LR goes eVehicle... perspective or marketing gimmick ??

[SenseMaker2013]

P1V1/T1 = P2V2/T2

Boyle’s Law: P1V1 = P2V2

Charles’ Law: V1/T1 = V2/T2

Gay –Lussac’s Law: P1/T1 = P2/T2

----------------------------------------------------------

Combined Gas Law: P1V1/T1 = P2V2/T2

Stability -> Lability -> back to Stability

.... remembers me my prof about thermodynamic systems :-)

I think you talk about this as it is discussed for Poland and its energy future: "Dynamic analysis of compressed air energy storage in the car"

By the way.... we talk about a concept, which was already realized in the 90th (20 year ago !!!!) by some ethusiasts like you...

[o_teunico]

I remember that spanish motor magazines published various tests of a (french?) compressed air car. A factory was going to be built in Spain...but then project vanished.

This was going to be my hybrid van. A SEAT Terra with 1.3 VW N/A Diesel engine and FWD. It´s based in a Fiat Panda chassis, so, I could fit a rear axle from a Panda 4X4 and drive it, directly trough the diff, with an electric motor, taken out from a forklift. I calculated a 200Nm and 5000rpm motor.

Base vehicle: about 500/600 Eur.

For the conversion:

-Motor

-Controller

-Rear axle from 4x4 Panda

-Lots of deep cycle batteries

-Solar panels for roof

-Engineers project + MoT approval

Base vehicle was cheaper than seconhand motors, batteries, about 200-300 Eur. each, rear axle 300 Eur....then I stopped calculating. How many batteries will I need for a 80-100Km range? What life expectancy wil, they have? Will roofs panels charge them in 8-10 hours, while I´m working with the company´s lorry, so I could go home at night? Standard diesel engine was going to be just a emergency/back up system.

Free energy from the sun sounds good, but spending 6000 Eur per year in batteries dosn´t sound so good...

Here a very interesting video about the EV1 death

[deep]

There are probably a few uses for which an electric Land Rover would be very practical. For example, a farm vehicle which does a relatively low mileage, or something based on a quarry or industrial site. The idea of using no fuel at all unless you are actually moving might mean very low running costs. However, fuel costs are not necessarily the biggest cost for limited mileage uses so any economies would depend very much on selling price and battery life/costs.

I also wonder how something like that would work off-road? No worries about the engine working on steep slopes, full torque instantly available, potential for very fine throttle control. Could be wonderful for rocks or sand dunes.

However, I can't help wondering how long the axles would last? All that low rev torque... Just a thought.

Don

[GW8IZR]

There are probably a few uses for which an electric Land Rover would be very practical. For example, a farm vehicle which does a relatively low mileage, or something based on a quarry or industrial site...

More likely a Kawasaki Mule / JCB workmax / JD Gator kind of thing would be more successful in that application, pretty much everyone here are getting them or wanting them now as the latest farm "must have"

The trade off between payload v battery weight v endurance is probably a calculation that will be quite dynamic as the power source evolves.

Personally for small farm personal transport (incl dog etc...) I wouldn't swap the quad for any other 4x4 but an electric quad, now that I would seriously consider.

[SenseMaker2013]

Here a very interesting video about the EV1 death

,,, yes, it had been the decision of the rich ones.... we got a documentary about this question on German TV, and its clear, that the millionair and billionair sons of that time prefered loud, noisy and dangerous car racing with gasoline driven motors. With car racing and medias it attracted the masses and hereby the car got an image how to be: "No Electric".

We humans (as race/species) are really stupid till today !!!!!!!!!!!!!! - Alone in Germany anually the number of killed people by soot particles is estimated at round about 100,000 people. Allergic reactions, Circulatory failure etc. ..... Am I the next one ?????

Politicans should all come into prison who do not forbid "dirty engines" as killer mashines, e.g. till today in Germany its not a duty for diesel mashines to use filters. Its all about lobbying. We know scientifically the death rate by statistics caused by diesel particles, but the parliament in Berlin does not come into action. The argument: Its up to the people's own decision and responsability to invest in installing an extra particle filter. Is this democracy ? - Why they forbid then Canabis in the own garden ?

To come free of their guilty, the German government setup a fund so you get paid round about 200-250 Euro as part payment if you invest in a diesel filter. Yesterday I talked with one of German leading 4x4 offroad traders. They told me, that the prize of a metal filter for Landrover is estimated round about 1500 Euros.

For a LR Defender TD5 90/110/130 its such one to give the car a "EURO 3" classification:

What nonsense all this ?! - The world would be a better and more healthier place with less noise, less toxic particles in the air having more eCars on the road by sure....

[simonr]

As I said before, I came in to Electric Vehicles as a skeptic and as a skeptic with a very low budget.

If I can build a practical, usable EV out of junk in my garage with better economy / emissions than any of the commercial hybrids and most of the commercial true EV's - it makes me think that the commercials are really not trying very hard!

I use 16 old car batteries which all came from scrap yards to give me a range of 27 miles. OK, that's not a fantastic range but the batteries were all used and none of them was in great condition.

I have a quote (roughly £4000) for LiFePo batteries (from Winston Batteries in China) which will give me 4x the range and a life of 8000 charge / discharge cycles based on 80% discharge or 13,000 cycles at 60%. Assuming I drove it 80 miles per day - and charged it once a day it would give me a battery life expectancy of 21 years.

What you read in the press about having to replace the £20k battery pack every 5 years - is just made up! It may be that the manufacturers are packaging the batteries and selling £4000 worth for £20k and deliberately limiting the life in order to generate a revenue stream for main dealers?

If I put the maximum weight of batteries possible in a Freelander based on it's max payload I could achieve a range of about 220 miles on a charge (but that would cost me £10k for the batteries).

To answer Don. It is true that an electric motor produces max torque at zero rpm. If you were controlling the motor with a big switch, this would undoubtedly be a problem. But that would be the equivalent of revving your engine to it's max torque rpm - and dropping the clutch suddenly. That's just not how you would want to use it! Like a fuel car, you have a throttle. As it's electronic, you can map the throttle response to give you a nice driving experience and give you a torque and power map (like a fuel map) to suit. This was actually one of the things I played with the most on my EV - to make the throttle feel natural.

Mine has regenerative braking - which in part is based on the throttle position (equivalent of engine braking) and you need to map that too - as it can be quite fierce! It also detects the brake light coming on and then puts everything it's got into stopping the car (though not enough to damage components). The end result is my brake pads look like new after 4 years! I barely use the real brakes at all. There is no oil to change - though it has liquid cooling so needs antifreeze and other than the normal ball joints & stuff, there is almost nothing to service.

I think because the power delivery is so smooth (no gear change) - the wear on mechanical components is also mitigated.

My point really is that if the mainstream motor manufacturers wanted to produce an electric vehicle with 90mph, a 200 or 300 mile range and a 20 year battery life - the technology is available off the shelf - no R&D necessary. The evidence is that I can do it in my garage with no budget. The fact that they don't and that commercial EV's and Hybrids are little better than milk floats says they are protecting their existing market!

Si

[SenseMaker2013]

The fact that they don't and that commercial EV's and Hybrids are little better than milk floats says they are protecting their existing market!

I experienced this in the 80th with Oil filter systems like the Frantz-Filter...

The synthetic oils are already of such extreme good quality (since more than 25 years), that never, I really say never you need to do oil exchange. It just needs to filter this oil by a good filter, and it runs, runs, runs...

The trick of the petrol and automotive industries is, that they use bad filters, by purpose. They dont offer "particular filters" so all what do the normal fiters, is to filter roughly. So for a normal consumer who pays mostly an expensive credit for his huge expensive car it looks like, that the "black oil" he can see during a regular filter seems dirty and must be exchanged. And naturally this owner is scared to damage his engine. But its an irrational fear being produced by the marketing folks of the car companies.

Finest particular filter as existing with the "Frantz Filter" can clean even these "black particulars" (inclusive other parts, e.g. water emulsion) out, so the synthetic oil keeps its function for ever. As the filter steals little bit oil, it just needs to fill up by time with new oil, thats all.

The cool thing, every normal car, every truck, every traktor, coach, motorbike or generator can be equipped with such a filter, as it works parallel..... so no expensive costs of adapting the existing mashine... its just built up a parallal circle (thats why it is called "Bypass filter system").

The oil pressure wont change, so no fear to damage the mashine... an owner of a vehicle/motor can safe lots of money to avoid the regular oil exchange (a long life synthetic oil SAE range 0W-30 or SAE 0W-40 actually is between 8 to 12 Euros per litre plus the filter itself is between 8-10 Euros per piece).

The filter which looks like toilette paper :-) can be exchanged very simple. Even the old filter which is delivered from the car factory is kept as you can see in this video:

(YOu will understand this video without words :-) )

If you have big mashines which needs a bigger volume of oil cleaning, you just combine a couple of filters, very simple.... (Click on the images to get them in big).

Such companies like Frantz Filter are tackled heavily by the automotive industries. These big global players arent shy to use even criminal methods to attack such cool inventions and the patent holders as I know. In 1988/1989 I was negotiating with Frantz Filter directly to overtake a representation for German regions... so I know what I am talking about. it was a very brutal time of ongoing fights for surviving as the big auto concerns try everything to kill these kind of products as they can damage their markets heavily. Lawyers can be very nasty folks.

Meanwhile Frantz Filter has a big range of solutions.... here a US video:

Calculate on your own.... a basic set costs 219 Euro (inclusive Vat)

The filter itself costs 12,50 Euros (inclusive Vat) and should be exchanged every 10,000 kilometers (for diesel every 9,000 km)

Thats it.

I HAVE SETUP A NEW THREAD HERE ABOUT OIL FILTERS AS I THINK ITS A TOPIC OF OWN COMPLEXITY. IF YOU HAVE ANY EXPERIENCES WITH SUCH FILTER SYSTEMS, QUESTIONS, CRITICS, PLS Go THERE !

-----

But feel free to keep going here in this thread only about Eco-Solutions, e.g. Electro Vehicles, Air Vehicles etc. ... Tks.

[Cynic-al]

We looked at buying an electric truck at work, it was around 5 or 6 tonne gross, had a tail lift and would use it for running about locally and as a bit of a novelty. It was 3 years old and only made £1800. Why? No batteries included. You could buy or rent the batteries from the manufacturer but the cost was horiffic, we could've nearly bought two new flatbed transits!

Where I think they're missing the trick is the small commercials, couriers, royal mail, milk man etc. They don't need to have a high top end which helps battery life, they're not as weight restricted as most of the above are nowhere near their load capacity so should be able to get better range, they are quieter for the early morning deliveries, the company saves on road tax, maintenance, congestion charge, I think they can use different lanes in some places? Heck there probably even a grant or corporation tax saving somewhere? The constant stop start is much better electric than diesel and it would be really easy to have a security tag where the vehicle will only move if the drivers in the seat. Our milkman had his van pinched one winter as he didn't want to keep stopping the engine. The only company I've seen do it is TNT with the electric 7.5 tonners. Really it's down to the manufacturer to come up with a package for them with a fixed monthly cost as that's what they'll look for.

Oil filters is an interesting one, our machines at work each have about 450 litres of hydraulic oil in them which is never changed, the oldest machine we have is from the 60's the newest is 2012. Of course they don't have any of the 'dirt' coming through from the combustion side and reside in a more controlled environment but if we ever want to make a hydraulic related warrantee claim the first thing they ask for is an oil sample.

[TheRecklessEngineer]

I would love to DIY an electric car, but despite keeping half an eye open I have yet to find a suitable motor or controller.

Industrial induction motors, while numerous are just too big and cumbersome. And anything small and powerful enough seems to be £££

[simonr]

A forklift motor is what you need! They turn up scrap from time to time.

Have a look here: http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/showthread.php/using-forklift-motor-and-choosing-good-7598.html

I bought a honking big motor, probably about 100kg for £50 with windings suitable for 156v. The rating plate quotes 6hp @ 48v - but this is always very conservative. the DC resistance of the windings would suggest it will draw 250A @ 48v = 12kw = 16Hp. So it should deliver 52Hp at 156v. Although that doesn't sound much in Internal Combustion Engine terms, as a rule of thumb, it will be equivalent to an ICE with double the Hp. So, it comes out similar to a 200Tdi but with a flat power curve.

Controller wise, personally I would build my own. One of the best bought ones are http://www.evnetics.com/evnetics-products/soliton-jr/ made by a chap on the DIYElectricCar forum. There are also open source speed controllers and a number of kits which bring the cost down. There is even a 'mechanical speed controller' designed by someone named SimonR!

There are lots of options for chargers. Probably the simplest is to buy lots of cheap mains battery chargers and connect one per battery and wire them all up to the same plug!

I bought a grown-up computerised battery tester and wandered around scrap yards buying batteries that were the same type & capacity that the meter said were OK. They only cost £3 each - and I can sell them back for £5 each now the price of lead has gone up.

If you decide to do it - and would like any help, I'll be there like a shot!

[TheRecklessEngineer]

Thanks for the offer and the links Si.

I'm in a better position for tinkering than I have been for a while, so I'll look a little harder for a motor.

[deep]

To answer Don. It is true that an electric motor produces max torque at zero rpm. If you were controlling the motor with a big switch, this would undoubtedly be a problem. But that would be the equivalent of revving your engine to it's max torque rpm - and dropping the clutch suddenly. That's just not how you would want to use it! Like a fuel car, you have a throttle. As it's electronic, you can map the throttle response to give you a nice driving experience and give you a torque and power map (like a fuel map) to suit. This was actually one of the things I played with the most on my EV - to make the throttle feel natural.

Si

I appreciate it's not a switch (!) but I'd imagine the temptation would be there, just as with any other power source. Nice to know you can map these things. Very interesting.

Don

[deep]

More likely a Kawasaki Mule / JCB workmax / JD Gator kind of thing would be more successful in that application, pretty much everyone here are getting them or wanting them now as the latest farm "must have" The trade off between payload v battery weight v endurance is probably a calculation that will be quite dynamic as the power source evolves. Personally for small farm personal transport (incl dog etc...) I wouldn't swap the quad for any other 4x4 but an electric quad, now that I would seriously consider.

Quads have taken a big hold in New Zealand too (though they are often called quad-bikes, an oxymoron if I heard one) but they have big limitations. I borrowed one over the summer and it mostly stayed in the shed because it couldn't handle big rocks, deep water or tow much of a trailer. Plus they are huge, expensive and thirsty now and make little sense to me - when they were small and economical they made plenty of sense.

Don

[TheRecklessEngineer]

Dammit.

Now I've got a plan.

Ex industrial ~20kW induction motor, fit it with water cooling, hacked inverter drive for closed loop vector control. The most expensive bit would be the IGBTs and the copper.

Need a vehicle to put it in though...

[o_teunico]

Some data taken from the battery pack from the Still R20-15 forklift that we have at work.

48V

24 elements

625Ah

866kg

[Deej]

Dammit.

Now I've got a plan.

Ex industrial ~20kW induction motor, fit it with water cooling, hacked inverter drive for closed loop vector control. The most expensive bit would be the IGBTs and the copper.

Need a vehicle to put it in though...

I've not seen the motor you're referring to but I would imagine it's very large for its 20KW output? Industrial induction motors are normally designed to work at 50Hz/3000rpm which is very slow, limiting power density. Traction motors we design at work can spin at ten times that speed making them much smaller, which is far more practical when you need to fit a 50KW motor in a small car.