ELECTRIC CARS and GM deliberate vandalism and lies

Recently I was asked to record an upcoming "Dateline" program from the SBS ,yesterday Wednesday night.

My friend's J+M have a solar electric system on their property, low voltage from solar panels is stored in giant oversize (like, car) batteries, then an electronic gizmo called an inverter makes normal mains 240 volts when required to operate lights, a conventional fridge or tv etc

However the gizmo turns itself off most of the time to save power and as such, they cannot using the timer function on their old video deck

Last night as well as recording an EP copy for myself I recorded an SP tape for J+M to borrow. (as they are away and unable to record it for themselves)

This morning I took a dubb from that SP tape, and put it on the video that I intend to send to the UK in early October after I get a Bill Bryson segment for a longtime tape swapping contact

This afternoon at the end of lunch, I noticed that Dateline is due to repeat, so I have rewound that UK tape and am re-recording the segment, this time in pristine form from the digital tuner-box, including teletext subtitles.The segment on electric vehicles runs for some 22 mins

Just a few points and this won't make much sense unless you've already seenthis item (if not, SAVE this email and wait until then)

Several full electric vehicles were featured, including a Toyota RAV 4EV, several home-made jobs, including the fastest fully street legal electricdrag-car, and the GM EV 1 which was funded by GM under California laws, and zipped around California roads from 1996 to 2004. Here are several thoughts, in no particular order, as they come to mind.

That GM guy the official "PR" spokesman......mate almost every word that came from his mouth was a bald-faced lie ! Shit he's got a good job, paid 50 or 100 thousand dollars a year to tell lies !

It would seem that not one single example of the EV 1 from GM was available to be filmed, all their footage came from old recordings, made between 1996 and 2004. In an utterly cunning stunt (and yes, GM obviously are) they didn't actually "sell" a single EV 1 and ONLY made them available on short-term leases........then simply destroyed them all at the end of the lease periods.

What he said about spare parts, what a load of shizzunhausen, they could have cancelled the regoes, then sold them "as is where is" to enthusiasts with no guarantees. Look at how vintage cars are kept going byfolks who will individually hand make or modify parts as required. Manyparts like wheelbearings, steering, brakes etc were almost certainly standard from within the GM stable.

Honda and Toyota have made full electric versions of some of their models.Honda has been deliberately crushing brand new electric cars in the USA,claiming it was necessary for "insurance" reasons. I understand that Nissan have also been crushing electric cars.

Note that in my opinion "hybrid" vehicles, which were not mentioned in this article at all, are rubbish and a dead duck of an idea. The hybrid vehicles around at the moment do no more miles per gallon than a slightly smaller petrol or diesel engined car. So you might as well buy a slightly smaller car for tens of thousands of dollars less and you will still be better off financially and using no more fuel. A recent official study in Australia found that the higher price of a "hybrid" car IS NEVER recouped by the fuel savings.

Yes it is true that you can drive a large hybrid car and get medium car fuel economy, or a medium sized hybrid car and get small car economy, and for people that often need to carry 4 or 5 adults in a car at the same time, this would likely be an issue. The vast majority of car use is short trips carrying one or 2 adults and sometimes one or 2 children, so for most purposes a smaller car will suffice.

As the GM PR liar guy said, the EV-1 car would only do about "100 miles" ona charge then took 6 to 8 hours to recharge.
As the pro-electric car guy (Chris Payne ?) said, the average daily commuter drive is lessthan 30 miles total (and one could guess that with a work-day in between,time for a full recharge anyway) He also pointed out that govt tax incentives for businesses to buy large petroleum powered vehicles amounted to 25 times the tax incentives for electric cars

I was first introduced to the idea of electric vehicles some 30 years ago when I helped a friend on a project to add an electric motor to an old bicycle. That project never came to fruition, for a number of reasons, however similar bikes are available for purchase in Perth at some $598 nowadays

Having seen the home converted Datsun 120 Y sedan on this tv docu I am now determined to have a go at electrifying a car. WA laws are kinder than NZ in this respect, and I certainly have old cars around here which can act as mobile test-beds if need be, although I'd rather put effort and expense into a vehicle ready for normal use. (they say the price of petrol has dropped lately, yeah mate it was down to $1.43.9 cents a litre last time I bought some locally).

The best vehicle to use would be a little panel-van body, like the 550 ccSuzuki van my friend (L.W.) had many years ago (prior to that I'd had asimilar but even older, Honda model with just a 360 cc 2 cylinder engine)Vans of a similar size and shape were also made by Daihatsu until quiterecently, by which time engine size had increased to 1000 cc

A 2nd best choice for a backyard conversion to electric, would be a tiny Suzuki car, like the model known for years as the "Alto". Obviously the original petrol motor is not needed, but it would be easiest, for road-going purposes if the registration was still valid.

The van would allow a false floor to be made and the batteries spread outover the original floor area. I substantial area of load or passenger carrying ability would still be available, on top of the false floor

Using the like of an Alto would be not quite as good, as batteries wouldhave to be fitted into the boot and bonnet areas only. If extra room wasrequired then the back seat area would have to be given over for batteries.The Alto is front wheel drive AFAIK while all those little van things arerear drive.

All of the electric vehicles featured on the tv docu were very spritely, however I've long been a fan of the gutless wonder of economy vehicles. Now considering that an old English economy car of the early 1950's like the Standard or Morris 8's had 26 BHP then that equals about 20 kW electric motor power required. Those old English cars could cruise at 80 kmh/50 mph at least and weighed about 700 kgs, about the same as a more modern Suzuki Alto

Personally I'm a fan of using the existing 4 or 5 speed manual gearbox whicha vehicle might have, partly because this gives a convenient reverse, andyes I know the guy said that with real high horsepower electric cars, thetorque was sufficient without a gearbox.

I have done a bit of figuring just to get some "ball-park" figures and Ireckon that a 20 kW economy car/van would need about 1,700 Ampere-Hours of storage capacity which amounts to about 100 of those little golfcart batteries you might know (approx 3x6x8 inches), or 19 medium 4 cylinder carbatteries or 14 large "Landcruiser" 4wd/truck batteries

Note this is just a rough figuring to give me an idea of weights and sizerequired etc. I guesstimated range of 80 kms minimum, probably double thatif you drained the batteries power entirely

Now obviously you cannot use normal car/4WD batteries for an electric car,as they are not designed to be what is called "deep cycle" (normal carbatteries are only supposed to be discharged 10% at most then fullyrecharged)

Nor can you use normal solar cell house storage batteries, although theseare designed for deep cycle use, they are not made to be vibration resistantfor use in a vehicle. (sometimes referred to as "traction" batteries)

So I'd be needing a source of batteries which are both designed for deepcycle and traction purposes. That type of battery is less common but does exist, and is used in such items as electric wheelchairs, forklifts,milkfloats (in England, but not here unfortunately) and golfcarts.

With the massive increase in those "mobility scooter" type electric wheelchairs lately, there should be more of these sorts of batteries more easily and cheaply available

I know that even 20 plus years ago the University of Canterbury in Chch NZ was doing world leading research into electric cars.....their particularspecialty was in using an Alternating Current motor, which they said wasmore efficient and easily controllable, but did require sophisticated electronics to convert the battery power to AC from the storage batteries DC

Personally I favour I much simpler approach and think that this would workbetter, especially with a low powered home converted electric vehicle

Several converted cars featured in the recent tv item (including the White Zombie Drag-race car) had installed a "Ziller" brand speed control device which undoubtedly costs a fortune and is hard to get in Australia, a design without need of a Ziller would seem to have advantages, even if power management wasn't so scientifically superb.

Let me know if you hear of a still fully road-registered but perhaps dead motor, Suzuka Alto or tiny van for sale cheaply or free to tow-away in the Perth area !

Note that if you chase up the Australian SBS tv website and check for the Transcript for Wed 13 Sept 2006 Dateline, there are numerous web links there, although some don't seem to be working for me today.

cheerio
Cate