EV at last!!
The Warp 9 and all my miscellaneous left over bits are now sold. Well except for some AGM batteries and Yacht battery chargers. They are handy for other projects. Like my electric mower. Oh did I mention that I bought a 1970's electric tractor and use it to mow the lawn. That is in addition to my converted electric riding mower. A bunch of the AGM batteries and some chargers are living on in the mowers.
But for a road going EV this weekend the quest, for me, has finally come to an end. Now that there are quite a few premade EV's on the market I decided to make life simple and just buy one. Originally I didn't want a EV with a range extender. But Virginia is not encouraging EV ownership. In Virginia the price for Vehicle registrations for a pure EV are significantly higher than a EV with a Range extender aka "Hybrid". Once the range extender door was opened I started also factoring in plug in Hybrids. I began looking at the HP of the electric motor and Range in EV mode of both EV's and Hybrids. I was astonished to find some of the plug in hybrids could only do 7 (yes seven) miles in EV mode. And often they could only do that at modest speeds. And their electric motor HP was not enough for even reasonable acceleration in EV mode alone. Well that doesn't even seem worth having the hybrid business. But one stuck out an Lexus GS450h. It's EV range was low and it isn'tt a plugin But I thought with some additional batteries and an added charger it could be quite fun. It's looks were not exactly what I like and more importantly there were few around and the pricing was still a bit higher than I wanted for a car I'd want to start modifying immediately. I really wanted an i3. They have great acceleration and hard regen. Harder than any EV or hybrid I drove. And with the range extender I could avoid Virginia's EV penalty. But the i3 looks really weird with it's multi colored paint, strange rear doors and tires narrower than my motorcycle. If i3 were really cheap (used) maybe I could get past it. But they aren't. I couldn't buy the most expensive car I ever bought and hate how it looks. Leaf's got counted out initially due to the strange looks but then after more research and some looking at the used market. I found that they are perhaps the only EV maker that doesn't have a thermal management system for their battery. Well no wonder the batteries degrade on them. And boy did we see evidence of that on the used market. Many cars with less than half their capacity left. If that was all there was ok then. But other makers have the thermal management systems and their batteries last. (the 2018 Nissan Leaf I checked out STILL doesn't have thermal management for the battery). What did I end up buying?
A 2011 Chevy volt. After a lot of research and some test driving the Volt got the nod. Few of the factors that tipped the scales were it's good thermal battery management setup and price per value. Oh and that and it looks like a average car. The cheapest i3's are selling for 3 times what I paid for the Volt.
But for a road going EV this weekend the quest, for me, has finally come to an end. Now that there are quite a few premade EV's on the market I decided to make life simple and just buy one. Originally I didn't want a EV with a range extender. But Virginia is not encouraging EV ownership. In Virginia the price for Vehicle registrations for a pure EV are significantly higher than a EV with a Range extender aka "Hybrid". Once the range extender door was opened I started also factoring in plug in Hybrids. I began looking at the HP of the electric motor and Range in EV mode of both EV's and Hybrids. I was astonished to find some of the plug in hybrids could only do 7 (yes seven) miles in EV mode. And often they could only do that at modest speeds. And their electric motor HP was not enough for even reasonable acceleration in EV mode alone. Well that doesn't even seem worth having the hybrid business. But one stuck out an Lexus GS450h. It's EV range was low and it isn'tt a plugin But I thought with some additional batteries and an added charger it could be quite fun. It's looks were not exactly what I like and more importantly there were few around and the pricing was still a bit higher than I wanted for a car I'd want to start modifying immediately. I really wanted an i3. They have great acceleration and hard regen. Harder than any EV or hybrid I drove. And with the range extender I could avoid Virginia's EV penalty. But the i3 looks really weird with it's multi colored paint, strange rear doors and tires narrower than my motorcycle. If i3 were really cheap (used) maybe I could get past it. But they aren't. I couldn't buy the most expensive car I ever bought and hate how it looks. Leaf's got counted out initially due to the strange looks but then after more research and some looking at the used market. I found that they are perhaps the only EV maker that doesn't have a thermal management system for their battery. Well no wonder the batteries degrade on them. And boy did we see evidence of that on the used market. Many cars with less than half their capacity left. If that was all there was ok then. But other makers have the thermal management systems and their batteries last. (the 2018 Nissan Leaf I checked out STILL doesn't have thermal management for the battery). What did I end up buying?
A 2011 Chevy volt. After a lot of research and some test driving the Volt got the nod. Few of the factors that tipped the scales were it's good thermal battery management setup and price per value. Oh and that and it looks like a average car. The cheapest i3's are selling for 3 times what I paid for the Volt.
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