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2011 Progress Highlights
Perspective and Retrospective
2010 was spent receiving and installing the windows, trimming the body then getting it painted. We installed the batteries and charger, installed and wired the lights and installed the windshield wiper and controls. We showed the car at the SEMA car show in Las Vegas in November, 2010.
January, February & March 2011
The first quarter of 2011 was spent attempting to get satisfactory performance out of our motors and transmission. We found ourselves too optimistic in our belief of specifications given by motor manufacturers, so are (even now) upgrading the motors in an attempt to get satisfactory performance. We displayed the ElectriCar at the Portland, Oregon Auto Show in January.
April, May & June 2011
We continue to search for adequate performance from our various types of DC electric motors. The vehicle accelerates adequately as the computations indicated, but did not attain the top speeds we are needing. We added a second gear in our transmission to be able to run at motor-to-wheel ratios of 5.18:1 and 3.35:1. The problem we are encountering is that the DC motors have good torque at low speeds (about 10 ft lbs of torque per 100 amps at 72 volts), but that torque rapidly drops off at higher RPMs.
Our next attempt will be to switch to an AC motor that claims to produce 60 ft lbs at 0-3000 RPM, then decreases fairly straight-line to 20 ft lbs at the maximum RPM of 6000.
July, August & September 2011
We installed an AC motor that claimed 60 ft lbs of torque through 3000 RPM. Dynamometer tests showed were are getting about a third of that, so we upgraded to a motor claiming 100 ft lbs of torque. Even though we are still getting less than half the claimed torque, we have decided to stay with this motor, at least until the vehicle is licensed and legal to drive on public roads.
October, November & December 2011
We turned our attention to the computer programming. The computer reads the GPS receiver, the Hall-sensor tachometer, the I/O board that powers and reads the different light settings, the rear-view mirror application, and sends this information to the two instrument panels. We feel we are nearing completion of this phase, then will start the licensing application.