----- Original Message ----- From: "Roger Stockton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, September 23, 2002 10:08 PM Subject: RE: Conversion Concept Musings
> Sheer wrote: > > > There's one area in which I fail. If the NiZn pack has it's > > expected life, my car will require a new battery pack at > > 60,000 miles. He wants 100,000, which would require either > > NiCad or NaNiCl, either of which would push the budget up. > > Actually, there are several: > > - 0-60mph in 14s fully loaded (4 passengers), especially at say > 50-80%DOD. My hunch is that even at 80% DOD I can do 0-60 in 14 fully loaded. (well, it depends on how heavy the passengers are.. but four people my weight? Sure.) I would have to do a test to tell you for sure. > - ability to carry 4 passengers (your conversion will be a bit to > well-over GVWR with 4 passengers, won't it?) We've been over this. My car has 500 lbs of 'legit' overhead in the GVWR, which is enough for 3.1 passengers my weight. However, I've driven it with four people in it and the sky did not fall. I don't think the extra 1-200 lbs is significant, because I think that if I know Honda, they designed in a 'safety factor' of about 500 lbs beyond the weight rating for the inevitable college-student-moving-experience the car was bound to experience. Now, with all due respect, please drop the weight issue. Or I'll start pointing out many, many successful EVs in the EV photo album that appear to have completely ignored the GVWR and seem to still be rolling. > - plug-and-play maintenance-free (your conversion doesn't yet include a > full set of Mk3 regulators and their associated cost does it?) It also Yes, actually that cost included mk2s purchased from rich at approximately the same cost as he will be selling the mk3s at, as well as a full Hart-style balancer system worth of parts that never got used, a lead-acid battery pack that didn't work out, etc. Here's how it would break down: Drive: $7000 Adapter: $1000 Battery pack: $5000 Glider: $1500 BMS: $1500 Charger: $2000 [we'll add $500 for a nizn brainboard, even though the current board on the PFC-20 is more than good enough to charge the NiZns as long as you make sure you always charge them at the same tempurature] Viola, <$20k. > doesn't include a battery temperature management system (yes, yes, I > know, not essential on the north-wet coast, but it will be essential > elsewhere) to keep the pack at a safe usable temp. And, the otherwise About the only place I can think of where battery temp management would be essential with NiZn, from what I've seen of it, would be Las Vegas and places with similar weather. > wonderful PFC charger isn't yet available commercially with a controller > implementing a proper NiZn algorithm complete with temperature > compensation, is it? Does your conversion still fit the budget with all We're working on that. > of this extra equipment factored in? See above > A Z5C NaNiCl pack with matching MES-DEA 3.2kW charger in an '87 vintage > Chevy Sprint, with ADC 8" and T-Rex controller, would tip the scales at > under 2000lbs, offer a +60mi range, and >60000mi pack life. It would With a NaNiCl pack, I think we can safely say a 100,000mi + life. > fail the acceleration requirement miserably (~24s due to Z5C 32kW peak > power), but it would meet the cost requirement. Depending on the size > of the passengers, it ~might~ squeak by with 4 onboard at GVWR (if a > 2-door; the 4-door might have a slightly higher GVWR). It would be > plug-and-play, maintenance free, with the exception of periodic brush > replacement. An AC drive such as yours would be preferable from this > point of view, but the budget doesn't allow it. I don't know about you, but I don't want to drive a car that does 0-60 in 24 seconds. It would probably be acceptable in most of europe, but in many U.S. cities you would get run over. ;-) Well, okay, I exadurate a little bit, but it certainly wouldn't be very much fun to drive. However, you could add a PbLA 'pony pack' made of small, cheap AGMs to provide acceleration, and do away with the 24s 0-60 while keeping the range. It would still, however, have less range than QM. And I guess that'd also pretty much blow GVWR. Those AGMs, since they'd probably spend most of their time in the 20-80% DOD range, might actually last considerably longer than AGMs that were deep cycled.. conceptually 100,000 miles although I somehow doubt it. However, when they failed, the car wouldn't stop working, it'd just stop being perky.
