DIY EV - Beginner's Guide - State of Affairs 2019 (contribute please!)

"What I did was kickstart a community project to address what I think is the biggest hole in our knowledgebase, and be the easiest way to fill that gap for people who join the community."

You're again being busy defending *your* choices to *your* problem set, and seem to be completely missing my point.
"Who's done lead acid lately?" is crowdthink nonsense. It all depends on the problem being solved...not goading someone into the direction a mob typically takes. Yes, there are still people doing lead-acid, including OEMs.

And if you constrain to solving a particular problem set, you'll miss the entire reason for doing an EV conversion...a commercially available EV doesn't solve the problem, whereas a customized machine does.

For me, a "ludicrous" Tesla is not ludicrous enough, and for the cost to get what I want, it has to last more than a half dozen times, before a lifetime software throttledown, and it has to get the groceries reliably to enable its displacement of a 650HP ICE in the stable (which is a following project...a hybrid conversion for that one). That's quite different than someone wanting to "hypermile", or someone wanting a reliable daily commuter, or someone wanting to build a work truck ("how about using a Ford Ranger...is it "easy"?"), or someone wanting to do their part for climate change.

The biggest hole in "our" knowledgebase is knowledge, not decisionmaking. The latter you can't do for anyone, though I perceive that's exactly what you're trying to do, because your assumptions will be incorrect due to every problem set being different. The former is formidable, in itself because it's an unbiased database -- one which actually enables the decision to use lead acid for a problem set that selects it as an optimal choice (like sitting out in the weather... a lot of Tesla owners, this past winter, were in shock after discovering their cars being dead after a couple of days of being unplugged, Norway be damned). A huge, neverending, database that gets appended for every noob that comes along...which is why forums have multiple threads on noob projects. Can you put all that in one thread? Maybe. But its signal to noise ratio's gunna suck as every noob that comes along starts their post with "yeah, but..."

You also completely missed to point on a kit -- since you're deciding everything else, you can decide on a host vehicle as well. Something readily available and cheap. Something that also addresses the environmental conscience that justifies the spend vs dropping an LS engine into a Bug. Then, according to you, you can take a dichotomy from there..."performance" and cost.

As was said by someone else here, the cost of DIY is very rarely economically viable, though; it's naive to think "I'll save money on gas", and one is better off procuring a Leaf and maybe tweaking it if that's, or treehugging's, the goal.

The definition of "hobby" is throwing non-justifiable amounts of money at something to pass time or gain knowledge. Conversions are a hobby -- anyone trying to make a commercial go at it, or thinking they'll get some kind of payback, on their time, alone, would be insane to think so if they can't do all, or most, of the engineering without a cookbook and without resorting to the 80/20 rule and coming here for the 80 instead of the 20.

I'm going to grab a bag of popcorn and watch where this goes. Surprise me. I'm open minded, but, being a curmudgeon, I'm skeptical this will go anywhere without being optimized for one specific problem set -- yours.

remy_martian said:

You're again being busy defending *your* choices to *your* problem set, and seem to be completely missing my point.

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I don't have a choice to be "defending" when you decided to make bizarre attacks.

You set that narrative when you made an attack. At that point I can either accept and agree with your nutty assertion, or refute it. I refute it, then you set the narrative again by saying I'm "being defensive".

"Who's done lead acid lately?" is crowdthink nonsense. It all depends on the problem being solved. [...] Yes, there are still people doing lead-acid, including OEMs.

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I think, if you showed up in a beginner's thread, asking about batteries, and started recommending Lead Acids, you'd get laughed at by everyone else in that thread.

Honestly, I can't think of the last time ANYONE suggested it. No one gives that as advice. It's not useful advice for anyone. This really seems to be a sticking point for you.

I guess I'm wrong about 100% of OEMs being lithium. Can you point out some sources on which OEMs are using lead-acids? That's interesting enough to note.

The latter you can't do for anyone, though I perceive that's exactly what you're trying to do, because your assumptions will be incorrect due to every problem set being different.

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Fer Christsakes, tone down the rhetoric.

Jesus, all I'm trying to do is create a helpful beginner document, and you're making it seem like there's no place in the world for that. Everyone better get a PhD and to read 1000 forum threads before they dare start making any decisions about EVs.

I'm skeptical this will go anywhere without being optimized for one specific problem set -- yours.

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There are multiple options, I don't know what you're saying otherwise. Actually read what I wrote in my loose notes of what sections should mention.

There are many options for motors both in type and size.
There are many options for controllers.
There are many options for battery sources.
There are many options for donor vehicles.
Etc.

You can keep trying to declare my efforts to force everyone to build one thing one way. That's not what I wrote, that's not what I intend to write.

But now thanks to a few people jumping in immediately to pick fights, pretty much ruined the positive outlook of this thread and anyone wanting to contribute. Mission accomplished contrarian jerks.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on the idea that there is no comparison, there just isn't a comparison YET. This is the problem I keep running into, people saying there is no way to compare the two. Both ICE and EM move a vehicle in the same way, by turning the tires, therefore they can be directly compared on the road, on the dragstrip and on the dyno. A converted vehicle's specs and performance can be almost directly compared with the same vehicle's performance as an ICE powered rig. With a list showing this information, an ICE guy can start to look at EMs and say, "To get this result in that car, I need to use these components." And, the more participants we get, the better the correlation would be. This isn't just about power performance either, knowing the results others are getting for range and efficiency will help people make better choices for their needs. Better choices make happier converters, and happier converters help talk more people into making the switch.

As for me, I am looking at the higher performance side of this, but not as a professional racer. If I do go electric, I'd be glad to post my build and my real world results. One thing I will do that I wasn't planning to, my project is still running. I will visit the drag strip and a dyno before I do anything to get a baseline with the anemic V6 it has now. If I do go electric, I can post both for a direct comparison.

Oh, and there's another thing that would help newbs on this thread, if an administrator would get out a mop and clean up the pissing contest. Disagreeing is one thing, but butting heads is quite another.

MattsAwesomeStuff said:

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Hi everyone,

It's been bothering me for a while that so much information is out of date and hasn't been collimated together in a long time on the state of doing DIY EVs in 2019. So I'd like to change that.

Lots of parts of this website are unused, inaccessible, neglected, etc. So I wanted to do it right here in this thread where there's still some activity. Maybe at some point it'll be edited into the wiki or an article to be posted front and center on the landing page.

This first post I will continuously re-edit to update according to the discussion below, so it can always be used as a frame of reference. If I end up not keeping up on it or leave the community or whatnot in future months, moderators have permission to edit this post and keep it up-to-date.

-----

Content will appear here. Discussion as below.

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Hi Matt,



For what it's worth, from a newbie's perspective I think this is a fantastic idea. I have spent many, many hours scouring wikis, threads, builds, discussions, videos etc on here and elsewhere over the last year. Learnt a lot but it also took loads of effort. A central "state of play in 2019" repository would have been tremendously useful.



My project is currently on ice due to the realisation that current regulatory complications here in Spain where I live make it unviable (too expensive to bother, basically), but I applaud your initiative and am keen to see how this thread develops. Hopefully I'll give my conversion another shot later on.



Regards
Peter

Tremelune said:

A Leaf motor puts out over 200ftlb, runs to 10k RPM, has an option for 8:1 gear reduction if you want it, and can be had for $500 (plus gearbox). What forklift motor can touch that for a car you would want to drive on the street?

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My 10 kW Hitachi forklift motor cost $100 and in my "Street car" will blow away anything with a "Leaf" motor

But as Brian said I was comparing it to aftermarket motors NOT OEM salvage which is definitely the best way to go these days

I saw this in a topic summary email and immediately thought - oh, that would be helpful! I started an EV conversion of a Ghia a couple years ago. It's in stasis for a few reasons (funds, house repair, other hobbies), and I'm itching to get back to it. To that end, I could really use a re-cap of the last few years.

One problem I ran into was the recent shipping constraints on battery cells. I'm doing the 18650 brick thing because it's the most flexible package. I can customize modules and pack them into the space available. I had chosen the Samsung INR 29E cells at the time. It's been a while, technology has marched on, so what's new?

I was also surprised at the lack of mention of HPEVS. Like it just vanished into thin air. I was really worried they had closed up shop, until later yak about them being too wimpy. At least it's still a viable option then. Good. Great for bike conversions too.

So what I would personally want from this thread is "here's what you missed while you were away." Obviously if you were new, it would be just as useful as a "here's what your current options are" thing.

I don't mind some gentle nudging but, well.. let's take the LA argument. I agree that lead acid is almost never the right choice, but would prefer that to be a pro/con list and leave it up to everyone to decide. Maybe accessibility and 20 mile range is enough - maybe it's a stop gap while someone grapples with the concept of potent cells, BMSes, and dozens of choices. I mean it works, it's just a crappy option. An option nonetheless. If I were totally unaware, I would naturally see it as an obvious candidate - and would find it useful to know that, yes, people have thought about it - done it - moved on for better options.

What is NOT useful is the criticism (and for that matter the rebuttals.) If you have any willingness to help others, please just go back and voluntarily remove that noise. It's not helpful to anyone. It just drowns out the useful info.

I would love to see this thread become a yearly tradition. Here's last year's, here's a summary of what has changed, here's a collection of stand-out discussions of this OEM battery or this controller development thread, etc.

It's hard to start out in hobbies like this because the learning curve is steep, the information is scattered, and you're always jumping in to the middle of a conversation where you haven't even learned the vocabulary. Nothing makes sense until you've absorbed it for a long while. Forum members often have better things to do than be someone's personal mentor, so concise summary threads are INVALUABLE road maps into foreign territory.