had leapt US$14 and the price of fuel was climbing to pay for it. The was a real sense of concern as to where the rise was going to stop and the idea of electric car conversion was just starting to permeate around. So, Adrianne had done too good a job of publicising the presentation to a newly receptive public.

The presentation went well. My throat was turning into dry parchment by the time the question and answer session was starting to warm up. Luckily, Mark Jackson jumped in and wound up the whole exercise in a good fashion. People were fascinated with the idea and awestruck when Mike Laba said his Mini took 80 cents of power to charge. However, we did not sugar-coat the conversion costs and made sure folks knew the realities of range and battery limitations. Below is a shot of me giving the presentation.

We then had the problem of meeting our commitment for the second presentation. Adrianne had a difficult job in securing a venue that would take more people. We eventually got the Logan Park High School auditorium with a capacity of 250 persons. The date was set for 29 June and I had time to get my electric ute on the road. So, this time we had Mike's Mini and my ute to show off. It was a good counterpoint between the two. My EV ute with old and heavy technology alongside Mike's lithium powered light-weight conversion. Mine weighs 2,000 kg, while Mike's comes in at 630 kg. What a contrast! Anyway, we had a break between presentations where we displayed the conversions to the audience. I got to drive around the car-park to prove that they do indeed make very little sound. About 230 people turned up and donated a dollar or two to the cost of the venue. The questions were more advanced and I got the idea that some serious thought had gone into the conversion proposition. With a few of the questions I had a fairly good idea which websites had prompted them, so that proved that folks had been surfing and googling about EVs. The shot below is an unflattering photo of me squatting on the deck of my ute to show folks the rear battery pack.

http://www.odt.co.nz/your-town/dunedin/11523/electric-cars-again-power-big-crowd

The presentations were good idea and got the ball rolling on a few things. There was some serious talk about doing conversion around Dunedin, and further afield. One other upshot was a set of invitations to give a presentation in Invercargill and Christchurch from individuals that had travelled to be at the Dunedin presentations. I'll talk about these trips in the next post.

Finally Street Legal

Trip Meter 160 km

The ute went for its final certification inspection. Passed, and the certification plates were riveted into the engine bay. With the certification process completed I could escalate the electric ute to a whole new level of bureaucratic process!

Next step down to the vehicle testing station. With the modifications to the ute certified the vehicle inspection could be done. The inspection is solely around the routine safety condition of the ute; brakes, steering, suspension, lights, seatbelts, exhaust system, fuel lines ... hang on a minute? Where are the exhaust and fuel line?? Fume and noise check!!

The electric ute was a real novelty for the inspectors. I warned them while waiting that I might need to explain how to drive it. So that was the first clue they had. Before long the electric ute had every single vehicle inspector looking it over and the rest of the cars being inspected were abandoned. I was summoned over to explain how the system worked, but they did a good job of working it out themselves. They where truly impressed with the small electric motor - "it's only the size of the gearbox!". I could see that they didn't quite believe that the ute could travel at least 100km/h with a motor that small. The ute passed everything, but I had to prove that the speedo worked. I suspected that was an ill-disguised ruse to get to ride around the block in it. They were like kids in a sand-pit!

Having passed the Warrant of Fitness, the next hurdle was registration. Is the ute petrol or diesel power? No? Oh well, there seems to be a space for electric here on the form... Then I needed to pay Road User Charges. What do you mean the mileage is at 169,960 km already, we have no record of you paying RUC before this? With all of that sorted out, I walked out to my ute with $547 less cash in my account and a much happier man.

Driving the ute home from work yesterday I was strangely elated. Strangely, because I was just like any other commuter on the streets that day, but I knew that something that they didn't. I was driving carbon-free and without the aid of hydrocarbon fuels. Somewhere, I imagined there was a windfarm, geothermal plant or hydro station turning the wheels of the ute. Elated, because even though it had only taken a year from decision to completion it had been a huge journey for Adrianne and I. It took over our life to some extent. It was not the 'smartest' thing for a couple in our position to do. But, in the end ideals had triumphed over expediency.

Next thing is to get Adrianne driving the ute. It is as much her ute as mine, and she has helped in any and every way she could during the conversion. Fortunately, this time I managed to avoid breaking her hand under an anvil as happened last time I had a DIY obsession!

Anyway, street legality is a real watershed. I feel like the electric ute is finally finished. In the interim of June and July while awaiting certification, I have been promoting electric car conversion around the South Island. Hopefully, in my next posts I'll explain how that happened.

Trip Meter @ 91 km

Yesterday I drove the electric ute from the family workshop in Macandrew Bay to our house in North East Valley. The ute is still not quite legal for the road, so I am only doing 'low profile' driving. This was the first time driving through the city. Annoyingly, our certifier still has to do the final inspection before we take posession of the certification plates. We were not pleased to hear that he was on holiday in Europe and not due back til mid-July. But that's life. The upshot is that we can't register the ute without certification plates, and the registration expired on 28 May.

I should have also explained that our house is at the top of "almost the steepest street in the World". The next block over is Baldwin Street, which really is the steepest street in the world. In daylight and fine weather you can barely drive on Baldwin Street because the hordes of tourists who struggle up and down the steep grade. Our street is not quite as steep, but pretty damn close. So, whether the electric ute would be able to climb our steep to the top was a pretty significant question. If it could make it up under its own power, then we couldn't charge it and it really wouldn't be much use to us in the long-term. The question "will the ute be able to handle the hill" was one of these elephants in the corner type things that we tried not to talk about while it was still in doubt. So, when I turned off the main road of North East Valley I decided to pull over and check every thing. The controller was barely warm, which is fantastic. The cooling fans must be doing their job. I checked the gauges - 3/4 State of Charge and 150V resting voltage - perfect!. It just remained to tackle the hill.

With all systems GO and the hill in my sights I put the ute and second and accelerated moderately up the steepening grade. Everything went fine. As the grade reached its crux the current was spiking towards 300A I changed down to first. The XP-1263 motor pulled magnificantly and in a few moments we had crested and pulled into our garage. What a relief. Before that, I had experienced nightmares of the circuit breaker or one of the fuses blowing at the steepest point and having to guide the ute backwards down the hill with zero maneouvering power. Not only did it make it, but the hill did not seem to cause the merest twitch to the State of Charge, which put paid to the other nightmare (along the lines of the climb up the hill to our house taking a quarter of the battery charge).

The ute was finally home, and I put it on the charger. Another threshold has been successfully crossed and we are closer to an all electric future in our household. The batteries performed well and are steadily breaking in.

Today, we had people from Sustainable Dunedin (North Dunedin group) around to look at the electric ute in action. I think a few of them were a bit stunned by the battery electric idea at first. What is becoming normal to us is definitely new territory to the rest of the population. But awareness begins in small steps. One of the small steps, that we still owe the folks of Dunedin, is the follow-up public presentation to follow the sell-out talk from 8 June. As you will remember, we could not get everyone in, and had to turn lots away. This time we have secured a bigger venue at the Logan Park Highschool auditorium and set the talk date for 1pm, Sunday 29 June 2008 (a week away). We are having to request a gold coin collection for the venue hire this time, unfortunately (bigger venue, unavoidable hire charge). I'm looking forward to it. See you there.

First Dunedin Electric Conversion Talk

Yesterday I gave the first public talk on the experience of doing an electric car conversion. Adrianne did a fantastic job of publicising it, including community newspapers and email lists. It was perhaps a bit too successful, since we could have filled the 100 seat venue at Otago Polytechnic twice over. We turned at least 76 people away at the door because we couldn't fit them in.

The talk was entitled "So you want to make an Electric Car" and continued on in that vein for about two hours. I covered basic EV technology, safety, conversion options, examples of good conversions and conversion costs. It seemed like a good model for introducing people to the concept and stepping stones to their own conversion. Mike Laba filmed the presentation and he plans to put together a DVD with the filming, the presentation files, some video he has produced of his electric Mini and other tit-bits. He is distributing the DVD once he has editted it for $18 a copy. Folks can order a copy from DunedinEV@gmail.com . Mike was also showing off his electric Mini during the break. My ute wasn't their because of delays in getting it legal for the road (more on that later).

I don't think this talk was the last. We might need to find a larger venue next time. We have also been invited down to Southland to give a similar presentation. It was an excellent opportunity to meet and talk with a lot of interesting folks. But it was also a chance to pass on some of the knowledge that I have gained from others over the past year.

Almost Legal

Today I submitted the ute for its certification inspection of vehicle modifications.

Under the Transport Act and regulations, any vehicle which has received modifications must be inspected for certification before it is issued with a certification certificate and permitted to undergo the normal Warrant of Fitness inspection for road worthiness. That's as short and legally accurate description as I can come up with.

Certification of vehicle modifications has become out-sourced to the Hot Rod Association within a subsidiary called Certification New Zealand Ltd. Up and down the country there are accredited certifiers, usually car enthusiasts, who are endorsed to carry out inspections on behalf of Certification New Zealand. Unfortunately, a much smaller number of certifiers are rated to perform certification of electric vehicles. Luckily, one of the certifiers in Dunedin is a registered electrician, which allows him to get the electric certification endorsement. Gavin Shoebridge had to truck his car from New Plymouth to Auckland for the Tredia to be inspected by the closest certifier with the electrical endorsement. Gavin describes this and the process really well, and if you are interested in certification, you should definitely visit his website and look at "The Inspection" http://www.kiwiev.com/Step%20Eighteen%20-%20The%20Inspection.htm
Just like Gavin, I was really nervous about certification. The morning's inspection didn't go any easier because -

• The morning was really cold, around -1oC, and those sort of temperatures reduce the performance and range of the battery pack, and
• I had to drive the ute to the certifier's place about 12 km on frosty roads
• I was almost there and the main contactor decided to stick open, leaving me without power and stranded without a multi-meter to track down the problem. Thankfully, a healthy thump on the contactor coil solved the stickiness. But I arrived late, and then
• The certifier told me this was only his second electric vehicle inspection, and besides the last guy had gone away with a list of things to fix, and had never returned!

None of the above boosted my confidence. As we went through the regulation guidelines written for electric motor conversions, there were all of these things that I hadn't thought of in quite the way that the certifier considered they should be interpreted. We had a fair bit of discussion and we started looking over the conversion once we put the paperwork aside. Then I began to have a sense that the inspection wasn't going too badly. We went for a test drive and the ute pulled nicely up the steepest road in Andersons Bay, Cemetry Hill. After we got back, the certifier put together the 6 point list of things that I still had to complete, mostly around warning signs and finishing of the battery boxes. I was disappointed that the ute still needed to be re-inspected. But, at the same time, I was relieved that the list wasn't long or difficult.

Once I pass the re-inspection, and you can bet that I will keep bring the ute back until it is 100% passed, I can go for the Warrant of Fitness. The inspectors for the WOF will only inspect the normal safety issues; tyre, brakes, lights and seat belts. They might have trouble finding any exhaust system, or fuel lines to check off their list! With that out of the way, all I need to do to be fully legal is re-register the ute as an "electric power automobile". There is also the costly matter of road tax. I will need to buy a block of 'kilometres' on the Road User Charges system. Because I will no longer be paying taxes through buying petrol, I have to pay road tax based on the weight of the ute and the amount of kilometres I travel. I don't really mind paying that, but it reinforces the impression that there is absolutely no official encouragement of electric vehicles in this country. A bit sad really...

Adrianne and I spent the rest of the day running around town getting the bits and pieces for satisfying the items on the list. I think we have anything now, so I suspect I know exactly what I will be doing over the coming Queens Birthday weekend. At the end of a big day, I am relieved that the ute has rolled one step closer to being a legitimate and bona fide vehicle on New Zealand roads. But this little ute will be a little different, since it's powered by a wind turbine or hydro-electric station somewhere in the National Grid.

Breaking in the batteries

Trip meter @ 51 km, so I drove 29 km in the ute today.

I just drove down to Harwood towards the end of the Otago Peninsula. I stopped in for a while at the home of my former colleague Mike Stewart. I took Mike for a tiki-tour around Harwood township to show the conversion off. Mike was an important figure in the conversion because it was his MIG welder that glued the motor mounts and battery racks together. I borrowed his welder for 3 months solid. I am not sure quite how the conversion would have gone without that MIG welder. It certainly made my decidely rusty welding technique look spectacularly good and saved a massive amount of time during the crux of the conversion.

His Baby Austin restoration is going well, chassis together, suspension mounted, gearbox and engine installed, steering complete to wheel. He now has the body to build out of aluminium, working from cardboard patterns.

The trip down to Harwood was also to test the new brake booster system. The good news is that enlarging the hose from the vacuum reservoir to the booster to 10 mm diameter, and by connecting the vacuum reservoir directly with the booster, the ute now has very good brake function. And it's all good news since the brakes performed faultlessly through the twisty road down to Harwood. I wish I could say the same about the rear spring suspension. Stiffening up the leaf springs for the weight of the rear battery pack was great for curing the droopy tail effect. However, the stiffness was pretty tangible while driving through the roadworks and the more undulating road surfaces beyond Portobello. I had to keep reminding myself that the road noise is all the louder in the absence of the engine noise. My dodgy carpentry on the drop sides was squeaking, a lot.

The other thing noisy was the booster pump. I am getting use to it, but almost every use of the brake is accompanied by an answering drone from the pump lasting about 5 seconds. It's going to be hard explaining that to people at the traffic lights in summer with the windows down...

The batterypack and controller performed flawlessly on my more extended trip. The controller was barely warm when I popped the bonnet half way through the trip. Maybe the big heat sink and dual cooling fans are doing their job well? The Curtis State of Charge gauge showed just on half empty charge at the end of the trip. I'm hoping that I get more range for what was effectively a flat, widening drive with two repetions of three hills. Time will tell once the batteries are broken in (whenever that's going to be?).

Great trip. Nothing fell off. Ute returned under its own power! The next test is the compliance inspection, hopefully this week coming.