I'll be interested to see how it works out, will the caps hold enough juice after a period of prolonged/hard acceleration? Shame that thing just sat there as a home for rats.
That car is probably the coolest thing GM has ever built. Just imagine how many they could have sold during the summer of 2008 when gas peaked at $4.50/gal. What a tragedy.
yes tell more!!! o the link is not working over here? did GM already send some lawer to this project?
ok i can open it. OMG this is just amazing and look at what bad conditions this guy is working in. this EV-1 needs to be transfurred to a better place.....its special!! one of few..
I thought they crushed them all except for one intentionally disabled and put in a museum. As far as the described project: Hey folks, they're taking a pure EV and converting it into a gasoline car!!! THAT'S CRAP!!!!!
is it not a hybrid because there is still a battey pack( bigger then needed for a hybrid.. so it wil be a plugin hybrid haha ) and maybe because of cost of that pack the student now uses a small generator?
Very cool! A second thanks to Bob Wilson for finding/posting it. :cheer2: I am dismayed that the plan is to convert the car/mechanicals to a serial EV. I believe that this simply is not the time for such an insensitive treatment of this historic vehicle, and for the idea of real- world capable electric vehicle propulsion. With the Leaf, Think Ox, Mitsubishi ImiEV, Fisker, Tesla EV, etc. just over the Horizon, now would be the time to put the vehicle back on the road as a full EV with updated batteries and digital comtrol systems. IMHO, doing so would send at least three messages: 1. To GM it would be a slap in the face. Justified, I believe. It would say look at what you have forsaken, where would you and this country be vis-a-vis energy independence and sustainability if you had not been so short term goal/return oriented. 2. While the tooling for production of the car is long gone, the plans and specs still exist... somewhere. Many of us don't see the Volt as a "progress" at all. This car however with 100 mi range and 60+ MPH would be very attractive. 3. This car, even as "out of date" as it is, could serve as strong encouragement to the Detroit3 that with foresight, dedication, and committed management they can be global industry leaders again.
They are planning to us a bank of ultra-capacitors to hold and store the energy. The engine is just there to replace the average energy lost, to give is some range. If it were my project, it would have these phases: Baseline - get the ultracapacitors, motors and range extending ICE integrated ... don't let the "smoke escape." Optimize electric cycle - make sure the regenerative braking and plug system works. For example, don't regen into a full capacitor bank and discover what happens when the dielectric fails. Optimize the ICE cycle - replacing the lawn mower ICE with something a little more sophisticated ... Stirling engine come comes to mind. Investigate alternative ICE systems - micro-turbine, multicycle, external combustion. Expand to co-generation - providing bi-directional power to and from the grid and/or local home. Maximize waste heat recovery. Now I probably would not have used an EV-1 body but gone with a kit car ... but then I also realize the 'press' of using the EV-1. Bob Wilson
Given the cost and capacity of today's available capacitors, I presume this is a gasoline-powered serial hybrid with little if any plug-in capacity. IOW, it is a gas-electric hybrid powered by gasoline, just as the Prius is, the only difference being that the Prius is a series-parallel hybrid and this is a series hybrid. That's why I say CRAP to them, for turning an EV into a gasoline-powered car!
I believe that in order to get the car in the first place, the university had to sign an agreement with GM that they would not return the car to its former powertrain. That's why the restorer is using capacitors instead of batteries.
Okay. But turning it into a gasoline-powered car is just disgusting. And this reinforces what I've been saying about GM: Why would GM release a really superb electric car to a university on the condition that they not restore it to what it was? My answer: GM is a criminal organization that, to promote its sales of gasoline through its oil holdings, does not want to allow an electric car on the road. The criminals running GM want us to believe that they've changed; that they're going to manufacture a wonderful mostly-electric car. Yet they still will not allow this one remaining EV1 to be driven as an electric car. WHY NOT??? I'll tell you why not: Because they are determined to block electric transportation with every ounce of their putrid souls! That's why not. And the university is playing into their game by converting an EV1 electric car into a GASOLINE car!!! And if they ever do sell a car under the Volt name plate it will be a car that in real-world usage, for the average driver, will end up burning more gasoline overall than a 2004-9 Prius. And probably more than a conventional (non-Hybrid) Honda Civic. It is a national shame that the government did not follow the suggestion of Michael Moore, and convert GM into a maker of renewable-energy infrastructure. We own that vile company, and we could have turned it into something positive. The biggest mistake President Obama has made in his time as President was allowing GM to continue to function as the criminal corporation it has always been.