Otmar is one of the plugin community's EV-Gods. And his personable persona just makes people gravitate toward him and his projects (his is a cool dude). When he lived not to far from me (~10mi, near Stanford U.) where he had a small shop and his house, it was always a joy to see what was going on at Otmar's shop, or later stop by his house to mooch a charge of free solar electrons into my Blazer (he was one of the first to put free public EVSE out in front of his house: two level-2 sources, and four level-1 outlets). Since his moving to Oregon, his old neighborhood is not the same..
Otmar has done many neat things, many are documented on his site(s). But back on topic, this won't be Otmar's first stretch project. If you read his web site http://www.evcl.com/vw/ his first pass at this (version 0.8) had its successes as an ice http://www.evcl.com/vw/Main/oldstretch.jpg but had enough issues that Otmar wanted to make another one which would have a better design (less issues). His web site documents the whole process encase anyone wanted to make one. From the first surgical cuts http://www.evcl.com/vw/CuttingUp/CuttingPics/stretch2.html To joining the two halves together http://www.evcl.com/vw/CuttingUp/CuttingPics/stretch19.html http://www.evcl.com/vw/CuttingUp/CuttingPics/stretch24.html http://www.evcl.com/vw/PuttingTogether/spliceanddrive/sideweld14.jpg That welding of the body together was cleverly covered up/disguised. Look at where the two halves join to the right of Otmar in http://www.evcl.com/vw/Main/Tioga1big.JPG That is a giant Zipper painted on over the body welds. A search on Otmar zipper gives http://www.flickr.com/photos/ralf_k/6953849294/ That former ice project did have electric drive in mind http://www.evcl.com/vw/ElectricDrive/Frame.html Though that page shows an EV1 motor drive unit, that electric drive never materialized. Until now. It looks Otmar has the right components to continue his project so it will drive as an EV. In the various links I provided on the newswire post, it mentioned Otmar is planning to have a Supercharger access ability. I can not see why Tesla would not approve, especially since response on the Tesla forums that Otmar posted on seemed excited (happy) with it. But the Tesla Supercharger network is a work in progress, so I sent Otmar a suggestion for him to consider what I and Terry Hershner http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/eu/press-releases/jan-21-2013-terry-hershner-sets-record.html did, install multiple on-board chargers. I figure if Otmar installed two level-2 6kW chargers and a level-1 charger, he would be able to tap into the public charging infrastructure and have level-1 in a pinch. If you think about Otmar's project, he is bringing visibility to the next wave of conversions. Though several people have already included Production EVs and ice in their projects, Otmar's will be the one to get a lot of the public's attention of what conversions are about. After all, a production EV purchase locks the buyer into not changing anything so warranty is insured. But that keeps the buyer from improving on what short-sightedness the automaker had. {brucedp.150m.com} - On Sat, Dec 7, 2013, at 06:40 AM, Peri Hartman wrote: > That's got to be the coolest conversion I've read about to-date! - -- http://www.fastmail.fm - A no graphics, no pop-ups email service _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
