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Entries in Crazy EV ideas (3)

Sunday
03Jan2010

A bit of open source EVing...

So, 

I’m working on my EV, a 1985 VW CityStromer. I’m hoping to get it up and running again by Easter. Right now, she’s off the road with a bit of Motor Bother.

Over the Winter Tigger has not been getting a nice time of it. I haven’t been able to store her indoors, and the weather has been really wet. As a consequence, some of the damp from outside has got inside. So I’ve resorted to heating the car with a little 200W heater. Not exactly what you’d call ideal, but it’ll do for now. 

However, I’m hoping that the new year (Happy New Year, by the way) will bring good things for the VW EV I own. I’ve already got a garage full of spare parts, including a tow-bar, a rear bumper, a front bumper and even a quad-light grille. Oh yeah. I’m talking serious fun. It’s also occurred to me that the VW logo is about the right size to hinge up and reveal a 16 A charging inlet. I’ll think about that one some more, I think. (I’d also thought about casting a plastic VW grille badge in see-thru plastic and then hiding LED lights behind it so that it lit up while charging. We’ll have to see…

But I digress. This isn’t the purpose of my post. The purpose of my post is that I’ve started to work on a little coding. Now, I’ve never coded before really, and my Wife is a professional programmer. She took one look at my code this morning and re-wrote a whole lot of it. Finally, it’s starting to make sense. So I thought I’d share it with the world. 

Take a look, and please let me know what you think! (No-one has de-bugged yet, and it’s a work-in-progress)

At the moment, the code controls the car’s ‘boot up’ sequence. I want to introduce safety measures on Tigger the Ev so that she doesn’t just start up as soon as the ignition is on. (With kids on the way, I figured that would be kind of dangerous… I’ve also had a silly moment when I accidentally drove away with the car still plugged in. This code will, hopefully, eliminate that! )

The file is attached at the end of this post. It’s written for Arduino. If you can code, let me know what you think! 

 

 

 

VWEVstartup

Monday
21Sep2009

The EV run of the year...

So I was musing on Twitter on Sunday that it may be fun to make a trip by EV for a charity or a good cause.  It was, I thought, slightly tounge-in cheeck, since my only real EV at the moment is the 25 year old City Stromer. Okay, it's a great car and doesn't show it's age at all. But the batteries are getting on (7 years old at the most) and the poor thing can just about handle a 25 mile range. 

Then local Social Media Guru, Nigel Legg (@Nigellegg on twitter) suggested that the obvious, long range EV trip may be to Copenhagen for the 2009 UN Climate Change confrence. Bristol to Copenhagen. In the winter. In an EV.  

That sounds just about mad enough to try.

I'd want to do it as a publicity stunt and a fund-rasier. Perhaps someone here could suggest a good charity. Helping victims of climate change sounds like a good one to me.

 

Yes, Bristol to Copenhagen. And Back. That's a trip and a half. Plus it would get me snow. and I LOVE snow. seriously, I've contemplated moving to Canada several times just for the snow. This little trip would be just before Christmas. Ideal snow time. 

So we're at this early point. This early point where we all sit back and try to work out the logistics of such a trip. Figure out how and where and when and who is doing what.  And which vehicle we'd like to take. 

I'd dearly love to take Tigger, the 25 year old cityStromer. That would make a really positive statement about the logevity of electric vehicle tech. It would also be lovely to take a car I know well. But before I left the fine shores of the UK I'd need some way of increasing the battery capacity. A new pack. That's £2,000. I'd also need to sort out some heating for the cold weather as that's currently non functioning. I'm happy to travel in the UK with no heater, but Northern Europe? Hmmm. No. 

So, unless someone is willing to sponsor me for a new pack (and if everyone who reads this gave a few pounds then perhaps we could actually do that) it's gong to have to be someone else's EV. A Tesla would be a great idea. I wonder if anyone at Tesla would be interested. The trip is just shy of 900 miles by my reckoning, and with careful driving a Tesla can acchieve that magic 250 miles on a charge. In winter I'd guess that may be slightly reduced, but it's well worth a try.  I wonder, does anyone at Tesla read this blog??? Or perhaps I could go with a iMiev? I fell in love with that car when I drove it a while back. Or perhaps a Th!nk?  Or perhaps I have a rich benefactor I don't know about willing to help sponsor my EV to get her ready.  

 

I'd also need sponsorship and help along the way. Ideally, I only want to charge up using renewable energy. So that means folks with wind turbines, people with electriciticy produced by renewable means, off grid or grid-based. And it means two charges per day for my car (which I hope will do 50 miles at least per charge - an iMiev or Tesla would be better and require less charges... hint Hint!)

There's a ton of logistics to getting this ready and happening in a few months. It's less than ten weeks away. But that crazy idea is now firmly planted in my head and I can't quite let it go. Who is up for a fun time and the craziest EV journey ever?

The only downside is timing.  I have existing commitments in the UK on the 7th December. I'll try my best to reschedule them, but It's unlikely that I'll be able to leave until the 8th December. The confrence will have already started by then, so our hope would be to arrive mid-confrence (It runs from 7th - 18th December). 

I think Chelsea is already quite keen on the idea. We've exchanged a few emails and tweets in the past 24 hours and I've mentioned it. 

I want to get ready already I LOVE to travel. and I LOVE to drive I've wanted to do a trip like this for ages, but I would only contemplate it in an eco way. An EV trip is ideal....Who is on board then? Anyone? Is it crazy? 

Tuesday
30Jun2009

The ultimate EV challenge.

This year I've been rather keen to do a charity run from John O Groats to Land's End in an EV. It's a project that I've thought about several times in the past few years but never actually got around to doing.

My intial idea would be that the proceeds of the run would go to a good cause. A few that have come to mind are Children In Need, Macmillan Cancer Research and Hearing Dogs for Deaf People.

But here's the catch. I don't have an EV yet.

It's a tall order. Convert an EV from a standard petrol car, using donated parts, get it road-legal, and then drive it from Land's End to John O Groats. And then raffle the car off at the end.

Here's a few things we'd need:

 

1) a sound, rust free donor car

2) a decent set of batteries

3) a decent performance (capable of doing at least 60 mph) and a range of at least 60 miles.

4) Built, wherever possible, using Open source controller stuff...

5) a dedicated team willing to help me arrange, plan, and execute all of the above. Oh, and convert it.

6) a vehicle, at the end of it, which could be raffled off for a decent profit for all charities and one which is capable of life as a regular commuter car and all-round EV. Don't think G-Wiz. Think RAV4 EV...

 

Is anyone in? Is anyone interested? I'd hope to do it as a video blogged experience, selling the video afterwards.

Thoughts? Any offers of help?

Nikki.