6 Cool European Electric Cars Never Coming to the US

The European tradition of coachbuilding—the manufacturing of carriages—dates back to the 1700s. These days, it refers to the high-end auto design firms, such as Rolls Royce and Ferrari, which build custom-designed specialty vehicles.

Like nearly every automaker in the world, coachbuilders are going green, by designing and building all-electric vehicles. Their electric cars are well suited to the congested streets of Rome or Paris, but don’t hold your breath for these cool electricity-powered rides to make it across the pond. By nature, the coachbuilders produce vehicles in limited runs intended for local markets.

The cars in the list are:

Pininfarina B0 ("B Zero")
UK Lightning
Heuliez Friendly
Heuliez Pondicherry
Karmann Quicc DiVa
Ford F-150 Ha-Pa



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Think Electric Car

From Norway, comes the Th!nk City, the new compact electric car coming from Europe.

With a fantastic acceleration, considering the size of the car, with the following stats:

Top speed 100km/h
Acceleration 0-50km/h 6.5 seconds
Acceleration 0-80km/h 16.0 seconds
Typical charge time – standard electric socket:
0-100% SOC (state of charge) approx. 13 hours, 230VAC / 14A
0-80% SOC (state of charge) approx. 9,5 hours, 230VAC / 14A
Range IEC* 170km (summer tires, heater off)
Range FUDS** 180km (summer tires, heater off)
Range EU UDC*** 203km

With the city range around 200km(125Miles), the Th!nk City has the most attractive mileage in the Electric Car market, using the electric motor only.

Pre-launch activities of the TH!NK city have started in selected European markets like Norway, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria and now recently Spain. TH!NK city vehicles are in this pre-launch phase primarily being sold to municipal fleet, government and utility partners for early adoption EV pilot and demonstration fleets, supported by government incentives to help reduce the initial high cost of the batteries.

It might take some time before this car enters the open market in Europe and even longer in the US.

Electric Car Th!nk's Official site: www.think.no

The Adventure: Home

My EV was basically fully charged when I left for home yesterday. The trip was pretty uneventful, but I ended up missing on of my planned short cuts, so I had to drive through some 45 MPH streets with mild hills, into the center of town, adding another 2 miles to my 16.5 mile commute. The EV did well, until the last hill home. I dropped to 25 MPH going up the hill and I had to pull over cause some guy was riding my tailgate. It was a 30 MPH hill, so I there was really not a big deal... Oh well.

I definitely need the new Synkromotive controller and to not miss out on my shortcuts. I probably would not have had much trouble with that final hill if I had an extra 10 Ah of juice in my pack to contend with. Actually, I am going to look it up to see if it was my batteries getting sort of low, of the controller not giving the juice to go up.

EDIT: It must be both the controller not giving the juice properly since the calculator shows That 230 motors AMPs are needed and only 165 battery AMPs to climb the hill, and an extra 10 Ah of power would be nice since climbing that hill at 30 MPH will use 3.75 Ah of pack.

Every One Need A Little Fibre

A fantastic person donated a whole pail of fibreglass cloth towards the project. I was going to slow down on the project and try to save and budget to buy more cloth to enclose the battery pack areas for the winter time but a great Guy happened along.

The Adventure

The Adventure actually began yesterday when I decided to take a test run of the route I picked out for my EV ride to school. So with MapQuest in my hand, I take my ICE and try out the route. I get a whopping 2.6 miles when my drivers rear tire blows. I pull into the nearby school parking lot like 100 feet away and find a HUGE tear in the tire, like someone took a sawzall too it! I tried to remove it but the sucker was rusted on so a call to AAA was in order and they came and used a sledge hammer to get it off. Put on the Donut and went home. I felt like I was towing 3000LBs with that donut!

Anyways, I needed new tires and today I find out I also need new brakes and I had a stuck caliber (which I thought needed replacement a few months ago). So with my ICE in the shop, I had to try out my route with my EV, pretty much going blind.

So I did take my EV, and I got lost. When I finally made it to school I had driven 18.4 miles, 2 miles farther than I needed too. I had power left, and the pack voltage never got below 84.4 volts under heavy acceleration and at rest was over 96 volts when I finally parked in.

That was only part of the Adventure. Yesterday I got my access to the lot with the school's EVs, the access pass and sticker. So when I arrived today at 8:15 there was NO PLACE TO PARK! I had a backup plug in another lot so I am currently charging there. But I really need a spot in the EV lot, so some EV rearranging is needed, and since they are all small Geo Metros, it shouldnt be too hard to get a setup that works for everyone.

Now I am prepping for the third part of this Adventure: going home. The Civic is on the charger and hopefully will be done when I am ready to leave. I cranked up the charging current a bit just to hasten it.

Replacements

I just got back from Walmart and exchanged the two bad batteries. It took longer than I thought, mainly because the price of the MAXX29 have increase $10 each since last year, so it took the Customer Service rep a bit to figure out what to do.

Anyways, the new batteries are fresh off the pallet with an August 09 date. I put them into the battery trays, but I haven't strapped them down or wire them up yet, that will be tomorrow's job.

Before I do that, I am going to charge the two new batteries with the smart charger, then hooked them into the pack and give it a few minutes with the K&W. Then comes breaking them in with a couple runs doing 25-30 MPH around the block should do it. There is only about 25 cycles on the pack, and it's OK to add/change single batteries as long of they are less than 50 cycles difference between them, so I should be fine.

I am still working out the finer details about getting my plug at school, but I am hoping to get things finalized very soon before all my saved money gets spent on gas again. It's costs me $3.00 a day to commute in my ICE, and only $0.60 for the EV, so it's quite a savings!

The Revo (off road champion)

The South African built Revo is a perfect example of true innovation at it's finest.
It was built by, Achim Bergmann of Thompson Racing, for the Motorite Racing team.

The car is of a space frame construction with a fiberglass body. Tubing is 4130 cro-moly and uses a LS2 6l V8 engine coupled to a Sadev SC90 six speed sequential.

Shocks are American Radflo with secondary pistons in the coil-overs and an external bypass shock per corner. Wheel travel 300mm all round. A Works Bell Paddle Shifter NEO Universal is used to trigger up and down shifts controlled by a Motec M800.

A custom made dust seal was used to seal the paddle shifter from the extreme dust and moisture conditions encountered in off road racing. Up shift cuts ignition and pneumatically selects gear, down shift activates a pneumatic clutch, blips throttle and selects gear.. works very well.

This is Africa's first serious attempt at four-wheel drive Class A Special Vehicle. Power comes from an American built 500hp 6-litre engine and is delivered to all four BF Goodrich tyres via a 6-speed gearbox. Despite a serious air restrictor fitted to keep it in line with the other Class A entries it pulls strongly.

With so much torque on hand, ratios can be kept short but top speed is slightly limited when compared to some of the past competitors. A top speed of just over 180km/h is calculated, which might appear slow but trust me when you doing that off road and approaching a metre deep rut it is insanely fast.

Nigerian Armoured Vehicle

Nigerian Armoured Vehicle

A Nigerian made armoured car was on Thursday launched by President in this month of August 2009 at the eagle square in Abuja.

It is the first home made armoured car, with most of the materials used in its production sourced locally, while others were imported.

It was built by two Nigerian brothers who recently relocated from the United States of America. The brothers; Victor and Johnson Obasa, came back home to use their talent to boost security and also create employment in the country.

The brothers are based in Ekiti State and the duo own a company named Mobile Truck Technology where they nurtured and built the first Nigerian armoured car.

According to Johnson Obasa, the local production of the armoured car would help in upgrading the nation's security status. "It will promote up to 50 percent security in the country, it is something to protect the armoured personnel in their line of duty and it can work anywhere. It is designed to help the nation's security; we also did it to create employment," he said.

Also, Victor Obasa in a conversation with the press stated that they were in a better position to create this kind of cars since they are in Nigeria and understand the Nigerian terrain.

He added that they were willing to do it for the government at almost half the price of importing it. "We would do it for Nigerians for almost half the price they get it outside," he said.

The truck which was tested with different kinds of ammunition, from a far range had little or no mark left on it, but from a close range left peripheral marks.

On how they created such a truck with products from Nigeria, Johnson said: "It's been a little bit of up and down's. When we encountered some challenges, the Senate president encouraged us and at the end of the day we were able to put this together."

The other brother Victor pledged that they would produce a vehicle carrier that would meet international standard at a reasonable price.

The Minister of Federal Capital Territory, Adamu Aliero who represented the president at the launch said it was commendable that Nigerians with talents will come home and contribute to the nation's development.

He disclosed that the President had directed the Inspector General of Police to meet the fabricators on what they required to produce the vehicle to specification.

He also called on Nigerians within and outside the country with such talents to come out and contribute to the development of their country.

"This is also to call on other Nigerians with similar talents to also come back home and join us to contribute their own quota to the country and for other Nigerians with this kind of talent to put it to use," Mr. Aliero said.

Present at the event to inspect the vehicle were top police officers and the Minister for science amd Technology, Al-Hassan Zaku who said the ministry would send a team of engineers to the base where the truck was fabricated to further examine the product.

"We will examine it thoroughly and work with the police to ensure that it is properly produced to the standard they want," he said.

courtesy of Elizabeth Archibong

Cairo car.

Here is the work of the Technical and Vocational Institute at the Arab Academy (for Science and Technology and Maritime Transport) in Alexandria Egypt.

This is Egypt's first electric car project, entitled the Cairo car.

Serious research to develop and create localized technology towards producing a fine example of Egyptian ingenuity. This research is based on reverse engineering as well as self innovation to help achieve a national goal of a purely made in Egypt quality product. Its a 4 seater, and the platform has being successfully been tested. No details on the possibility of the Cairo car reaching production.

The Harper sports car

The Harper sports car. (South Africa)

The companies vision for building this car is as follows.

To produce a stylish, safe, fast, comfortable, fun, low maintenance sports car to be enjoyed on public roads and on the race track.

A one-make series will encourage owners to test their driver skills as cars will be placed against like for like engines. The key is: "Drive it to the track, Race it, Drive it home".

The specifications are as follows.

Power Plant

Engine: Mid mounted 4AGE 20 Valve 1600cc Toyota
Gearbox: Toyota 5/6 speed
Brakes: Toyota (disc all round with adjustable limiting valve for rear brakes)
Total Weight: 650kg

Power Output 120kw (160hp)
Engine Management: Gotech MFI
Performance Exhaust: TNT High performance branch and silencer
Construction: Mild steel space frame with composite non-stressed fibre glass bodywork

Although owners can choose from a range of transverse engines/gearbox, (eg; Honda VTEC, Nissan SR20DET, VW/Audi 20 Valve turbo etc), we recommend the Toyota 4AGE 20 valve engine for it's performance, reliability, low cost and availability.

The MENARA

The MENARA is MOROCCO'S answer to the executive sports car. Entirely made and built in Morocco to very high standards.

The MENARA is a harmonious mix of technology and classic automotive design.

Under Load

I MapQuested a trip around town, using 35-50MPH roads with hills and drive 16.5 miles just to make sure I could make the trip to school. I found out that I have two really bad batteries. After 15 miles of driving, the PakTrakr starting to flip out saying that A1 nd B1 needed charging.

So I set the PakTrakr to monitor the batteries in question and found that under load, A1 was sagging to 10.4 volts and B1 was at 7.5 volts! The other batteries were only sagging to 11.2-11.1 volts while driving at 35 MPH. I made it home, but dropped the speed down to 25 MPH to keep the A1 and B1 batteries above 10.5 volts.

I am pulling A1 and B1 today and getting them replaced at Walmart. 18 month free replacement is going to be real useful right now. I kept all my reciepts just for this purpose.

At least I know I can make it the 16.3 miles, and most of the batteries were at 50% when I stopped. And the route I plan to take to school is limited to about 35 MPH and probably less hilly.

Too Many Variables

I decided to try another setting in the Kelly controller, one that would use less battery AMPs, and hence less acceleration. There must be hundreds of different combination's one can do with this thing, and they really don't come with any explanation on what they do.

I went over the mountainous journey, and instead of looking of power required to hold speed, I looked at the battery power needed to climb the mountain. It was quite frightening! I was pulling 250 AMPs for 3 minutes going up, and with some simple math the power it took from the battery pack was: 250 AMPs per Hour/3600 seconds per hour*180 seconds driving time*2 for Puekerts Effect = 25 Ah from the batteries! Thats 1/5 of my battery pack, and that was done three times after 12 miles of driving! No wonder I literrally crawled home! I used up at least half my pack driving 3 miles of mountainous hills, more than I expected. Now I know, avoid that part of town.

I have a few new routes I found using MapQuest that I want to try because they are basically flat, and will get me to where I want to go, hopefully with lots of power left.

The Real Deal

Wednesday night I decided to take the EV out and try out the new cooling and program settings. The acceleration was GREAT and the controller stayed pretty cool. It was supposed to me a 12 mile round trip, but 4 miles in I can to a dirt road (under construction) and bottomed out the EV, cursed and went on. Then after reaching my destination I followed my dad home, asking to skip the dirt road. Well, he did avoid the dirt road and instead took the scenic routes to the mountains of our town! I ended up using almost ALL the battery power going up the hills, and came to a point where the controller went into low voltage shutdown and I was creeping along at less than 1 MPH.

I found that this what was my dad was referring too when the hills slowed him down. I did a battery check, and one was 50% and the rest were between 8% and 40% left! WAY out of balance!

I have used the single smart charger to bring up the lower batteries, and next I am going to set my K&W to do an equalizing charge on all the batteries. If this doesn't work, I am going to replace the entire pack with a new one, all under warranty. I also did try out the prototype BMS and it worked great after some minor software changes. Hopefully I will get a picture soon.

GM fuels electric car hype wars

Hyping Volt's claim of 100 km/litre...

The company that gave the world the monster-sized Hummer now claims it will deliver a plug-in vehicle next year so fuel efficient it will take you several times across the city on a single litre of gasoline.

General Motors Co., eager to shift attention from its near-collapse and racing to dump its image as a maker of petrol-sucking trucks and SUVs, stoked international debate yesterday by saying it expects its upcoming Volt to get an unprecedented fuel economy rating of 230 miles per gallon (nearly 100 kilometres per litre) in city driving. That's four times better than the gas mileage of Toyota Motor Corp.'s bestselling Prius.

"Is it hooey? Probably not," said Paul Lacy, a specialist in vehicle power components with consultancy IHS Global Insight in Detroit.

http://www.financialpost.com/news-sectors/story.html?id=1883012

Cooling Off

I decided to do some more controller playing today. I added two CPU fans to the heat sink of the controller, and changed the controller program settings to Torque. Now it should give all the power it can, and with the extra fan cooling it seems to be doing a little better. I won't really know until my Dad takes it out again and reports back on those hills. My 7.7 mile trial run with the improved setup yielded great results and the controller heat sink was considerably cooler. And it was 85 F with high humidity out today, quite nasty for working on the EV, but I did it anyways.

This Friday is the meeting about getting plugs at school and I also hope to drive it 17 miles and see how it does. I might mapquest a route to go back and forth and see what happens.

Heating Up

I have not done much with the EV since I was away on vacation, but I do have a few things going on.

First, I started my Battery Management System. I have one prototype made up and will be trying it out soon. It's a Shunt type regulator with a programmable PIC processor and I have it setup for a 12 volt flooded lead acid battery. It also has a basic State of Charge meter, 0%, 25%, 50% 75% and 100%.

I also have a meeting next Friday about getting my plug for my electric car at school. I have been trying to get a plug for about 8 months now. This time instead of asking for a plug and getting clueless responses, I went out and found a spot on campus that would be great for electric vehicle charging, gave a picture to the right people and get a meeting two weeks later!

Now the controller. I am on the waiting list for the next batch of Synkromotive Controllers, and it might take more than 4 weeks! I have been going over more data from my EV driving, trying to get the most out of the Kelly, and I think if I add some more high powered fans to the bottom heatsink, it might make the hills better. There are these two hills in my Dad's route that the car really slows down, and they also happen to be at the end of his commute. The other day when he came home I decided to check the controller's temp, and the top casing was fine where I put the CPU fan on, but the massive heatsink was HOT! I have no forced air cooling over it, so that is my next job. I have a whole ton of high power CPU fans, so I will try those out. I am also going to take some TEMP readings today when I take the EV out and try some massive hills.

Hey You With The Tractor!!

When you have great neighbours great things happen.

So Kris just happened to go by in his car seeing if his younger brother needed his help finishing up a few contracts (Kris has his own landscaping business) and said he would pop by in about a half hour, he was back in 13 minutes with his Grand Parents tractor (better than pizza delivery).

Nissan Displaying Electric Car

Some news regarding Nissan's new electric car Leaf:

Aug. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Nissan Motor Co., Japan’s third- largest automaker, rose to the highest in 10 months after displaying its first electric car, aimed at a market it anticipates will be larger than hybrids.

Nissan gained 5.4 percent to 726 yen, the highest since Sep. 29., at the close of Tokyo Stock Exchange trading.

Nissan Chief Executive Officer Carlos Ghosn said yesterday electric cars may account for at least 10 percent of global vehicle sales by 2020. Nissan has failed to match the popularity of Toyota Motor Corp.’s Prius hybrid and Honda Motor Co.’s Insight, and is betting demand for emission-free cars will offset the restrictions of limited range.

“Investors are jumping to Nissan after it actually unveiled the much-awaited car,” said Koichi Nishi, an equity strategist at Nikko Cordial Securities Inc. “Products that fulfill the promise of environmental-friendliness are encouraging.”

The company plans to sell its electric car, the Leaf, in the U.S., Japan and Europe next year. Nissan’s new electric car can travel 100 miles on a full charge and can seat as many as five people. The car’s lithium-ion battery pack can be fully recharged at a 200-volt outlet in eight hours, or in less than 30 minutes from a so-called fast-charge station, according to Nissan. In contrast, hybrids can refuel at conventional gasoline stations.