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Plug Bug
Plug Bug: The Electric 1969 VW Bug In April of 2010 I purchased a 1969 VW bug with the intent of converting it to run on electricity. In May I ordered parts. In January 2011, it finally moved!
At a glance: 154 volts, 200 ah, 30.8kw-hr battery pack. Roughly 80+ mile range when in the Santa Cruz mountains. Up to 100 miles if not driven in the hills, and maintain 55mph.
Components:
* Netgain WarP 9 DC Motor
* Netgain Controls WarP Drive Controller (1000 amps)
* 48 3.2v 200ah Thunderksy Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries, in series for 154v nominal. 192v fully charged. 200ah in each cell.
* Elithion Lithiumate BMS (Battery Management System)
* Belktronix DC-DC converter
* Manzanita Micro PFC-30 Charger
* Stock transmission, with standard clutch
* Front lowered 2″ with drop spindles
* Disc brakes all around
* 2″ shortened adjustable front beam
Range:
* Roughly 220-350 watt-hours consumed per mile
* 100+ mile range in theory (to 20% State of Charge), but acceleration and the hills take a lot away. My typical driving seems to give about 70-80 mile range to 20% SOC. That would be roughly 100 mile range to 0% battery (which I won’t do).
* Longest drive so far: 70 miles, and the battery was at 38% State of Charge. In theory, that is a 113 mile range to 0% battery level. This included driving over highway 17 twice (but lots of hypermiling).
* Update: another mileage test indicates about 120 mile range at 55mph on flat.
Performance:
* Better than a stock bug
* Lots of low end torque
* Drives 55-60 mph up highway 17 (> 5% grade at some places) and I can still accelerate
* Top speed, in theory 95 MPH (based on the gear ratio, and 5000 max ratio RPM of the motor)
* Top speed I’ve gone: about 80+ MPH
Pictures
 
 
—– Below are all posts in the “Electric Bug” category on my blog, from newest to oldest. —–
December 22nd, 2011 at 10:38 am ( trackback)
A few iPhone pictures of my car at Plug In America’s party from a few months ago.
Hanging out in SF:
Parked inside the winery on Treasure Island:
November 13th, 2011 at 11:26 pm ( trackback)
So, how far can it go?
Today I drove home from a Plug In America gala event in San Francisco.
I maintained 55 mph on highway 101 and 85 — relatively flat highways. This is the path:
The car was at 57% State Of Charge (SOC), meaning it consumed 43% of the battery (depth of discharge – or DOD). That was a 55 mile trip. So, in theory, that is a 127 mile range to 0% SOC! EDIT: I originally thought it was 60 miles, because that is what the iPhone GPS said…but looking at google maps at the point where I read the SOC, it looks like it was more like at 55 miles. So, I change the range estimate from 140 to 127.
It’s an extra ~10 miles to my house, which includes highway 17 (quite a steep hill!) I maintained 50mph (the speed limit) up 17, and the power consumed is nearly 3x what it took to maintain 55mph at flat. After those miles I was at 44% SOC. I took a screen shot of the Elithon BMS output on my iPhone (yes, I was talking to Kim while I took it):
So, based on that math, it would be 116 mile range. Since I never want to take it to 0% SOC (and ideally keep it above 20%), I can probably safely say I have roughly a 100 mile range with the car at 55mph – including a trip up highway 17.. 70-80 miles if I drive more “normal” (meaning 65-70 mph, and harder accelerations).
November 13th, 2011 at 9:20 am ( trackback)
The bug has about 8700 miles so far. I had to change the front right wheel bearing about 1000 miles ago. It started getting loose and making a lot of noise. When I took the bearing off, it was clear that it was trashed. There was lots of dirty grease inside it too. I think the brake dust contaminated it, along with the excessive heat from using the brakes so much (without any engine braking).
At about 8600 miles I also changed the front brake pads. The front pads were nearly gone. Yeah, that’s not a lot of miles! I upgraded to some ceramic brake pads from CIP1. I think they work better and are a little cooler (based on touching the wheel after driving home).
About two weeks ago I had some trouble with the car. I was leaving my house and after about 2 miles of uphill I hit the throttle really hard on a flat. The car tranny made a bad noise, and stopped moving! I pulled over and pushed the car to the side of the road. Luckily I wasn’t on highway 17 at the time! I didn’t want to deal with it right then, so I rode my unicycle home and got my gas car. I drove that to Santa Cruz and did my usual “Sunday ride”. Aaron was going to come over afterwards and help me “tow” the car home with my truck. He came over at about 5pm, and we were prepped to tow it. I figured the tranny broke, but just to make sure I stuck my head under the car and looked at the “dog bones” (Constant Velocity joint). The left one was not at all attached to the transmission! Instead of towing the car home, I got a few tools and managed to get two bolts on and drive it home.
The CV joint has six bolts. Four came loose and were hanging off. Two sheared completely off. This probably happened when I hit the throttle really hard! Yikes. I drilled out the two bolts and got two new ones from OSH and the car was back on the road a day later.
Then about a week ago the car was making some more noise and shaking on the left side during right turns. I thought it was the front left wheel bearing, so I replaced it (since I already did the right). It looked okay, and that wasn’t the problem. I figured it was the steering box, since it has always had some excessive up/down play. On Tuesday night I couldn’t do any maintenance to figure it out; I went to Cirque De Soleil to see Totem and drove the gas backup car to San Francisco. On Wednesday night I went climbing with Jason, and afterwards I took the front apart and figured it was the steering box. On Thursday I was set to drive to Bugformance in San Jose and get a new one, but when driving to work the car started making a worse noise: a big “clunk clunk” from the transmission and rear section of the car. It generally happened when the throttle was off and I was coasting. I did some research at lunch and discovered it might be the CV joint. So, I went home and took a look at the car.
The rear left wheel was shaking like made when I moved it around in my hand. Ah hah! That wheel bearing was the problem. So, I took it apart, pounded out the old bearings.
I then went to Bugformance at lunch on Friday (had to drive the gas car again! Twice in one week…geez). Luckily they had the parts I needed, and by 8:30pm on Friday the car was back together. I still got a new steering box since mine is also leaking oil now, but I haven’t had a chance to put it in.
The rear brake pads still look like they have life in them, so I’m going to let them go a while. Unfortunately, the rear left brake hose is about worn through due to some rubbing, and I need to replace it. I couldn’t do it yesterday since I need someone to help bleed the brakes. That’ll have to be a job one of the evenings this week when I can get someone to come over and lend me a hand.
September 20th, 2011 at 9:30 pm ( trackback)
A few pictures taken last weekend on West Cliff, Santa Cruz, California.
June 19th, 2011 at 5:53 pm ( trackback)
I’m working on getting pictures of my car with other’s of its kind (but more modern, in general).
Silver Leaf, at Apple.
RAV 4 EV (in Santa Cruz, today). Ken Adelman’s car.
Blue leaf, Cupertino.
Chevy Volt (does that one count?)
May 30th, 2011 at 8:36 pm ( trackback)
…with Girlventures!
May 29th, 2011 at 9:14 pm ( trackback)
The Elithion Lithiumate BMS uses a serial cable to talk to the computer. That’s kind of a pain to see additional information that the SOC display doesn’t tell me. It is also nice to see how the batteries are doing “on the fly”, or when I’m charging at work.
I bought a WiSnap and made a little case for it:
The red/black cord is for a 9v power supply, but it doesn’t need it as it can get its power from the RS-232 input. I can now connect to an adhoc Wifi network with my iPhone (dubbed “PlugBugBMS”) and see all the serial data from the BMS controller. Pretty cool!
I still want a better display, and eventually I want some easy software that displays cool battery status in a nice graphical package. I thought the serial port might be good to do it, but it won’t work. I need to tap the CAN bus line and somehow emit the data to my phone. Bluetooth would work, but the bluetooth connection kit (and SDK) for the iPhone is not free. I’m also not sure if the iPhone can connect to more than one bluetooth device, and I really want it to always connect to my hands free headset and car stereo. Now…only if that bluetooth device could tap into the CAN bus and report additional packets of information to a custom app on the iPhone…
May 29th, 2011 at 6:58 pm ( trackback)
I got my charger back from Manzanita last thursday and put it in the car Friday night. They weren’t sure why it busted, but the bridge rectifier had to be replaced, and they did some general tune ups. Unfortunately, it was out of warranty, so I had to pay out of pocket for it. But oh well…I’m still saving money on gas!
Here’s a picture of my charger’s bracket to allow me to mount it horizontally:
I also got my Belktronix DC-DC converter to replace my ailing IOTA DLS-55. Good news from IOTA is that they are taking the issues I brought up to heart, and apparently now have a prototype IOTA DLS-55 that is ruggedized and specialized for EV use! Cool! Evolve Electrics is helping them test it out.
Here’s the new DC-DC converter (the big hunk of aluminum):
No fans, so the car is now dead silent again. Yes!
Some other mods an recent issues. My brakes started leaking and went soft one day. The rear line I installed was rubbing against this member and got a small hole that let it leak out:
I replaced it and bent it better.
I had moved the radiator underneath and inline with the car, and covered it by some white screen to protect it:
It didn’t seem to cool the controller quite enough, so I moved it directly into the flow of the air. This involved some new pipes:
A new bracket:
And mounted:
The fans are still on it, but I may not need them anymore. They are still controlled by a temp switch:
May 18th, 2011 at 9:42 pm ( trackback)
I now have over 3000 miles on my car. Up till today, the only problems I have had have been with the IOTA DC-DC Converter. I’m supposed to have a replacement soon, as my IOTA may fail again at any moment.
Now that I have some driving experience, I have a better idea of the range. It’s not good to say that an electric car gets X mile range, since X various by many factors. Those factors are: how heavy you are with the pedal to accelerate, how hard and often you brake, how many hills you drive up and how fast you drive. I have one big hill on my commute (or, when I go *anywhere*), so I can never remove that factor, and I always want to drive at least the speed limit. But I can control how “soft” I drive.
If I drive the car “soft”, meaning reasonable acceleration and driving at the speed limits on the freeway (usually 65 mph), I could get a 100 mile range to 0% State of Charge (SOC). Last Sunday I drove 64 miles according to my odometer (or, about 62 miles according to google maps). The BMS said it took 122.3 Amp-hours and the SOC was at 39%. This drive was mostly at 65mph, aside from the 2 miles driving up my “driveway”, and then going 50-55 up and down highway 17. I had maybe one stop light each way on my trip. 122.3Ah * 48 (number of cells) * 3.2V (nominal voltage per cell) = 18785 Watt-hours (18.8kW). 18785.28Wh / 64 miles = 294 Watt-hours per mile. The batteries are rated at 200Ah. So: 200Ah*48*3.2 = 30720 Watt-hours of energy in the battery. 30720Wh / 294Wh/mile = 104.5 miles.
So, a good “soft driving” estimate for my bug, including a large hill and mostly 65 MPH on the freeway, is 104 miles. Generally, I don’t want to do this, as taking the battery lower than 20% is not good for cycle life. I also don’t have my BMS setup to limit power when voltage drops to a certain level, so it is dangerous (meaning, I could cause damage to expensive cells).
If you are doing a bug conversion, use about 300 Wh/mile as an estimate for what you can get. I rarely get better Wh/mile, but that is because of my huge hill I drive up. Wh/mile would be better if I didn’t live in the Santa Cruz mountains.
Now, if I drive “harder” I can get about 375 Wh/mile. That’s about an 82 mile range. So, I can probably safely say my range is from 70 to 100 miles per charge, but I probably won’t want to go more than 80 miles to keep it “on the safe side”.
May 18th, 2011 at 9:28 pm ( trackback)
Today when I went to grab my car at lunch I discovered that the Manzanita Micro PFC-30 charger wasn’t charging. I looked at it, and the BMS (Battery Management System) also wasn’t on. The BMS is turned on along with the charger when I plug it into an outlet. So, I realized the 50 amp / 240VAC circuit breaker must have tripped. I plugged the car into another nearby 50 amp circuit, since I couldn’t reset the breaker and there was another charging station right next to where I was. The BMS came on, but the charger wasn’t charging. It also had flipped its little breaker on the charger (also known as the power switch), so I flipped it back on, and it went “pop” as it immediately flipped back off . It also tripped the 50 amp main breaker on that outlet too. Ah, bummer!
So I emailed Evolve Electrics and Justin is having me mail the charger back to Manzanita. I have followed the instructions to the T, so I’m hoping it is covered by warranty. I’m also quite curious as to what is wrong, since I’ve charged the same way nearly every day.
I also took a look at the BMS stats; 812 kWh have been put into the battery pack. I think the BMS got reset once when I had it upgraded.
Hopefully I remember how to pump gas!
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