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I have a dirty secret, I like free stuff and I think you do too. Lately I find myself charged on public charging. No, I technically rarely "have-to" use the thin boxes popping up all over town. I've had facility folks come over twice now to tell me, "Those spaces aren't open!" I fluff my feathers and point to my charging cord and extort... "Oh yes I am, and I have a card to prove it". Yes, I carry my card with pride and I'm not afraid to tell those gasaholics a...

Some time ago we were approached by a City Municipality that was in the process of doing a fleet conversion of their gas vehicles to electric. Their bottom line was to achieve vehicle performance and functionality that replicated that of the gas vehicle while of course providing long term energy cost savings. Their approach was to follow the lead of so many others by setting up the driveline with a “stick” type transmission.

Their first prototype proved to be very successful in all...

Well, Well, Well. After about two years, and many excuses, I think I might have finally finished the project. Over the holidays (11-2010) I painstakingly placed and wired the 20 Crown battery # GC 225’s in the truck. These are 68 lb lead acid batteries @ $109 each (I lucked out with no core charge and free delivery), you do the math.
I placed 4 in the front compartment and the other 16 in the bed. The technical problems that I encountered were in figuring out how to mount the tie downs for...

A DIY Electric Car Member, david85, has been testing a 200 Amp-Hour LiFePo4 Battery for a few weeks now and has been keeping a public journal of the results. If you're not familiar with LifePo4, it's a fairly new battery technology that promises greater safety than Lithium Ion or Lithium Polymer while still holding a good energy density and a decent discharge rate. Many new LiFePo4 manufacturers are popping up in China and Japan and prices continue to get lower which is very encouraging for use...

I've decided to try and work out the cost comparisons for a Lithium pack vs a Lead pack for a set range and a set number of years. Is Lead Acid actually cheaper or does is just seem that way up front? This article aims to find that out. The method is to get 10kWh of usable energy, I’ll try to get that with Lead and with Lithium and see what we find is cheaper in the long run. Assuming an efficiency of 250Wh per mile (a compact car) we should get a range of 40 miles (65km) with either pack. I’ll...