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A Build-It-Yourself Electric Vehicle
Taco Cowboy writes "Here's yet another exciting project for DIY geeks. Modi-Corp, a Japanese company, has just unveiled a new electric car that you can actually build yourself. Not to be confused with the Toyota 'Prius,' the DIY electric car from Modi-Corp is called 'PIUS.' It's a single-seat electric car that will be released next spring in Japan. The company hopes that the PIUS kits can be used as educational tools, expecting to sell them to universities and mechanical schools with the opportunity to have customizable parts embedded in the EV for testing."
Seriously? They didn't think to run that past a single english speaker? Or South Park fan?
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Cause I built those back when I was 12 using a starter motor from a truck.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
The Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust!
http://topgear.wikia.com/wiki/Hammerhead_Eagle_i-Thrust
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=430108543679549&set=a.430108540346216.103930.164801466876926&type=1&theater 38 miles on 28 pounds of lithium iron magnesium phosphate batteries in 70 minutes. Not bad...
Japanese Pius is so small.
Specs are 15 mile range and 21 MPH top speed. So we're not talking about a kit car, but a low end electric go kart. Seriously, the environment would be much better served if you went with an Ariel Atom since you're going to be killing the efficiency of everyone behind you or the inevitable towing when it only goes 13 miles on a charge after 6 months. I assure you, you will be much cooler and have a lot more fun to boot.
Ever try to fix electrical problems on a car? Nasty, way tougher to track down than mechanical problems.
I just hope they're equipped with adequate diagnostic systems to mitigate the challenge, but that will push up the cost.
But I suspect electric cars will preclude "home mechanics" more/less entirely.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzvtY5TzqKQ
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
An electric go-kart. Whoopee.
I'not an employee of RQ Riley, but they've been selling plans for DIY cars for ages, including options for electric propulsion. Some cool shit, especially the hybrid Diesel DIY car that reputedly gets 225 mpg.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
"15 mile range and 21 MPH top speed"
Runs for 43 minutes at top speed; AND it can go 300 city blocks; how impressive. I just might need to put that bicycle away.
stupid
There's pius coming out of your pius. Don't worry. Penicilin will fix that. Genius.
How can a 4 wheel vehicle with a steering wheel be classed as a motorized bicycle in ANY country? It makes no sense whatsoever.
Does it come in pieces, each fortnight, on a magazine? First issue only $19.99!
This is no more a DIY EV than Lego Mindstorms is autonomous robotics. It's a one size fits all kit and the fit at 15 miles and 21 mph is pretty lousy. It might be a fun toy if priced at under $500, but where's the educational value? I'd guess it uses rudimentary components (simple DC motor, rheostat, lead-acid batteries). You could get the same education building an electric RC car, plane, or boat.
...only cheaper: http://www.fisher-price.com/en_US/brands/powerwheels/Products/ProductDetailPage.html?pid=49932&st=7935&pcat=pwheels_all-terrain&e=product
21mph? Not exactly practical.
See http://teamtrev.com/ :
http://teamtrev.com/about/
Trev, the idea
Using tonnes of noisy, complicated machinery to move one or two people comfortably and safely around a city is crazy. The same task can be done using much less energy in a lightweight electric vehicle. Powered by renewable energy, mobility becomes entirely emission free. (more)
Trev, the car
With that idea in mind, some clever folks at the University of South Australia created a lightweight and beautiful car which they called Trev: the Two-seater Renewable Energy Vehicle. (more) ...
The Pius. How's that for a pope mobile? Incidentally there are several popes named Pius, including two that served during World War 2.
--Anonymous Catholic
Given the range and speed I don't see the point. There are companies that will convert your old used cars for 10K to an electric that gets more miles per charge and does freeway speed. With a little research you can build one yourself for less than that including buying the used car. It's a toy not a car.
Did anyone see the picture with the chassis off? Looks like one of those distopian steampunk cars from FFVII.
A guy built his own electric pickup truck and documented the process well enough that others could duplicate his work.
The vehicle has a range of better than 40 miles and can travel at highway speeds. If gasoline and other fuels became very expensive, such a vehicle would be attractive.
http://www.evprogress.org/
I was seriously considering converting a pickup truck. Then I found out about shale gas. If, for some reason, gasoline became very expensive, almost any vehicle could be converted to run on natural gas. We have a lot of that and it probably won't become expensive. In fact, T. Boone Pickens wants America's commercial truck fleet to convert to natural gas. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-29/trucks-run-on-natural-gas-in-pickens-clean-energy-drive.html
Converting a vehicle to run on natural gas is much more practical than converting it to run on electricity. Electric vehicles are, for the time being, pointless.
Build a Pius! Because you are geeeat!
I like it but the designs are idiots. They put the steering wheel on the wrong side! Probably some moron engineer didn't realize the blueprint was upside down.
http://www.rqriley.com/xr3.htm
Older designs such as his trimagnum go back years
They should strive to do something new or better or just license his
NY resident here. I have to think it is not legal to drive this thing anywhere but on private property. I don't think NY even allows electric bicycles (perhaps there is an exception for New York City). Could someone in the know clarify? Pretty sure any four-wheeled thing is NOT considered a bicycle. Three wheels and you can claim motorcycle status, but not four. Also 21mph is not fast enough. This is a toy. The main function of vehicles like this is to make the mainstream manufacturers look bad. Any two guys in a barn can whip up an electric car, but Ford can't. Those big evil companies are so lame!!
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
Dunno what the purpose of TFA is, since it's describing a joke vehicle or toy. There are already several proper pure electric cars around, so what do we need jokes for?
The Mitsubishi i-MiEV is just one of several real and very usable EVs now available in the UK, really perfect for the vast majority of UK daily travel -- http://www.mitsubishi-cars.co.uk/imiev/
It's only the long-distance traveler that still isn't served well by EVs. For everyone else, they're here. See also Volvo, Honda, Nissan, Citroen, and many others.
That man always has his money invested where is mouth is. He puts forward a good pitch but one should expect that given his background... Question is, does he mean what he says (many biz guys are great at BS) or is he simply doing a good sell of his personal kind of green-washing? Given some of his past moves, he might be sincere but he can't help but make money (old habits) on his position and this undermines his creditability. Because he is not a "liberal" or environmentalist he doesn't get attacked like Al Gore for conflicts of interest, despite his being obvious.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
I'm being pretty crass. I'm only worried about having a vehicle I can afford to drive. The environment was the last thing on my mind when I posted. ;-)
I do have a question or two for you. It is my impression that lead-acid batteries are more easily recycled than other battery chemistries. Is that true? It also seems to me that the thing that makes electric vehicles uneconomical is that the batteries need to be replaced every couple of years. What are your thoughts on that?
I expected more slashdot.
This is as bad as Apple claiming to have invented rounded corners (sorry couldn't resist that cheap shot)
Seriously a hobbyist/ university is much more likely to experiment with the EXISTING superior alternatives.
Many electric options exist for kit cars.
Many dozens more exist for retrofitting existing cars with electric motors (the most popular being the VW Beetle from what I have seen)
And the upside of working with these solutions is that they are FAR more likely to be passed as road registerable (because they use an existing tested base vehicle) than something that has not been run through any of the international safety tests.
I have a 2003 Nissan Pathfinder 4x4 that I turned into a hybrid vehicle. I had two custom driveshafs made that connect to a custom 20HP electric motor mounted between the output of the transfer case and the rear differential. The electric motor runs off of a 165V LiFePo battery pack I built and charges from the vehicle charging system when the manifold pressure is above a set manifold pressure. Below that pressure the motor turns on and applies a variable torque to the drive shaft directly.
I can adjust the trigger manifold pressure and motor torque on the fly depending on what I need.
I've gotten 25MPG in town and 22MPG on the highway (the EPA ratings are 15 in town and 18 on the highway). The only thing I sacrifice is a little bit of ground clearance, and storage in the luggage area for the battery, which is about a 1-foot cube and has a capacity of 10.8 AH at 165V. I also had to install a 300-Amp alternator to charge the pack quickly (although I can vary the charging rate as well and save on I2R losses when I don't need to charge quickly)
The whole system adds about 200lbs to the car, and cost less than $3000 to build and install.
[rom TFA] Not all of the official specs have been released, but the Pius does have an electric range of 15 miles and a top speed of 21 mph.
So basically it's an electric go-cart you can build yourself. Just like every other electric go-cart. Yawn. The only part that might be worth anything, considering that if you're building something yourself it is cheating to use a kit, is the body, since it looks at least vaguely aerodynamic. But it's not building it yourself, it's assembling something yourself, that comes in a box marked, "some assembly required".
Kind of like if you have two guys in their respective living-rooms, each saying he built his own entertainment center, and one of them was is made of wood that was sawn, surfaced, planed, and sanded, then fit, inlaid, shaped/routed, glued and screwed, then finally finished by the guy himself, the other was bought at Walmart and put together while watching TV for 30 minutes.
Does this "story" qualify as a slashvertisement?
Seriously, what's the point of making a car if it doesn't have some kind of canopy to protect from the weather (even a convertable), and its crash-worthiness is that of a go-kart? Might as well make a trike out of it.
...for adults! Finally!!! Seriously though, WTF /.
I built an electric recumbent bike with the same range. What's the big deal?
It fails on both aesthetic and practical grounds. A bicycle with an electric assist would be better. Or better still, just a bicycle.
Shriners. that is all.