Fun times: The Initial Drives

We like our parking TIGHT

So, so. how does it go?
Pretty darn good. Everything about this car seems to be a generation ahead of the other (red) one. Interior, fit and finish, doors, accessories, instruments. You name it. The powertrain in the other car is arguably more advanced, but this one seems to work better in the 'real world'. Well, excepting the loud klunk that happens no matter how you finesse the accelerator pedal. That's not what I'd call an improvement.

There are power door locks and one key works for everything. There is some motor whine but is's not real objectionable. Something is buzzing against the motor or gearbox, you can hear it rattling at certain speeds, but I'm sure we'll figure it out.
We went out for several drives with charging in-between. Getting the batteries broken in without damaging any of them. The pack doesn't look really balanced as yet. Hard to tell if it's real or just flaky results from the PakTrakr battery monitor (we've had problems before...)

With the Sean's high-zoot 84V system installed the car cruises at remarkably low current readings around town. You can get pretty decent accelation while still staying below 100 amps. This should lead to pretty decent range and battery life. Cool.

It's still voltage limited at higher speeds (above 35 mph) You can see the current drop off as the speed builds even with the pedal to the floor. Electric motors also act as generators. At a given speed there is a certan voltage the motor would generate. It's the difference between that voltage and what's available from the batteries that allows current to flow, and therefore torque generated to accelerate the car. As the 'generated voltage' (back EMF) gets higher as you go faster, the voltage difference drops until you can't accelerate any more, so you reach a steady state speed.
People tend to think that since the motor isn't all that powerful you should put smaller wheels/tires on the car to improve hill climbing ability. Kinda like with a gas car where if there isn't enough power available in second gear, you drop down to first and floor-it. DC Electric cars work exactly the opposite: The maximum torque is generated at the lowest RPM. To get the electric car to pull harder you shift up to third and floor-it, You get more power right up until you reach the maximum current limit on the controller. We're going to do approximately the same thing (gearing-wise) by putting taller tires on it. More on this later.

It's Here???

Or well, it should be here, and maybe it's somewhere around here...??
Viktor the car transport guy calls about noon and says his driver is heading up from Sacramento and he'll be picking up a couple more cars and running up to Corvallis. 6PM "He's leaving Grants Pass now, should be there around 10PM, will you still be up?" Yeah, no problem.
Excitement builds.
Midnight. We call Viktor "His cell is not answering and we haven't heard from him in hours, please call if you see him." I think he's getting worried.
Later, still nothing.

Edit: Morning
The driver (Peter) was in the Super8 Motel overnight. The desk clerk tries to call me using the number he's given but I got nothing. Contacted later he says Peter has left and yup, his cell's dead.
Peter talks to a waitress we know near our EV parking spot. She calls us and we trot over. Peter is gone and we search the area. He shows up with the car about 15 min. later. He has keys but no paperwork of any sort. A handshake and off he goes, really seemed to be a nice guy. The eastern european accent was noticable but he got his ideas across. Somehow these EV things always come out strange. This is WAY better than the last go-round though!

The car appears to be in great shape, though the StateOfCharge meter is showing a really low number so we park it and put it on charge first thing. Well, that and search it for manuals and paperwork. None to be found.

It's Ccooooommmmiiiiinnng

We have word that the car is all done, modifications modified, cleaned, tested and ready to ship. Amazing turn around time from the GPEV folks. He did it over this last weekend. Pretty impressive. Now we just have to wait for it to get carted up here and get the final paperwork and insurance messes worked out. Pretty exciting times!

Optional option Optioning

As our friends in Detroit will tell you, it's the options that make the vehicle! Or at least the dealer's bottom line. Oh wait, they're all working at McDonalds now. Guess it didn't work all THAT well.
Doesn't work much at ZAP either, about the only option that's worth thirty gnat farts (a really Really small number) is the leather seats (yuck) and the rooftop solar panel.
The solar panel sounds cool, but it really doesn't do very much (3% range increase for nearly $2K?) so, no thanks.

There are however a bunch of cool options that Sean down at GPEV can add: An additional battery (with improved charger) that adds 20% or so to both range and speed. Low power high brightness LED lights. Battery management system that actually has a shot at getting more than two years out of your batteries. Trick battery monitoring systems...
Like I said. cool stuff. Not exactly cheap stuff. Good thing we got a pretty good deal on the basic vehicle. Adding all that does things to the bottom line. Yes we could have gone up and acquired the vehicle from the failing dealer, done all the work and saved maybe $1000 ($800 after tax credits) but it's worth something to have it done right.

The Name's the Game

When we decided to get one, the first order of business (other than waiting) was to get a naming contest going. Pretty important stuff. That and waiting... Did I mention waiting?

So, what do we know about it, well we know it's a three wheel white electric vehicle. Yes clever You, they left off one of the wheels. The average new car is $28,000. This is a third of that. They had to leave off something. No matter, three is all we needed anyway. What else do you need to know for a Naming Contest?
There were several clever entries, and a couple of that *other* variety. Having seen the top of the blog, I bet you can guess the winner.

Names that were proposed:
Casper (Friendly, white, opposite of menacing)
GETA (Generic Electric Transportation Appliance)
Kelvinator (White, Appliance-Fridge-like, Cool...)
EVette
EVone
EVangeGal
TheNutCase
HolyCow (must be a Hindu white cow thing...)
White Ligh10ing
Stool (OK I kinda like this one, the only
good three wheel poop joke in the bunch)
SnowFlake
œufMobilité (actually he said egg mobile but this looks cooler)

Get those cards and letters coming folks. Naming is important stuff.
The winner gets a big kiss! The losers get several big kisses!
...and you thought winning wasn't important...
[Edit]
YES! have a winner folks:

le Fantôme Blanc

Awww, you probably guessed. What a letdown.
You cosmopolitan types have probably translated this into "the White Ghost" already. The rest of us less stylin' volk had to look it up.

Anyway...
The State of Oregon in it's immense wisdom thinks it's a Motorcycle.
This, it turns out has a number of advantages.
OTHER than the faint jeering noises you might make in the general direction of the state capitol.
Advantages like lower fees and insurance, and no odd electric vehicle surcharges and fewer supremely weird speed regulations: drive 25 in a 35 zone? 35 in a 40 zone? What? I don't think you can even SEE the speedometer from where most Legislators have their heads.

Back in the beginning

About time to get another'nother EV?
As you can see below, it was a long search process.
This is actually the second recent EV purchase. The first
is documented elsewhere. It had a few problems, most of
which got fixed up pretty well, but given it's LSV/MSV
(low/medium speed vehicle) role there are some commute
sections that it's really not suited for so I suspect we'll sell it.

The original story:
Due to a change in commute habits I sold my previous EV, a
U.S.Electricar 'Leopard' ( http://www.evalbum.com/190 ) a couple
years ago. The buyer got another couple years out of the batteries
after she bought it bringing the total up to right about ten years
for the pack. Those T105 Trojan's are pretty tough.
Though my '00 Honda Insight has been doing really well (68MPG
Lifetime) you can see that it won't last forever and there are
times when having a second vehicle (other than the motorcycle)
would be nice. For a 7 mi. mostly flat commute with a short
section of 45MPH posted, the Xebra looked ideal.
Especially if available in Blue, my S.O's number one color pick.

We first went to see our most local dealer, Southside Marine in
Corvallis. Craig and Tisha have been working on boat electrical
systems for years so being a Zap dealer is a pretty good fit for them.
They use a white PK as their parts hauler so they have some real
world experience. They have a very nice *blue* '08SD on the floor
which was the first '08 I'd seen. I was pretty impressed with how
good the '08 was put together compared with earlier ones I'd seen.
I also like the nice space they left for the 7th battery on the left
in the back once you nudge the motor fan over a little. We have
several Xebra's zipping around town here so I've seen a number of
them. Pretty cool.

Couple weeks later I made an appointment to see Larry up at Electric
Wheels in Salem. I originally contacted him about the Revolution R1's
(or similar) he'd been carrying and also his Xebra's. Once I got up
there he had like five different Xebra's on display and racks of
parts. Very impressive and really nice folks. We spent quite a bit of
time talking and he said he wasn't very impressed with the folks at
Revolution and wouldn't be carrying their cars any more. He did say
theres a MicroWatt from Green Vehicles (the Triac folks) available.
A very similar vehicle to the Revolution R1 but with many bugs
sorted out and sporting a 96V AC drive instead of the Revolution's
72V 6.5KW AC system. Sort of the next notch up the evolutionary
ladder from the Flybo/Revolution. He got pictures (blue!) and the
specs look good. I started thinking 'This might be the one' but I
really needed to sit in one to see if I would fit. My upper body
is fairly long.
In '07 and earlier Xebra's I had to sort of scrunch down to see
stoplights and such. The '08 is better.
I think Larry is going to do well once the Triac and Buckshot are
available and the new Moose mini-van looks pretty good too.
The Moose looks like it will be useful and cheaper than the Zenn.

The next weekend we went up to Gladstone/Portland to see Ed
at Green Scene. A little electric vehicle dealer right on Auto Row
between Oregon City and E.Portland. They have an R1 in stock and
a green '07 Xebra. The Xebra was as OK as any other '07, pretty good
actually. Wrong year and wrong color ;-) Ed was very nice and very
straightforward. The R1 he has didn't fit me very well since he had
swapped the stock seats with some much higher quality seats from a
Honda Prelude. Unfortunately they also decrease the legroom and
headroom. If you're under 6 ft. you should be fine. The AC drive is
smooth if not real zippy. It gets up to 36 or 38 and then flattens
out. The gear whine has to be heard to be believed. Fit and finish are
about equal to an '07 Xebra. Not great, not awful. It had the stock
flooded batteries in it and they seem to work OK. He had put in some
heavy duty shocks and rubber bump-stops to prevent bottoming
(more on that below) and the ride was on the harsh and jerky side.
Not dissimilar to some Xebra versions...
The Green Scene folding electric bikes are VERY Cool and he also
carries Larry's electric motorcycle/scooters.

Couple weekends later I scheduled some time down with Sean at
GPEV. They got us reservations at a nearby hotel at a discount.
Nice, great view of the Rogue River and only a couple blocks away
Sean has the maximum number of cool toys allowed by law.
The Myer's NMG 'Sparrow' with the 1000 Amp Zilla controller is a
nice ride. I don't fit in those either, plus, single passenger and
cost about 3X what I'm willing to pay. Still, well done!
He had several scooters, a Xebra SC (copper color) and a Red R1
at the shop and more Xebra's at his warehouse, plus a wall full
of just about every EV toy you could want.
It appears Xebra's are the main thing he'll be carrying going
forward. Sounds like he didn't like the Revolution folks much
either, and Dynasty and Kurrent are both pretty much gone.

Sean's R1 is red (I'm told 'that will do') and he's done a bunch of
cool tweaks to it. He found that the suspension was hitting the
charger 'cage' (a massive factory boo-boo) so he removed the cage
replacing the charger with a Delta-Q thus resolving the suspension
bottoming problems others have been 'fixing' with harsh shocks and
rubber stops. He also put in AGM's (the same ones Zap is currently
using) which makes the car accelerate a bit quicker. Probably won't
last as long as the floodies, alas. He also put in a dash mounted
PakTrackr and some sound deadening material. The 'straight cut'
gear whine isn't as bad in this car, ie: your fillings don't
resonate but it's still pretty bad.
I wouldn't be surprised if that noise killed a *lot* of sales for
Revolution. Anyway, Sean offered a good price and I bought it.
...but that's a different story...

I've been negotiating for quite a while with both my employer and the
landlord I rent my parking spot(s) from and they are both putting in
Electric Car Recharging Stations (OK, 20a external outlets...) for me.
This kind of thing can take considerable time and bother to get going
so don't give up hope out there. That said, it's WAY better to have
these things worked out before you go shopping. In one case I had
committed to paying electricians before I even had a car!
This is the first case I've heard of a landlord putting in a charging
station for a parking lease tenant (not directly associated with my
apartment rental) and if anyone else had heard of a similar
arrangement please let me know, if this isn't a first, it's pretty
darn rare.

I've been reading the EVDL for about 15 years, the Sparrow list
intermittently since it's beginnings and have been following the Xebra
list on and off for about two years. Until December I was about 90%
sure I'd be getting a 08/09 Xebra SD this year. Sure to be a blue one
since my S.O. really likes blue. All the great info from the Xebra list
really helped with the choice. Then the Stimulus Bill happened.
I really can't bear the thought of leaving $4K on the table, possibly
more given what the Governor has proposed in his Oregon budget
(who knows, maybe another $4K?)
So. I started out looking for a Blue Xebra and ended up with a
Red R1. Assuming the Oregon MSV regulations make it through,
I'll be set.
Or not.

Hold the Presses!
There is a big sale on Xebra's going on as a big dealer goes out of
business up in Portland. Sounds like Sean is going to be able to
get us one at a really good price. Given the commute route options
the Xebra looks like the best fit after all. Negotiations ongoing.
More later....