Re: [EVDL] EVLN: Tesla cuts 3 major departments

[Ken Olum via EV]

   From: paul dove 
   Date: Sat, 4 May 2024 16:02:36 + (UTC)

   >From what I've read it's more often the driver who intervenes and shuts 
down Autopilot thus causing the accident.

   Tesla keeps track of anyone actually cares.
   
https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/safety-report-2023-mobile.jpg

The problem with this data is that it doesn't control for the conditions
in which drivers do and don't use autopilot.  One explanation for a
lower crash rate with autopilot on would be that drivers use it in
situations where accidents are less likely.

Ken
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[EVDL] Ground presence (was: OT Solar Electrical Issues)

[Ken Olum via EV]

Tesla chargers are infamous for using too much current in their ground
presence testing, so that they trip the 5mA GFCI units.  This leads
people to swap out their GFCIs for regular breakers, so this safety
feature makes them less safe in the end.

Ken
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Re: [EVDL] [GGEVA] Selling my Leaf.

[Ken Olum via EV]

   From: Lawrence Rhodes 
   Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2023 05:41:54 + (UTC)

   The Leaf is a 2016 with 70% battery health(7bars)with 98k on the
   clock.

On my 2013 Leaf, there are 12 potential bars of battery health, so 7
bars would mean 7/12, not 70%.  Is the 2016 different?

Ken

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Re: [EVDL] need new home ESVE

[Ken Olum via EV]

People I know who have the Grizzl-E seems to like it.

Ken

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Re: [EVDL] Leaf battery replacement ?

[Ken Olum via EV]

Here is a data point about Leaf batteries at cold temperatures.  We
drove 40 miles, about 40% at highway speeds, with an outside temperature
of 40F.  This took the pack from 100% to 29%.  Extrapolating gives an
all-out range in these conditions of 57 miles.  This is a 2015 24kW pack
with something like 95K miles, the last 8K in our 2013 Leaf.  It has 11
out of 12 battery health bars left.

Ken
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Re: [EVDL] Leaf battery replacement ?

[Ken Olum via EV]

   From: "Peri Hartman" 
   Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2022 02:12:45 +

   How do the "lizard" batteries perform in cold weather?

I haven't paid careful attention to ours, but there was certainly not
some huge problem in the cold.

   Regardless of range, you're saying the lizard battery won't degrade as 
   quickly ?

Yes.  At 95K miles or so, I think our original 2013 battery was down to
7 (maybe 6) bars of battery health out of 12.  We replaced it with a
2015 battery which had 11 bars even though it had 85K miles or so.  7000
miles later, it is still at 11.

   My experience with the OEM battery is roughly 50% range at 25F versus
   70F. 

This is pretty terrible.  When we had cars with lead-acid batteries we
saw this level of temperature sensitivity, but it shouldn't be so much
with lithium.  Was it this bad originally or only after your battery got
old?  Is it often 25F in Seattle?

   If I buy a used lizard that has, say 60 mile range at 70F, what can I 
   expect at 25F ?

Do you want 60 miles at highway speeds or in city driving?  The Leaf is
quite a lot worse on the highway.  Nevertheless we drove ours 66 miles
of pure highway driving with no range anxiety immediately after getting
the battery replaced.  That was February in Massachusetts, so I'm sure
it wasn't 70F, but it wasn't 25F either.

The way this worked for us is that we signed up with the shop to be
notified when a battery was available.  You are entirely dependent on
someone getting in an accident that totals their car but doesn't damage
the battery.  The shop called us, told us what they had, and gave us a
few days to decide whether we wanted it.  So you can wait for a
less-used battery (presumably with a higher price) if you want.

Ken
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Re: [EVDL] Leaf battery replacement ?

[Ken Olum via EV]

We had the battery in our 2013 Leaf replaced with a 2015 24 kWh battery
by Leo & Sons in Lawrence, MA.  We are very happy with the result.  They
charged us $4600.  We didn't have to do anything but drop off the car
and pick it up later.

I wouldn't recommend a 30 kWh battery.  The newer 24 kWh "lizard"
batteries have much better calendar life than the 30 kWh ones, so when
you're getting an old battery from a crashed car, you might well get
more range from a 24 kWh.  See 
https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/201803.0122/v1

Ken
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Re: [EVDL] Replacing Briggs & Stratton Engine

[Ken Olum via EV]

You might want to look at the motors from http://motenergy.com.  I used
their ME1007 to repower the snowblower on my Electric Ox and it has
served me very well.  They have a bunch of 4.8kW motors running at
3000-3600rpm, which matches your needs.  They would certainly be
sufficient, maybe overkill, to replace a 8HP gas motor.

I have no controller on my Ox.  There is just a contactor.  Not exactly
what I'd recommend, but it gets the job done.  Make sure your batteries
are up to the initial current if you go this way.  When the contactor is
off the NC contacts short the motor windings through a resistor made of
something like 50 feet of 16 AWG wire.  This brings my snowblower to 
a stop in a second or so.

Ken
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Re: [EVDL] Gmail warning (list business)

[Ken Olum via EV]

   From: 
   Date: Tue, 24 May 2022 23:02:43 -0600

   It's even worse than that.  

   I have my EVDL sent to a personal email address.  I then forward all my mail 
to a gmail.com address on my phone (mainly for SPAM filtering purposes).

   For the last couple of weeks, gmail has been bouncing all the EVDL messages 
that I try to forward to my other address.

Simply mail forwarding basically doesn't work any more, because it
breaks too many spam-prevention techniques.  Instead you can get gmail
to contact your other server and load your email into gmail.  Then it
will not go through gmail's spam rejection, sequestering, and discarding
process.

Ken
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Re: [EVDL] Why people dislike Tesla

[Ken Olum via EV]

   Date: Mon, 23 May 2022 11:21:16 + (UTC)
   From: paul dove 

   I get real tired of people who don't own a Tesla saying Tesla has a
   service problem.

I originated this thread.  I do have a Tesla, and that's the only reason
I know about their service issues.  For very standard things it is fine.
Your door handle breaks, you click on "broken door handle" in the app,
someone shows up your house, replaces your door handle, and charges you
$200.  Nothing could be simpler.  Of course with most cars the door
handles don't continually break.

But when you need something more complicated, there is just about always
a communication problem.  Right now, for example, we have an appointment
to take the car in tomorrow morning and we can't get them to update the
estimate to the price that we actually agreed on.  They have sent us
various automated messages asking us to approve the wrong estimate and
so on, but obviously no human is reading our messages.  Once again, I
don't think there's any other car company where you can't call the
repair shop on the phone.

Ken
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[EVDL] Why people dislike Tesla

[Ken Olum via EV]

We have a 2015 Model S that we bought used in December.  It's a nice car
and suits our needs well.  But Tesla service is a horror.  Who ever
heard of a car company where you can't call the service department on
the phone?  Instead you have to use their app.  And when they break
things, they don't take responsibility.  

We had the car upgraded to LTE because 3G was discontinued.
Simultaneously we had recall work done to replace the eMMC.  Ever since
then, the GPS gives wildly wrong positions half the time, and about once
a week the center console quits working and has to be rebooted.  Now
they say we need to replace the MCU at the cost of $1500.  Repeated
complaints at least got me a sympathetic human being, but not one with
the authority to help me.  Finally he managed to get someone to agree to
credit the $200 we'd paid for the LTE upgrade toward the MCU
replacement, so it's only $1300 instead of $1500.  Since we don't have
any other options, we agreed to pay.

And of course if we still want to be able to listen to the radio, it's
another $500 for a tuner.  Apparently in this modern world you're
supposed to do everything with your phone, so having a radio is an
unusual option on which they want to make some money.

These attitudes on the part of the company are not endearing Tesla to
their owners, or at least to us.

Ken
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Re: [EVDL] Leak pack swap, offlist

[Ken Olum via EV]

I had a good experience from Leo & Sons in Lawrence, MA.  Rather a long
drive from Connecticut, though.

Ken
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Re: [EVDL] badly discharged AGM battery advice

[Ken Olum via EV]

Thanks for all the advice.  I seem to have got off lucky.  My chargers
charged up these batteries without trouble.  Today I discharged my pack
for 5 hours at 20A.  Both undamaged batteries seemed worse than both
"damaged" batteries.  By the end of this test, the undamaged batteries
were down to 11.0V under load and the "damaged" batteries were still at
11.2V.  So it seems that nothing is wrong.

Kudos to Universal Power Group for a product at (at least in this case)
stood up to significant mistreatment.

Ken
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Re: [EVDL] Leaf 2013 Ghost Loads on 12V battery

[Ken Olum via EV]

   From: Cor van de Water via EV 
   Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2021 18:35:26 -0800

   I noticed that the blue LED for the 12V charging now
   comes on every 24h to maintain the aux battery, so apparently Nissan
   knows of the problem and has updated the firmware to increase the aux
   battery maintenance.

Huh.  The DC-DC converter comes on periodically when the car is off?

We had a discussion about Leaf 12V batteries a year ago:

https://www.mail-archive.com/search?l=ev%40lists.evdl.org=subject%3A%22%5C%5BEVDL%5C%5D+Leaf+12+v+battery.%22=newest

I suggested that EVs should not have house batteries and instead the
DC-DC should always be on.  The main counterargument seemed to be that
the high voltage system should be isolated for safety when you're not
driving.  But now you're saying that the software turns on the HV system
periodically to charge the house battery.  This seems even less safe
than having it always, for example if someone is working on the car when
the HV system turns on unexpectedly.

Ken
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[EVDL] badly discharged AGM battery advice

[Ken Olum via EV]

Hi, all.  In my Electric Ox I have 4 12V 135Ah AGM batteries from
Universal Battery.  I got this set in April 2019, so they've been
through 3 summers of mowing and two winters of snowblowing (which puts a
lot more stress on them).  My previous set lasted 10 years, though they
were showing their age after 7.  When I got the current set, I also
installed individual very high quality 12V chargers from CTEK, and I was
hoping for even longer life than the previous set.

However, this fall when I was jacking up the tractor to improve the
wiring I mistakenly left on the "push" switch that retracts the parking
brakes.  (There should have a been a warning beeper, but it broke and I
foolishly did not replace it.)  This draws about 0.7A, but I left it on
for a long time.  A week?  Two?  Then I disconnected the batteries
completely without noticing the problem and they sat for a week or two
like that.  Today I went to reconnect everything and discovered the
problem.  Only two batteries are affected, because these electric
retract brakes take 24V.  The affected batteries each read 5V.  I
connected my charging system and these batteries are charging up now.

The question is what to do now.  How badly do you think they have been
damaged?  If they now have significantly less capacity than the
unaffected two, I'm going to have to be very careful that I don't
overdischarge the bad ones when I'm snowblowing at 130A or so.  There
also could be a problem caused by the very high inrush current when I
start my snowblower.  There's no controller, just a contactor to connect
the batteries to the permanent magnet motor.

I could replace the two damaged batteries, but then they would be out of
sync the opposite way, at least to some degree.

I have a meter on my dashboard that indicates charge level.  It seems to
work by measuring the lowest voltage that is seen for some short (but
nonzero) amount of time.  Maybe this will warn me, if I extrapolate
properly, that the bad two are getting discharged.

There won't be a problem with charging, at least, because they are
independent for that.

I'd appreciate any advice.  Thanks.

Ken
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Re: [EVDL] Will this gizmo let my EV conversion talk to a J-1772

[Ken Olum via EV]

Yes.  But of course you need an inlet, which would be more than $40,
plus wiring, and some way to crimp the pins.  Probably by the time
you're done it wouldn't be much more to buy an adapter box.  When I had
a Force, I had one from Tucson EV.  It worked fine.  A 30A one is
currently $135 there.

Ken
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[EVDL] J1772 outlets and cable

[Ken Olum via EV]

When I got my Juicebox charger some years ago, there was apparently a
manufacturing flaw in the control pilot wire in the charging cable.  The
wire was broken with no damage to the cover.  After a while it failed.
I spliced the wire, but to do it I had to remove the cover from the
cable.  I tried to replace it with some heat shrink, but this never
worked properly.  So when you move the cable around by the handle, it
stresses the wires, which then broke again.

I got tired of repairing it and bought a new cable.  Would anyone like
the old one?  I also have most of the parts of a J1772 outlet.
What's missing is the outer shell that holds the sockets and one of the
little springs that holds the socket closed.  See attached photo.  If
you'd like any of this stuff, make me an offer.  At least enough to pay
for shipping and it's yours.

Incidentally there was a comedy of errors when I tried to buy a
replacement cable from Enel X.  I bought a clearly described 25' cable
from their web site.  They sent me a 20' cable.  I didn't notice, so I
wasted an hour connecting it to the charger.  Then it didn't reach from
the charger to my car.  So I complained to Enel X, and in a couple of
weeks they sent me another 20' cable.  Fortunately I wasn't fooled again.
I didn't waste my time but called them up right away.  Finally they got
somebody to go to their warehouse and find a cable that was actually 25'
long, not merely one that was in a box labeled "25' cables".

Ken

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Re: [EVDL] EVLN: Electric Eel - partway there

[Ken Olum via EV]

   From: "j...@k6ccc.org" 
   Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2021 09:52:32 -0700 (PDT)

   Interesting concept.  The Cessna Skymaster - which this obviously is
   a modification of, is one of very few twin engine airplanes that has
   both engines on the centerline of the aircraft.  That makes it far
   easier to fly if an engine fails.

Unfortunately, while the Skymaster can fly with only one engine, it
cannot take off or quickly gain altitude under those conditions.  And
that's how I ended up in an unanticipated landing on a mud flat outside
Palo Alto airport back in 1979.  The engine failed with the plane barely
airborne and the pilot (my uncle) decided that it was better to set down
in what seemed like a fairly forgiving place than to struggle to clear
obstacles surrounding it.  No one was hurt (a "good landing") but the
plane was totaled.

The relevance of the story for the electric Skymaster modification is
that, while you might think that it's sufficient for either the electric
motor or the ICE to be working, if it is like the version from long ago,
at certain times you need them both to work or you are in serious
trouble.

Ken
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Re: [EVDL] Leaf 12 v battery.

[Ken Olum via EV]

   From: Jay Summet 
   Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2020 20:05:14 -0500

   The reason the DC2DC converter does NOT run all the time is that (for 
   safety) Nissan has chosen to disconnect the HV battery from the rest of 
   the car (with contactors inside the main battery) whenever the car is 
   turned off.

What danger are they concerned with?  I would say that most bad things
happen to cars when they are in motion, when you have to have the HV
system on.  I suppose if they're concerned with some hobbyist getting
electrocuted while working on the car then their strategy makes sense.
Also perhaps for the maintenance you'd like to shut off the HV system
without shutting off the 12V.

Peri's idea of putting the DC/DC in the HV box seems like an
interesting solution to these problems.

Ken
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Re: [EVDL] Leaf 12 v battery.

[Ken Olum via EV]

We have a 2013 Leaf and have replaced the 12V battery.  In my opinion
this battery should not exist.  It's just something to break or wear
out.  Instead the DC/DC converter should run all the time (yes, it's
possible to build such a converter that is efficient at low loads), and
there should be some software to ensure that the total drain from the
traction pack is not too large, with some way to reset the system when it
has cut out for this reason.

Ken
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[EVDL] Good price for scrap lead batteries

[Ken Olum via EV]

I just took some old AGM batteries to Allied Recycling in Walpole, MA
for recycling.  They paid me $0.22/pound, so $20 for a 90 lb. battery.
Seems like quite a good price -- much better than I've ever gotten from
a battery company.

Ken
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Re: [EVDL] leaf milage life

[Ken Olum via EV]

   From: Cor van de Water 
   Date: Mon, 8 Jul 2019 23:18:00 -0700

   Find out how many bars the car has left and you have a decent indicator of
   current range

While this is probably true if you find a car at a junkyard, or a
private seller, my understanding is the Nissan sometimes resets the bars
when they are working on the car, so cars coming off lease may say that
they have all bars when in fact the battery has lost some capacity.  It
will go back to the correct reading after a few cycles.

Ken
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Re: [EVDL] Bright Way vs. Universal Power Group

[Ken Olum via EV]

   From: Lee Hart 
   Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2019 22:56:12 -0600

   You may want to check to see if Bright Way is just some outfit that buys 
   nameless batteries in China and slaps their own labels on them.

How would I find out for sure?

   From: brucedp5 
   Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2019 20:35:21 -0600 (CST)

   The evdl archive shows you have asked about batteries for your 48V (6
   group 24 8V batteries).

That was the original configuration, but I went to 4 12V AGM instead.
I've lived plenty of my life with flooded batteries and I would not want
to go back to them.  I especially didn't like the acid mist.

In truth I don't care that much about cycle life -- mostly about
calendar life.  I have had my UB AGMs for 10 years.  They are down
to maybe 25% of their original capacity, but still usable if you don't
mind charging often.

Ken
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[EVDL] Bright Way vs. Universal Power Group

[Ken Olum via EV]

Hi, all.  I'm trying to replace the UB121350 AGM batteries that I have
in my Electric Ox.  I ordered new ones from Wholesale Batteries Direct,
but they are out and Universal Power Group is out at the warehouse also.
They recommended that I get the Bright Way Group BW EV12-155A instead,
for a few dollars more.  Anyone have any experience with Bright Way?  I
have had good experience with Universal Power, and know nothing about
Bright Way.  The specs on their battery claim 1000 cycles to 50% DOD,
which is pretty impressive for AGM, though that is not so important in a
lawn tractor that you don't use every day.  They claim 10 year calendar
life, also quite impressive and more relevant to me.

Ken
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Re: [EVDL] My Experience with eMotorWerks

[Ken Olum via EV]

I bought a Pro 40 in 2015, even though I only have an 20A outlet in my
garage and upgrading is not simple because the garage is connected to
the house by a buried cable.  I got it with the idea that I might take
it with me and plug in to people's range outlets or at campgrounds,
though I never have.

I adjusted the maximum current to 16A using the app, but every so often
the charger would trip the circuit breaker and I would wake up to an
uncharged car.  I was completely unable to get any help from eMotorWerks
support.  Fortunately, this charger was open source. (Is it still?  I
couldn't find the source today.)  Reading the source I discovered that
when the charger cannot connect to the server for 90 seconds, it forgets
the server current limit.  What an awful design!  It should keep the
last current limit that it saw.

Fortunately I was able to open up the charger and adjust the
potentiometer that gives a hardware limit on the current draw, so now
I'm able to charge reliably, no thanks to eMotorWerks.  If I ever wanted
to use it for higher currents I would have to adjust the hardware
again.

Ken
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Re: [EVDL] Smearing with coal (again)

[Ken Olum via EV]

   From: Robert Bruninga 
   Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2018 16:52:46 -0500
 
   if one generates say 10MWhrs per year of solar and use 10MWhars per
   year of electricity, then 100% of  your energy is completely fossil
   fuel free.

I agree that you are entitled to brag that you used no fossil fuels in
this case.  But now suppose that you trade your electric car for a gas
car.  You pollute.  But you also use, say, 1 MWh less of the energy that
you generate.  It goes out to the grid instead.  Fossil fuel plants
don't need to run to generate it.  They pollute less.  This partly
compensates for the additional pollution that you generate with your
gas car.

The point I'm trying to make is that if you are comparing electric car
vs. gas car, you should compare the pollution generated by the car with
the pollution generated by producing the electricity, even if you
yourself have solar panels.

The only way that you should compare the pollution of the gas car
against zero for the electric car is if the comparison is (gas car) vs.
(electric car and new solar panels to charge it).  For example this is
the right comparison if you size your PV system to your needs including
your cars.

Ken
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Re: [EVDL] Smearing with coal (again)

[Ken Olum via EV]

   From: Robert Bruninga 
   Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2018 11:15:28 -0500

   AND more than half of all EV buyers also buy CLEAN ELECTRICITY,
   either from their own solar...

The fungibility of electric power makes it difficult to make a clear
statement about this.  It's true that if I charge on a sunny day the
electricity flows straight from my solar panels to my car.  If I had a
gas car, the power generated from the panels would go instead to
displace someone else's electricity usage, generated mostly by fossil
fuel plants.  Thus having solar panels does not exempt me from the fact
that using electricity in my car leads to more fossil fuel consumption
than if I didn't use it, everything else being equal.

Ken

P.S. If anybody is an expert on voluntary renewable energy set-asides in
carbon emission cap-and-trade systems, I'd appreciate a conversation,
but email me separately as it is not really relevant to this list.
Thanks.
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Re: [EVDL] Best year of Leaf to buy used.

[Ken Olum via EV]

We recently bought a 2013 with chademo & 6.6kw charger for $10,800 list
(plus $500 dealer charge, etc.) and are pretty happy with it.  Before
2013 there was no percentage battery charge readout on the dash.  After
2013 there was no "charge only to 80%" option.

Recent battery packs are larger, though.

Don't make the mistake that we made of thinking that the dashboard
battery health display will actually tell you the battery condition.
Apparently when the car is serviced this display can get reset to show
full health, even if that isn't true.  Instead, go armed with an
OBDII bluetooth adapter and the Leafspy app on your phone, and you can
find out the truth.  If you have a friend with a Leaf, first make sure your
adapter works and learn how to use the app.

Ken
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Re: [EVDL] Emotorworks (Juicebox) lack of customer support

[Ken Olum via EV]

   Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2015 08:38:03 -0400
   From: EVDL Administrator via EV 

   Given that, my questions would be:

   1. Why does it need to talk to their servers at all?  

I don't know why they did it this way.  I would be much happier if I could
communicate directly with the box, without going through their servers.

   3. What happens to it if Emotorworks goes out of business?

I think if Emotorwerks goes out of business, you either have to do a
bunch of technical work or your box has effectively been downgraded to
the model without digital communications, in which case you have wasted
$100.

   If they've encrypted its software (many do) and you reverse-engineer it to 
   get it working again, or to make it work the way you want it to, you're in 
   violation of the DMCA and they can sic the law on you.

They claim it is open source, so presumably there is no legal issue.  But
this claim does not seem to come with any actual access to the source,
so in terms of practical value it may be meaningless.

   The nice thing about EV conversions is that they don't need fancy $600 
   networked online charging cords.  They do just fine with a $50 SJ cord and 
   plug, and a 240v or 120v receptacle.

That's true, but on the other hand all J1772 chargers have to obey a
single standard for limiting the charging rate, whereas the chargers
used in conversions all have (or don't have) their own procedures for
doing this.

   Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2015 07:56:11 -0500
   From: Willie2 via EV 

   ...One major, for me, problem is that the display they use on
   chargers and the premium JBs is very difficult to read.

Fortunately (?) for me, my unit does not have the display.

   Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2015 11:37:01 -0400
   From: Jay Summet via EV 
   
   My understanding is that once you set the charging amp limit, it will 
   not change until you modify the setting again.

If this were true, I would not be having this problem.  The charging
limit is stored on the the server.  Once you set it, the server will
always remember it.  But under certain circumstances (I wish I knew
exactly which), when the box can't reach the server, it forgets the
limit.

Ken
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[EVDL] Emotorworks (Juicebox) lack of customer support

[Ken Olum via EV]

At the end of June I bought the JuiceBox 40 Pro EVSE from Emotorwerks.
I paid $600, and I think that's enough that I'm entitled to a little
customer support.  But I've 4 sent requests to their support address and
never received a satisfactory answer.  In some cases I got a reply, but
the reply was "so-and-so is the expert on this and will get back to you
and answer your question" and then I never heard from so-and-so.

Before sending this message, I complained to them about the fact that I
wasn't getting any support, and that complaint also went unanswered.

So, at this point, I feel I should warn other EV drivers not to buy from
Emotorwerks if you want to be able to ask any questions or get any help
with your equipment.  I'm sorry to do it.  I thought this was a
promising company with an interesting piece of equipment at an
attractive price.

They are very proud of the fact that it's open source.  Anyone know
where to find the source?  I guess I should read it if I ever want to
get an answer to my main question, which is "How does the unit manage
the charging current limit in cases where the connection to
Emotorwerks's servers is not completely reliable?"

Ken Olum
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