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A Honda Civic With no Gas Tank (Video)
It took Dr. Adam Blankespoor two years and $14,000 to convert his 1996 Honda Civic into an all-electric plug-in vehicle. He's an automotive engineer and researcher, but if he can do it, you can probably follow in his footsteps and create your own electric vehicle if you are so inclined. He talks about a 45 mile range, with 30 miles as a practical limit. That's not competitive with the Tesla S, but there's also a massive price difference to consider. This is another person Slashdot met at the Ann Arbor Maker Faire. If you want to see what kinds of electric vehicles other have made, possibly for inspiration, the Electric Vehicle Photo Album is a good place to start. And if you want information on how to build your own electric car, using "electric car conversion" as your Google search term will put you on the track of more electric car information than you can shake a Tesla Coil at.
SHOCKING!
$14000 buys an awful lot of gas.
But, for another grand or two, he could have bought a brand new 40+ MPG IC vehicle with a warranty, all kinds of new safety features, and a range of hundreds of miles with a "recharge" time of about 5 minutes.
I don't understand why this is a story at all. People have been building short range electric vehicles since the 70s. Unless the summary was supposed to read 450 mile range with a 300 mile practical limit, I don't see what's exciting about this.
if you don't stop drivin' that hot rod Lincoln
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
If he were to fill up with petrol once a week at a cost of 40$ US he would be able to fill up for 8 years at the same cost of this conversion, not including the cost of charging. A Conversion to natural gas seems like it would be a more economical and easier conversion.
Hybrids have been out for quite some time, emergency response crews have adapted their processes to assume there is a battery pack and high voltage source in a vehicle.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
If it's a '96 Civic with "mods," the de rigeur for that means a 4ft tall wing, garish paint, and a fart-cannon exhaust.
If you really want an EV (as opposed to a hobby car) that you can count on for a reliable commute, why spend $14,000 turning a $2,000 16 year old car into an EV, when you can buy a Mitsubishi i-Miev for around $22,000 (after tax rebate)? For $6000 more you get a full factory warranty, twice the range, a car that's been designed to be safe in a crash with the extra battery weight, and no hassle from your insurance company if a charging problem burns down your house. Or for a few thousand more, get a Nissan Leaf for an arguably better car?
For me, his 30 mile practical range is a little tight... my commute is 10 miles each way - a detour to run an errand or due to a traffic accident could leave me uncomfortably close to the max practical range of the vehicle. Fortunately, my 10 mile commute is still well within comfortable biking distance, so I don't typically drive at all.
Oh boy, here we go.
Crumple zones and chassis structure are not touched. In a low-speed collision, nothing more happens. In a high-speed collision, there may be some leaking of electrolyte (The same way the lead-acid battery in your ICE car can leak), but there will be no dangerous inflammable liquids spilling around. Electrically, the battery pack is automatically isolated via inertia switch and circuit breakers and isolating fuses, along with contactors which separate on 12v power loss.
No. In an accident, the system is automatically isolated, as noted above. In addition, the power-carrying cables from front to back run along the underside of the vehicle, usually along the old exhaust tunnel, keeping them far away from anywhere emergency services may be operating.
Oil gets spilled. Some metalwork gets crumpled.
Some metalwork gets crumpled.
There are others who do this as a business. One of their celebrity customers is Anthony Kiedis, of Red Hot Chili Peppers fame, who had his 67 Camaro converted to run on electric power only.
Once you are married, your wife or gay life partner will likely insist on a second vehicle. Since most driving will fall within the range of an EV, you can use it without sacrificing the option to take the other gas vehicle for those long trips.
What would happen if you ran your gas vehicle into a nuclear facility...
They would scrape the remains of you and your car off the sides of the impenetrably thick concrete cooling towers.
Immovable object, meet easily squashable force.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think a primary reason why you might want to do a conversion is that you then have total control over parameters of performance, and can tweak them to your hearts content.
Also you can take a car you really like to begin with and simply make it run on electric, rather than having to buy one of the few electric car designs existing (Have not seen the i-Meiv but I hated the Volt's interior and dash)
I agree with you about the range on this being just too low. I'd like to see a do it yourself hydrogen conversion, which would be similar but eliminate the battery and give you great range.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Hey...what she wants to do with her own money...is up to her.
No free rides around this house....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
A couple small hills or stoplights can affect the range more than that.
Dealing with stall currents is tough on EV design.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/automobiles/autoreviews/one-big-step-for-tesla-one-giant-leap-for-evs.html?hp
Hey, just incidentally the New York Times reviewed the Tesla Model S today. There seems to be a lot of electric vehicle haterz on Slashdot lately, I don't get why, but if you're legitimately interested in the tech, rather than just Detroit astroturf, the NYTimes review is certainly worth a read.
"Put simply, the automobile has not undergone a fundamental change in design or use since Henry Ford rolled out the Model T more than a century ago. At least that’s what I thought until I spent a week with the Tesla Model S."
The summary says that this Civic-turned-EV cost two years and fourteen thousand dollars. Then, it says that it's no comparison to a Tesla S, but to keep in mind the difference in costs. So, let us do just that. Homebrew Civic EV: 45 miles per charge. Old, possibly structurally unsound body. No warranty. Seats 4 or 5. Acceleration is probably worse than the original car's lackluster performance. Possible voiding of homeowner's insurance (should something go wrong while charging). Cost -- $14,000 plus two years' time. Tesla S (60kWh): 220 miles per charge. New car with warranty. Safer body to meet modern crash standards. Seats 5 to 7. Sub-6 seconds to 60. Cost -- $60,000. The summary is right. There is no comparison between the two cars. The Tesla is not only a better car, but it's a better use of his money and time. It is more than five times the car for four times the money. Other than the street cred one gets for driving a sub-standard homebrew EV (if that gets you any in his circles), I can't see any justification for the time and money he pissed away.
"osake no hou ga, biiru yori ii" to omotteiru.
30 mile range is a 15 mile radius. That's barely beyond practical bicycle range. If he had picked up cycling (with or without a helmet) instead of converting his civic to electric, it would be better for the environment, he would be healthier, and it would cost a whole lot less too.
Yeah, I could to that or I could just buy a Prius. With the trade-in from my Honda that cash outlay might be comparable, and it would only take a few hours. :)
Of course there's plenty of room for research in this field. I wouldn't mind learning that type of engineering and having a corporation pay me for my time. There are plenty of people doing that and... designing cars like the Prius, Leaf, Volt, etc.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Sure, it's the same on the outside, but what about the stuff inside and possible outcomes if, say, it gets involved in a serious accident?
It won't explode if it doesn't catch fire. The JOL won't hurt the operator unless the engineers who designed the car are dumb enough to run high voltage cables through the doors.
I can't see how an electric car can be anything but safer than a gasoline car.
Free Martian Whores!
I guess he ain't that good an engineer as other can do larger ranges on a car like that for less.. and who even wants to convert an ugly civic :p
saw a guy converting his 'old' Jeep cherokee for less with about the same range (or a tad more), so I'm not impressed with a light newer car like that..
Stephen Wozniak on the Homebrew Computer Club
http://www.atariarchives.org/deli/homebrew_and_how_the_apple.php
If this was some regular Joe, you may have a point. This guy is a ENGINEER. We take safety issues and extreme scenarios seriously. However it is frequently the managers and accountants that forces compromises. This gentleman is fettered by neither.
It's "Slashdot" represented in 7-bit ASCII, LSB on top and MSB on the bottom of each character.
I think his point is the production hybrids are fine because they are built and made by large corporations with at least some incentive not to build death traps (anymore anyway).
Likewise, emergency responders will have a basic idea of how hybrid cars are put together and where the dangerous stuff is. If it's a self made car, you really can't be sure of what is where.
"I mean, why he put the batteries in the A Pillar I'll never know...and sadly neither will that Jaws of Life operator..."
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
I thought it was illegal to tamper with Federal Emission Controls, including removing them from the vehicle. All of the articles are slashdotted, so I can't go read them.
For those of you who have read it, did he address the legal issues surrounding removing the federally-mandated emissions controls from the vehicle?
Rationalization stuffed full of false dilemma in almost every line.
There's nothing wrong with saying you just don't like it, or don't like change, or you're inherently paleoconservative about how you travel or whatever. Don't need to make up strange rationalized constraints to fit a predetermined outcome. "I don't like it" is good enough.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
there's something very very wrong with converting pre-existing ICE cars to electric. look up the phrase "mass decompounding" for a clue, but in essence it's that a ICE vehicle is designed around carrying one very large heavy object which is typically 15% of the mass of the vehicle: the engine.
the *correct* thing - ecologically - is to design and build a vehicle that's right for the environment, based around the most efficient kind of drivetrain: parallel hybrid. it's possible then to get below 350kg, still carry 4 passengers, and only need about 15kW (20HP) even to reach 65 to 70mph. the problem is that for the average person, designing an entirely new vehicle from scratch is pretty much beyond their time and resources. the problem for manufacturers is, as anyone who has read "The Other side of Innovation" knows, to throw away the entire "efficient business production model" which has been highly optimised to make ICE vehicles and start from scratch - this is virtually impossible for them. (then there is the problem of laws regarding spare parts - but all of this is outlined here http://lkcl.net/ev/hybridcars_article.html)
so we are left with a rather shitty situation in which the only way in which the average person may make themselves "feel better about the environment" is to purchase an above-average amount of one rare earth metal (lithium), purchase an above-average amount of another rare earth metal whose extraction methods are seriously environmentally questionable (neodymium), purchase an excessive amount of a metal which is increasingly becoming in short supply (copper), throw far more of these materials into an excessively-heavy and over-engineered vehicle than should really be necessary, and call this utter waste of resources "progress".
even manufacturers trying to make us "feel better about the environment" by designing parallel hybrids - they're doing so by taking pre-existing 1.5 tonne vehicle designs and shoe-horning in expensive batteries and expensive motors (which adds to the weight and the cost) and everyone wonders why they stop making the vehicles when the government subsidies stop.
all-electric cars are a DEFINITE no - regardless of whether they're made by the average person or made by a manufacturer. we simply don't have enough lithium or other battery material to go round, for everyone in the world to have an all-electric vehicle. we also don't have enough copper or neodymium for everyone in the world to have 1.5 tonne (average weight) vehicles. we also don't have the Grid Infrastructure in cities to cope with the extra power. major cities in 3rd world and emerging markets are *ALREADY* on brown-outs, overload, or 3-day weeks.
the bottom line is that we *have* to get the power usage down, resource usage down (less weight equals less materials), and the best way to do that is with a 10kW electric motor in combination with a 2-stroke 5kW diesel engine as a Parallel Hybrid. the size of each of those two engines can be made absolutely tiny, yet there's enough power to do 70mph (eventually).
and if this all sounds like "talk" - it's not. my vehicle's also listed on evalbum.com. the main web site: http://lkcl.net/ev. i have a 2nd design in the planning phase: it's a 4-seater. given the issues and challenges involved in getting vehicles out there, if you'd *really* like to help the environment, then help me make sure these designs get put into production - please don't spend $14,000 on converting a pre-existing vehicle: consider spending $8,000 on a light-weight vehicle that's designed to be efficient in the first place.
I agree completely.
1) Battery technology currently sucks.
2) This proves for the 5000th time that one guy in a barn is smarter than those big evil car companies. Not!
3) This proves for the 100000th time that lone inventors can build something that most people won't buy because of to much $$$.
4) This project is as much a personal life-style statement as it is a technical advance.
5) There is no technical advance. People already know that stuffing $10k of batteries in a car will get you 30-40miles. (see Chevy Volt.)
6) As an electrical engineer, it pains me that electric cars are still limited.
7) I still want a BMW i3.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
All we need to be is inclined to make an electric car and we can "probably" do it? Then obviously there is not a need for engineers if just anyone with the inclination could probably reproduce their work.
The only difference between an engineer job title and a skilled amateur at home is an engineer job title spends 160 working hours and $1.38 to do what an amateur would do in one hour with ten bucks. You rarely if ever need an engineer to make one, unless its like one ... space station ... you need an engineer to make 100K copies profitably.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
You are correct, but missing the point as a lot of people are. Electric cars are important for reasons that have nothing to do with CO2 emissions. US electricity production is 100% produced from domestic sources, none of it from imported sources. Gasoline requires the US to pay various loathsome countries who don't have our best interests at heart. Anything that reduces US dependency on foreign oil and shifts it towards domestic electricity is a huge plus. We can worry about producing cars, even electrics, in a more environmentally friendly way after we break the dependency on foreign oil, or at least reduce it to an amount we can get only from trustworthy, friendly nations (ie. Mexico, Canada, Norway).
Dealing with stall currents is tough on EV design.
most people don't know what stall currents are. several wikifascists took issue with improvements to the "wheel hub motor" wikipedia page, recently, when facts were presented that showed that the efficiency of EV motors is far, far worse at low RPMs than any ICE vehicle ever could be.
for those people not familiar with "stall currents", stall conditions for an electric motor is when it is operating at or just above 0 RPM (i.e. stall). not only is the motor not moving (so there's not enough air circulation), but the electric wire, as an inductor, is capable of absorbing far more current. that just means more heat is produced, and that the efficiency is lower. a typical EV motor can be only 12 to 15% efficient (!!) at its lower RPMs! avoiding this worst-case situation is flat-out impossible with a Direct-Drive (Wheel Hub) motor. for a bicycle that doesn't matter so much (you can always pedal), but for a car it's a serious problem.
this is why VW's XL1 concept car has a *seven* speed automatic gearbox. electric motors have to be kept in their optimal efficiency band, just like an ICE does. it's complicated! much more complicated.
Really, $14,000 (plus the cost of the Honda) for 30 mile range. Think I could retro-fit a golf cart to do that for much less. Green is nice but so impractical when you look at the cost and the carbon footprint required to go green at this point. Fossil fuel is a better source for energy conversion right now and would be much better if the government would get out of regulating the efficiency. Many of you are to young to remember the first Honda Civics that got 60+ MPG with ice cold AC running. I had several and could drive a week on $8 worth of gas. When the government mandated that a computer had to be in the car to emissions gas mileage dropped drastically. By forcing all cars to run at a 14:1 stoichiometric ratio you are making most engines run at less than optimal power / emissions / fuel economy. The CVCC engine was efficient and clean. Easily passed any state emission checks and who doesn't want to get 65 mpg (67 mpg was the best i ever got).
I know guys that have converted other cars to all electric years ago for less than $14K. One did it for $5500 and over 70% of that cost was the batteries.
Electric conversions are not new or innovative, I helped do an electric conversion of a "Le Car" in high school automotive engineering class back in 1984.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Their cars are so insanely expensive that anyone who has the money to buy one, could easily afford a $30k car and the gas for it. Plus, unless you're generating it yourself or stealing it, electricity isn't free (laws of thermodynamics and all that). This is why comparing some guy's homebrew EV project against a Tesla car makes it seem all the more frugal. The reality is though, there are electric vehicles on the market (Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt) that the upper-middle-class can actually afford. If you figure this guy's labor was equal to what he spent on parts (as in, he could've spent the time working a second job), that's $28k right there he could've used to buy a Leaf. He'd then have something originally designed as an EV and new, with a warranty.
So, basically, he did this because it was a hobby. And by that metric, at least he has something to show for the $14k and the time he spent. I just don't see any practical reason for someone with different interests to follow in his footsteps. If you want an EV, simply go out and buy one. Of course, if you already have a perfectly working IC vehicle and the means to spend $30k, you're probably not hurting too much at the pump in the first place.
Honestly, I'd rather see more development in home fuel ethanol brewing. It appears the outdated anti-moonshining laws have put up a lot of red tape that tends to scare people away. Still, being able to make your own fuel for the IC car you already own is a lot closer to being a solution for rising gas prices than replacing or entirely rebuilding your existing car. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and all that.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
good luck with that. There was a case in the US a few years ago where someone was sued for not paying gas tax since they ran their car on cooking oil
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Your custom solar panel produces 600w? Where? In outer space? I have 200w panels, and I don't think 2 would fit on top of a pathfinder. And mine are 18% efficient at the panel level, which is pretty efficient. Perhaps if you use multi-junction space grade cells, you could get 600w, but that would cost more than a new pathfinder.
14000$
Price of Gas today: 1.24$ per Litre.
MPG for a 1996 Honda Civic: 31 or 13.18 kmpl
14k$/1.24$ = 11290.32 Litres of gas
11290.32 * 13.18kmpl = 148,806.45 Km.
So I would say from an "energy" perspcetive it is practical if perhaps your electric motor and batteries can even last 150,000 KM of travel.
From every other perspective, with a nominal trip range of 30 miles (48.2 Km), you would have to take 3087 trips or full charges before that is even possible.
So likely under any loosely defined definition of practical, I don't think it could be thought of as such. That is not to say that under certain very specific conditions it might be however. Living with a 20Km commute that you drive more less every day changing at night that might work. Of course even then, it would take you over 12 years of doing so (working 250 days a year) just to break even. So even then it is a bit of a strech.
However he probably enjoyed doing it, talking about it, and hey he just got an article on Slashdot.... :)
I think the arguemnet here, isn't if it is practicle or not, but the fact that gearheads routinely spend that on cars for no other purpose than they really want to...
Why does it have a 5 speed manual transmission? I thought that one of the advantages of electric motors was the low-end torque, eliminating the need for gear shifting.
Of course a buddy or volunteer network of recharged battery swap points would *never* work. Nor would having recharge coils in / under parking lots, service stations, ... anywhere cars stop at for a while. And, what advantage can there be for owning your source. Stupid, right? Not to mention the absolute absence of business opportunities and burocratic expansion inherent, I mean, absent from certification, normatization, insurance, service ... yeah. Bad Idea.
Yea, and who do you think will be paying for all those fancy, expensive infrastructure upgrades that only a small handful of people will benefit from?
If you answered, "everybody else," congrats, you win. Your prize? Understanding why what you suggest is complete fantasy.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
US electricity production is 100% produced from domestic sources, none of it from imported sources.
Really? When did you surrender and become part of Canada then?
That's what 5 or 6 square meters on the roof?
Also donut motor around the drive shaft? No suspension on the rear?
I call someone reporting his fantasy as reality.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
So where does he pay his road use tax?
Tyre* shop?
*Note - not British, I just like the way their spelling of 'tyre' better than ours; the 'y' makes it seem kinda bad-ass.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
What if someone asks pedantic questions such as "You are uphill from a bunch of zombies, need to get past them but don't have gasoline in the tank to make Molotov cocktails... what now?"
This has been talked over for years. If we had a viable energy source comparable to gas but without the pollution, EVs would be a winning solution for everyone. But we're never going to get there unless people keep pushing the tech! They are a solution for short range commuting now for many people, and things will only get better as time goes on.
My Dad is in his 70s, and has converted a Geo Metro, a motorcycle and a riding lawn mower to electric drive. The Geo had a range of about 40 miles due the the batteries available, which was more than enough for his short trips to town and such. He did this because it was fun and to prove that it is worth doing. He now owns a Nissan Leaf for the same reason. Say what you want about the looks and range, that car is FUN. It's so cool to boot it up and then whisper down the road. An overnight fill-up and he's good for the next day, no need to schedule a trip to the pump. No it won't do long drives, but that day is coming.
And to those that complain about the electricity coming from coal fired plants, which would you rather have: millions of inefficient pollution sources that are expensive and difficult to replace or a few large sources that can be regulated and improved as tech is developed?
And not make an all-electric "most boring shit of a car on the planet", then I would be happy.
Seriously Toyota and Honda create some of the most boring cars in the history of automobiles. They have boring designs and boring engines and boring performance and handling. People that drive the majority of cars from these fleets pay more for something that speaks volumes of how these people have no style or excitement in their lives. When I think of Accord or Camry, I think of 60 year old retires driving 40km under the speed limit. When I think of Civic and Corolla I think of university grads that haven't developed a life yet.
Toyota dropped an "all-electric" vehicle roll out citing that is little demand for electric vehicles world-wide. That is entirely NOT true. There is just little demand for the kind of crap Toyota has been rolling out as hybrids and electric cars over the years.
I mean, companies like Kia and Hyundai are at least TRYING to add excitement to their cars with innovative design and packing them with tonnes of features you can't even get as an option in a Honda or Toyota, but most Toyota and Honda have to be about the most boring car companies on the planet for style and performance, definitely 2nd and 3rd after VW whose only saving grace is allowing you to pick a peppy engine as an option on most of their boring derivative vehicles.
If you are going to make an all-electric vehicle then please make a statement, not convert some tired piece of shit driven by the most boring people on the planet.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Assuming it uses solid-state switches in a switched-mode arrangement (e.g., pulse-width modulation with an adjustable duty cycle), the switches would still generate heat.
AccountKiller
It's been a while since I was involved in electric motors, but can't you design the low-speed motor to be highly efficient by simply adding more poles?
I thought the hybrid cars usually had any high-voltage wires encased in a specially-colored jacket. It should be simple enough for amateur builders to do the same.
Giant stun-gun.
It should be simple enough for amateur builders to do the same.
'should be' being the operative word. You willing to bet, quite literally, your life on that?
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Yep, that's another place GM, of all people, kicks ass in this business. You get 10.5 kwh out of the middle of a 16kwh battery, and it has a battery temperature management system, unlike the Leafs, which are dropping like....in hot climates.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
If we had intelligent inspections in this country, it shouldn't be a problem: an amateur builder should be able to get a DMV inspection of his/her car and that should be one of the rules for EVs or home-built hybrids. In many states, they already have special inspections for home-built cars, where a DMV person will do a basic safety check. Considering how few people actually make home-built cars of any kind, it really shouldn't be that hard to have one competent DMV person in every metro area able to do such an inspection with an appointment. Note that I'm talking about a one-time road-worthiness inspection, when the amateur builder is applying for a license plate and registration for his vehicle, not the annual safety inspection that some states require and is usually done at independent businesses.
He's an automotive engineer and researcher, but if he can do it, you can probably follow in his footsteps and create your own electric vehicle if you are so inclined...
...and if you also happen to be an automotive engineer and researcher. And have $14,000 to spare.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Quite reasonable. I remember having a conversation with a gear head friend of mine on how he and his son had redone the brakes on his truck.
:) Yet there's no certification needed to pass, and frankly you'd have to drive the car (trailering it would make it too expensive) to get to the inspection station in the first place.
:)
My thought is, well he's good at that, but if I tried it I would not want to be around said car on the road
But yeah there are *many* things about our auto processes that are just amazing Rube Goldberg machines
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Done properly, the byproduct of most hydrocarbon combustion (HINT: Propane is a hydrocarbon) is water and CO2. Plenty of water coming out of the tailpipe of your average gasoline powered vehicle, it's just that it is phase changed from liquid to gas.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
$14000 buys an awful lot of gas.
Considering my EK Civic (97) has a fuel economy of 6.5 L/100 KM (combined) and I actually achieved this doing 80 KM p/d (1/2 highway driving and 1/2 city driving) $14,000 would by approx 10,000 L @ $1.40 a litre (average price here in Oz). The tank capacity of an EK is 45L so that's 222 odd refills. I used approx 34 litres in the Civic of Fury each week doing around 500 K's a week, thats 294 refils so that's just shy of 5 years and seven months.
Then again, my EK was a VTI model which had better fuel economy than the previous GLI models which the articles author had due to the fact it had VTEC (Honda introduced the VTI in 1997, the first Civic with VTEC). So his figures will be a little different (at a guess, 7.0 L/100 KM combined).
Still, he deserves full hacker credit. I have to wonder if he's added any extra weight. The Civic's 1.6L engine would be best described as "gutless" if the body was not fantastically light. The car weighed a little under 1000 KG which isn't bad for a 5 seater sedan.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
U joints allow the drive shaft to move. How is the motor mounted to move with the driveshaft? Is it on the output of the transmission or on the drive shaft as you claim upthread?
You also have 30% efficient solar panels (assuming 2 square meters of roof)?
Your numbers don't add up. Your description of the mechanics don't work. BS
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
In Brazil a guy converted a Beetle (called Fusca in Brazil) into a full electric car not so long ago: http://www.ecofusca.com.br/ The problem is that those mods are always so expensive.