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Hacking the Nissan Leaf EV
An anonymous reader writes "The New York Times is running a story on people hacking the Nissan Leaf electric vehicle. 'Using Mr. Giddings’s home-brewed E.V. fuel-level display, Leaf drivers get the confidence to extend their driving range by 10 percent or more. His gauge, which displays the actual state of charge, reveals that the Leaf dashboard’s "zero bars" display comes on when the battery pack has several miles remaining.' Here's an interesting quote from one of the hackers, Phil Sadow, who was interviewed for the story: 'I don't like the term hacking because it's been portrayed by the media as something evil. To me, hacking is actually very American. Go out to the garage. Take it apart. Make it better.'"
Perhaps Nissan knows something about their batteries and BMS that he doesn't, and the false zero reading is there to ensure the batteries last as long as they're intended to? Last I heard, you weren't supposed to completely discharge lithium batteries if you wanted to ensure a usefully long service life.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Happy hacking - and it's your cars - you are allowed to destroy the batteries.
Until the iCar appears.
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Gas powered cars still go many miles after the gas gauge hits empty. A fuel gauge reading empty is suppose to tell you "Fill up as soon as possible" not tell you need to get out and push.
It just shows how much of the last bar you still have. Once you go from one bar to zero, you essentially only know you have "less than one bar" left, but not how much. There is no change to how deep the batteries get discharged, you just know better what risk you are taking if you decide to drive on. The TFA also tells about the software "hack" to the 120V charge cable to make it work with 240V as well. That's not so special, considering the same cable is used with different software in Europe, where 240V is the standard. Also improving it to be better, but not different.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Jules Verne does just that in From the Earth to the Moon: The Yankees, the first mechanicians in the world, are engineers-- just as the Italians are musicians and the Germans metaphysicians-- by right of birth..
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I also failed to understand why "American" is the opposite of "evil". There are many things that are both, and many things that are neither. I understand why the DIY culture is associated with Americans, but then again, so is the consumerist sheeple culture.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
If he wants to extend the range, he could try installing one of these...
Bottoming out batteries is absolutely retarded. Even "deep cycle" batteries are only supposed to be discharged to 20% AT THE VERY LOWEST. And doing so reduces the number of cycles by orders of magnitude. Another thing to point out is that batteries become EXTREMELY non-linear in discharge rate at the bottom of their SoC. I like his comment about hacking but everything else is retarded.
I'm a bit tired of people claiming that an activity is very american just because the person is from USA and likes it.
You must be the life of the party when an american brings up the topic of "american football" (as opposed to real football = soccer). I'm from the US, our style of football is somewhat popular here (only around 5% really care, but at least 50% go along to get along with them). So our style of football is very american, oh well.
The reason for "american DIY culture" is our profoundly anti-business anti-entrepreneur climate. If you own a set of wrenches in Ecuador even if you mostly work on your own vehicles you'll be considered a "pro car mechanic" by an American if you ever help your neighbor change their windshield wiper blades, so an Equadorian (?) in that situation can't be DIY if they're a businessman, so there is no DIY culture in Equador, even if the same percentage of guys are turning wrenches under a shade tree in their backyard... In the US we have a huge quantity of laws and regulations to prevent individual entrepreneurs from competing with the bigger businesses, because those bigger businesses have purchase the govt and "suggested" those laws to the purchased politicians to improve their profits. I can't even begin to imagine the paperwork and financial resources required to let me change my neighbor's oil for a couple bucks... but I can change my own (so far) without too much govt interference, although they're working on it...
An american DIYer is pretty much just a frustrated entrepreneur. In a better country they're be a very small part time businessman, a dude with a "side job".
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
This suggests that there's a lot to be said for not driving your battery charge down to "zero" (as defined by the battery controllers and the 3V limit). You'll get many more cycles if you avoid the extremes (full charge, full discharge).
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries
That said, most/all jurisdictions allow "personal sales" between neighbors, which allow things like changing your neighbor's oil or having your kid mow their lawn or babysitting or whatever. Have you actually looked into this?
The relevant language in this state is "occasional sales" and it requires a business license/registration, less than 20 days/yr of operation, no other licensing requirements (for example, all car air conditioning work requires a license, therefore all car AC work is sales taxable regardless of other conditions), well under poverty line annual income for the exempted work, can not be promoted as a regular ongoing business but solely as an individual transaction, and can not be the primary occupation / source of income for the business. Basically a lot of legal dancing around so church sponsored yard sales are tax exempt without actually writing "church sponsored yard sales are exempt".
So, at least for sales tax, I would not be exempt because I do not have a business license in a non-related profitable line of work. If I owned a scrapbooking store, and then I mowed the neighbors lawn, then it would technically be legally exempt IF I document it, etc.
Note this in no way removes my obligation to pay income tax. (We have a modest rate for both where I live)
Furthermore if I change oil I have all kinds of crazy federal EPA and state requirements. Not crazy if I deal in thousands of gallons per week of toxic used oil, crazy if I do this "once" for a friend in addition to maintaining my own car.
Also its illegal to operate a business of any sort on "my" property without a zoning variance. I'm generously allowed 8 rummage/garage sales per year, but no other exemptions. Technically I am zoned to work on my neighbors car in their driveway as a service to them, think of those mobile windshield repair vans or any building contractor, but I could not work on their car in my driveway.
I paid a lot of extra money to get a non-HOA house, so at least I don't have those little hitlers breathing down my neck, and I have nicer neighbors.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Bullshit. Plenty of people in the US have side jobs, and the regulations are pretty much nil for those. Just pay your taxes and don't rip people off. Some regulations kick in once you start hiring people, but those too are pretty much common sense. Pay them fairly, don't put them in danger. The "onerous" regulations that are the darling of the Know Nothings these days don't kick in once someone has certain numbers of employees, and even then, they aren't really all that bad. I mean, what's the big mean ol' government doing that is so bad?