Go electric EU - Blog!

Renault Clio Electrique (not the one in ad)

This is a really nice, mint condition, all electric, factory made car. If I only had 11,000 USD to spend on a daily driver I’ve would hade bought it right away but my economy isn’t that great.

Facts (generally):

Top speed 90-100 km/h (55-60 mph)
Range 65-100 km (40-60 miles)
Fully charged in 1-1½ hour
114v Ni-Cd Batteries

Facts (this one):
PakTrakr
Newly measured batteries
Mint condition

Link: Renault Clio Electrique

Crap! It’s time to have the annual inspection at Bilprovningen (the Swedish Motor Vehicle Inspection Company) and I need to repair the exhaust system and the rear doors to have a chance to pass. So first I have to buy parts for $ 500, and then pay $ 25 for the inspection… If I had an EV I wouldn’t have to pay the $ 500, since they don’t have exhaust systems! Grr… Money I could have saved for my EV build…

Since I started looking at ways to add range to electric cars by optimizing air flow, weight and drivetrain, the main idea has been to keep it simple, small and light. Then it struck me, a motorcycle would be perfect for this! And since it’s smaller the cost is lower to!

But someone has always been there before and in this case it’s Eva Håkansson. She’s currently involved in building the worlds fastest motorcycle and she has built an EV motorcycle with her father. This EVMC goes about 80 km (50 miles) at 70 km/h (44 mph) per charge.

Check it out here! Eva Håkanssons blog & gallery.

Wow, the solartaxi is a really nice little thing.

Going 100km per day on the charge from the onboard solar panels and a lot more when charged from the grid. To be fully solar powered the team behind the solartaxi built a solar power plant in Switzerland that feeds electricity to the grid, so that the charging of the solartaxi doesn’t affect the need for coal powered power plants…

Read more at the solartaxi website.

I would like to build a similar thing like this, but more like a streched minivan that two can live in and then travel around the world in a green way.

On the wish list: A tuner-style EV

Okay, here goes. The 2009 To-Do-List:

¤ Do monthly tests and reviews of energy saving products.

¤ Plan and start a EV conversion.

¤ Build at least 3-4 DIY projects.

¤ Update websites and release currently unfinished ones.

¤ Stop being a lazyass and start the projects now.

So, hopefully a summary in the early 2010 will show that I’ve done well.

I’m just a bit stressful before Christmas. A lot to do, have had the opportunity to work some hours for a company involved with interior design and stuff. I help with deliveries and mounting the chairs and tables, much new to learn. Anyway, that’s whats keeping me busy and I should be back to unemployed full-time-blogger in January.

Until then, Merry Xmas and a happy new year!

Solar panels

I read in my newspaper that the local library and two of the schools will be installing solar panels on their roofs. The solar panels (PV panels) will be used to run ventilation and heating and generates per year the same amount of electricity as five regular villas consume. Unfortenatly I can’t find the article online but in my search for that I found another article about the university, LiU.

LiU has had their energy consumption under the magnifying glass for quite some time now. Since 2004 the total energy use for all of campus has been the same, but they have put up new buildings so the total of used energy per square meter has dropped a lot.

Efforts have been made in installing energy efficient lightning and ventilation and the electricity is bought from sustainable sources. As the first university building in the county LiU has installed PV solar panels on the roof of building A. One third is covered and the panels is calculated to leave 50 000kWh per year (meaning up to 20% of the total electricity consumed in a year for that building).

A PakTrakr would be nice!

Let the hunt for auction bargains begin! Going for a cheap EV takes time, so why not start right now? I’ve been to a local auction and sweeped Tradera (Swedish equivalent to eBay) now and placed my bids. Hopefully I win some of them. My bids are put both for the gathering of EV parts and some for reselling the parts or tools to finance parts of my EV. Also added 1000 SEK to my paypal account (should be around $ 120 USD).

Current stats:

Parts to EV: 0
Parts/Tools for garage: 0
Cost 1000 SEK
Result: Poor

I got a polite PM from a user on DIYelectriccar, giving me a hint that the spelling on RechargeThePlanet wasn’t really that good. Well, since English isn’t my mother tongue I usually run the pages through Open office Writer but I’ve been to lazy to do that on Recharge and then forgot about it.

Said and done! Now I’ve checked it and hopefully it’s a lot better. Check it out!

New Favicons for Goelectric and Rechargetheplanet

Favicon

I’ve also added favicons to Go electric, EU! and RechargeThePlanet. It doesn’t really change the pages but it gives them a little nice icon when browsing in tabs in IE or Firefox.

Happy winter everybody! The first snow this winter fell today!
/Caffe