Considering the Silver Streak project – the 400 mile per charge EV1-powered Insight currently under construction, it seems appropriate to repost the following story about my adventures driving an EV1. Recently

Hello to all, I am once again, on the road on business, traveling by air and doing the usual car rental thing, but this trip is a bit more interesting, and I wanted to share a highlight with all of you.

As my travels had me going into Orange County, CA, I had originally made flight arrangements into John Wayne. As I have made it my policy to rent environmentally friendly vehicles whenever possible, I often rent from ‘EV Rentals’ who is associated with Budget Car Rental. While in Phoenix, I rent Insights as they do not offer pure EVs at this time, but since I was in southern CA, I looked into flying to LA instead of Orange County, as the EV Rental facility there has the largest choices of EVs and hybrids to choose from, and if possible, I wanted to rent an EV. As it turned out, I also saved my company some money with the less expensive Portland / LA round trip fare, as opposed to the Portland / Orange County trip fare.

The plan was, that I would drive the 45 miles or so from LA to Orange County. After my business was completed, the following day I had a meeting set up with a certain magazine who will be doing a feature story on my Honda Insight. That evening, I was to drive back to LA, return the EV1, hop on a plane to San Diego, and rent an Insight for my travels there (no pure EVs to rent there, either). Next, I would fly back to LA, then fly to Portland.

I had made all of the rental plans in advance with Gail Lee (she was extremely knowledgeable and helpful), so the folks at EV Rental in LA were expecting me. Arriving at the Budget facility, I was surrounded by EVs and hybrids  - there were Honda EV Pluses, Priuses, and RAV4-EV’s…they even had a space alien green Insight on the lot…I was in EV heaven!

I was treated like royalty by the nice folks at EV Rentals, and was even taken out to breakfast by their Director of Operations and Planning, Terry O’Day, where he and I talked about everything from air pollution to EV drag racing. As we talked, Terry suggested that I cancel my flight to San Diego, and instead, just keep the EV1 a few more days and drive it down instead….why not? With NiMH batteries, the EV1 has a 140 mile range!

I was turned over to Joe who walked me through the orientation procedure they take all EV renters through, and just like Gail and Terry, he too, was very friendly and well prepared. He knew I was an EV God, but I asked him to nonetheless, pretend that I was an average consumer who knew nothing about the EV1.

The beautiful baby blue EV1 had an estimated driving range of 115 miles displayed on the dash as Joe and I sat in the car. This represents what the car’s computer has calculated (based on how previous drivers had driven the car) to be the range the next driver will get, if that next driver operates the car in the same fashion. This then represented ‘the game’ for me, that is, I HAD to beat that figure and get the estimated range to a higher level. As Joe explained to me, most drivers get from 10-12 miles per bar segment of the 10 segment ‘Fuel gauge’ display, so I also took this in as part of ‘the game’, and was determined to better that as well….after all, I am the ‘EV God’!

All of the above quickly evaporated from my brain, because as I was being a good boy accelerating gently and driving in my ‘range-oriented Clark Kent EV mode’, I came to the 405 on-ramp. As I was driving up the ramp and onto the freeway, on my immediate left was a guy who had just rented a white V8 Mustang and he was looking over at my EV1 and smirking as though he thought the EV1 was a joke.

The on-ramp has two lanes that squeeze down to one, and after pacing along side me checking out the unusual car, he looked over at me, laughed a bit, and stepped down on the throttle, evidently thinking he was just gonna blow off that pesky, weirdo eeelektric car. I of course, had him all figured out and was expecting his macho move, and at the same instant that I heard his mighty V8 growl and dig in, I ripped open my shirt to reveal the big ‘S’ on my tight fitting under shirt, and punched the throttle hard.

It was great, because the pavement was smooth and shiny asphalt, and as the EV1 squealed its front tires at 30+ mph, one of the car’s many dash-mounted ‘idiot lights’ flashed “Loss of Traction” (I kid you not). The 0-20 mph prowess of this AC powered car is just ‘OK’, but the thing comes alive after that and really gets with the program! No, the EV1 is not a muscle car, but it’s 20-70 mph performance is pretty close to that level. With the front end shimmying as the front tires bit in, I rocketed in front and around the idiot on my left with ease…..what fun! I kept the pedal down as the little EV1 pulled hard right to 75 mph or so, then eased off and gently hit the brake pedal just enough to light up the brake lights so that the Mustang dude in hot pursuit could see my intentional slow down.

Sheepishly, he came around me on my left, looked over at me again, but this time simply shook his head in disbelief. I smiled, gave him a thumb’s up (much better than that other hand gesture), and settled down to reasonable freeway cruising speed. I saw that the computer had been watching me, and the estimated range had dipped a few notches to 112 miles…..argghh! OK, time to go back into the Clark Kent routine…time to employ my usual high miles per charge techniques.

I switched off the coast-down (we EVers call this off-throttle regen) feature, so that I could let the EV1 glide along on slight down hill runs without the car trying to slow down putting a small bit of juice back into the batteries (I’d save this feature for later, as when exiting the freeway and for congested traffic stop and go driving). As I cruised along at 58-66 mph, and as the miles went by, the estimated range figure began to grow….115, 116, 118…eventually hitting 125 miles. Forty some odd miles later, I took my exit, and ending up at my destination, I had traveled 45 miles, and just two of the bars had gone away on the 10 bar fuel gauge!

I parked the car and met with my contact people, who after learning I had driven an electric car to the site asked, “Why don’t you pull around to the back area and use the electric car chargers?” Man, this was way cool! However, I was in for two surprises when I found the ‘chargers’. The first surprise, was when I found that there was another EV1 at one of the stalls, a bright red one, and the second surprise, was when the ‘chargers’ turned out to simply be dedicated 120 vac outlets lined up on a brick wall with ‘Reserved for Electric Vehicles Only’ signs above each outlet for each of four stalls. This was true irony….allow me to explain.

Those of us in the EV community who have been designing, building, and driving our ‘backyard built’ EVs for the past 20 years (especially southern California EVers), were pretty excited when we learned that up to 200 EV charging stations were being set up to provide an EV charging infrastructure…what a great idea! We then really felt a rub, when we learned that most all of these sites would have a Magnacharger for the newest breed of EVers driving their GM EV1′s and Toyota RAV4-EV’s, but that 120 vac and 240 vac standard issue outlets for the rest of us, the EVers who had paved the way and paid their dues for years, had been left out of the picture.

Now, here I was, driving an EV1 and thinking how great it would be to find a Magnacharger at this work location waiting to refresh my EV1….imagine my surprise when I found that there were no Magnachargers, but instead, the elusive outlets we had been crying for. To add insult to injury, with the exception of the red EV1, I found three stink’n, gasoline burn’n, air pollute’n cars had hogged the EV spots! I slinked away in defeat and returned to the main parking lot with all the other cars, but this was no big deal since the EV1 still had the bulk of its charge left….thank you, NiMH batteries. Still, it would have been pretty neat to have driven from LA to Newport Beach and to have found a Magnacharger at the worksite. I told my friends in the building what I had found, and we laughed as I told them how I should have been driving a converted EV instead.

Later in the day, I was at my motel and hooking up to the Magnacharger (I booked myself into hotels that had chargers) which displayed a reading that reported 68% of the battery power was left, this, after traveling 47 mostly freeway miles. The EV1′s ‘Full-Empty’ fuel gauge still had just two bars missing out of the ten. Today I will be putting more miles on the EV1, then after a recharge, will head south to San Diego. Having more fun than an EVer is allowed to have….

Wednesday morning I awoke in my room at the Atrium Hotel in Newport Beach, a very nice place adjacent to another nice place, the Orange County Hilton, where the EV1 had been left overnight at the Magna-charge EV refueling station.

I was excited, because on this day, I would have a fun freeway drive over to Anaheim where I would meet up with the magazine folks (sorry, they’ve asked that I keep which magazine it is a secret until just before the issue’s release….hint, it is an autosound type, and my Silverstone Metallic Honda Insight gas/electric hybrid with its 750 watt Phoenix Gold-MB Quart sound system will indeed, grace the cover as the world’s first hybrid soundoff car) to discuss the upcoming article.

The charger was indicating that my baby blue electric steed was raring to go, fully charged, and ready to respond to my Wayland ways. Speaking of Wayland ways….because of my antics on the way back to the hotel Tuesday evening, as well as when I went out for a Chinese dinner, both the charger and the car’s ‘Range’ meter indicated an estimated driving range for the topped-off battery pack of 105 miles…even less than the original 115 mile estimated range I saw when I first picked up the car Tuesday morning from EV Rentals. I guess that showing off to those young guys in the Lexus on Von Karman Avenue, plus the bodacious tire squealing launch (sometimes the traction control gives up on trying to keep me in line) for the benefit of the guy in the lowered Honda, when at a light on Michelson Drive out his window he asked if the car had any guts, had taken their toll and the car’s computer had gotten to know me.

No worries mate (love that Aussie lingo)…It was a new day and another chance to redeem myself. I took it pretty easy on the way to the lunch meeting, partly because I was trying to convince the computer that I really could be a model citizen, and partly because I was unfamiliar with where I was going and had a specific set of hand-written directions I was constantly looking at.

My diligence paid off, and after 20 miles or so of mostly freeway driving, when I arrived at my destination the range meter reported that 99 miles of driving was still available…that was just 6 miles less then the beginning total of 105. It’s weird how this gauge works, as even though it estimates how many ‘miles per charge’ you will get based on the average current draw over time (including the time before the last charge), it also counts down and reports the miles left and available as you drive along (as it did on my first day as I saw it actually increasing as I drove along with a very light throttle). Thus, it is possible for the estimated range per charge to grow as you drive along if you are driving at very light current loads, and conversely, if you drive like a madman (who, me?) you will see the gauge plummet to ever lower numbers as it recalculates the estimated miles per charge.

The meeting with the magazine guy could not have gone better. He had never ridden in an EV, much less an EV with as much spunk as the EV1 posses, and when he asked how well it accelerated (this after he had also told me how he is ‘into’ import drag racing), I couldn’t hold back. I planted my foot down as we rounded a corner and the EV1′s induction motor spun up instantly as the Michelins lost their grip (again) and screeched in protest…..his response, “Geezzzzzzz!!! Oh my gawd!!!”

After some killer Mexican food and intense conversation over lunch, we returned to the business tower where on the 11th floor, I had the ear of many top magazine execs as we talked hybrids, EVs, car stereo, EV drag racing, etc. I had to take one of them back down and out of the building to give him a test ride in the EV1….so much for Plasma Boy, model citizen. With their enthusiastic permission, the EV1′s traction control was again put to the test, and with those poor front tires screaming in protest and the ‘range per charge’ meter shaking its finger at me, I resurfaced the front driveway, and a couple of blocks out on the street with a thin film of black rubber.

As I’m doing this, while the magazine exec next to me is living it up and hollering uncontrollably, inside my brain I’m thinking, “Hmmmm, I’ve gotta drive 90 miles or so after this, all the way down to just north of San Diego, and here I am, bleeding off electrical power like a Ford Excursion sucks gas.” On the other hand, I also knew of a certain Magna-charger back in Newport Beach that could put it all back. in short order. It was near 4:00 PM when I finally left, and the EV1′s dash told me I had squandered my charge down to just 87 miles availability (listen to me, after just two days with a NiMH powered EV1, I now think of this kind of range as ‘just 87 miles’). I reverted to an easy driving style again, and cruised along the freeway in the slow lane at around 58 miles per hour to keep the current draw to a minimum.

Arriving back at the Hilton, I had added another 41 miles to the car’s trip odometer for the round trip, and I had now racked up a total of 98.2 miles since I picked the car up at EV Rentals. By taking it easy, I managed to keep the range per charge meter from dipping too low, and it now indicated that 79 miles were still in the tank. At 4:30 PM, I hooked up the paddle, and with the ‘time to full’ shown to be 2 hours 5 minutes, figured that I could leave for San Diego at 6:30 PM. I went inside the Atrium Hotel, settled in at the bar for a coke and a cheese & fruit plate, and had some lively discussions with other patrons about EVs and the whole EV Rental thing.

At 6:00 PM I took in Al Gore’s “every vote must count (unless they’re for George)…love them pregnant chads…I’m outa here to fix horse fences” speech, then afterwards, returned to the EV1. At 6:30 PM, 2 hours since first going on charge per the charger’s estimate, I was a bit surprised to see that the EV1 was still taking on juice with a not-yet-full reading of ’87% full’ displayed, so I sat inside the car and allowed the NiMH batteries to suck in even more juice as I perused the EV Rental ‘charger sites’ notebook.

The batteries hit the full mark at 7:00 PM and the car’s range meter displayed that 120 miles were available. In the early night, a weather front had moved in and it had turned from mild daytime temperatures in the mid sixties, to a pretty cold (for southern California), barely 50 degrees, though this was still the banana belt compared to what was going on back in iced-up Portland!

If this had been a lead acid powered machine, I would have been worried about reduced range due to cold batteries, but I was comforted knowing that those NiMH guys would be happy campers in the cold. Still, the forecasted low was for the low 40′s , and I had some higher elevations to pull on my way south and I knew I would have to use the car’s heat pump to keep warm. Would I need to stop along the way for a drink at a Magna-charger, or would this remarkable EV take me all the way from Orange County to San Diego County? With George W. speaking to me through the not-so-space age EV1 sound system, I was off for a longer range adventure.

I brought the EV1 up to 58 mph on the 405 freeway, but when I split over to I-5 South, I nudged the speed up to 70-72 mph to keep up with the traffic flow. With George W. telling me he was gonna keep his promises, the cabin was fogging up and it was a bit chilly, so as planned, I turned the heater/defroster on then waited…..and waited….and waited for some semblance of warmed air to flow from the vents. It took a very long 15 minutes before any appreciable heat could be felt…come on GM, how about a good ‘ol ceramic element, at least for some instant warmth?…it could later be backed off when the heat pump got going.

About 20 miles down the freeway, I was finally feeling pretty good heat, but I had to keep the temp selector on high for about a half hour. Finally, I had to back it off to about midway to keep things comfortable inside my electric cocoon. Tired of the political game, I found some pump’n rock on the FM groove to keep me entertained; for such a high tech car, it’s stereo is lack luster. Oh well, at least I had some tunes to listen to. After an hour of continuous 70+ mph freeway cruising that included quite a bit of hill climbing (nothing really steep), and with the heat pump using juice the entire time, and with the car’s multitude of fans, pumps, and lights all getting in on the current gig, I was astounded to see that the range meter still showed 79 miles left, this, after having gone more than 70 miles!

To make a long story short (is that possible with a Wayland adventure?), I never even came close to needing an in-between charge. I even screwed up and missed a freeway exit, and this blunder cost me quite few extra miles, but even so, as I rolled into the La Jolla Hyatt Regency hotel, a massive structure built to accommodate the well heeled (what was I doing there?), at close to 9:00 PM, and after an hour and forty five minutes of continuous driving (a pretty steady drain of those NiMH batteries) the EV1′s odometer registered 183.2 miles….I had traveled 85 miles while running all the lighting and heating for all that time, without the car breaking a sweat!

I drove the car into the huge and impressive valet/courtyard area that was lined with maybe twenty, forty foot-tall palms with white Christmas lights spiraled up their slender trunks. I maneuvered the futuristic looking EV1 along side the ritzy BMW’s, Mercede’s, Porches, and Vettes that were already staged for the proper effect for their owners, and so I too, parked my ride where it could be seen by all.

Just as I had figured, by the time I was getting out of the cozy cockpit, there was an immediate gathering of the well dressed night life crowd, and they were very interested in the electric car that had arrived to crash the party! My getup of blue jeans, polo shirt, and my nifty magazine-logoed baseball cap added to the effect, I’m sure.

There was intense interest in the EV1, and suddenly, no one cared about the ‘Benz next to it, and they didn’t notice the jet black Acura RL, either….it was the electric car that had stolen everyone’s hearts and interest! After a 15 minute show and tell, one of the bell boys was twitching with excitement, so I looked at him and said, “Well, get in!” As we silently moved out of the limelight and past a stately looking valet dude, I asked if it would cause any problems if I ‘hit it’ as I pulled out. His response? “No sir, no problem, please have fun…enjoy yourself.”

With the small crowd watching,, I wondered how much zip would be left after driving 85 miles for nearly two hours, but when I turned out of the courtyard and slammed the ‘Go’ pedal down, the tires instantly sang that familiar song, the ‘Loss of traction’ light lit up, and the bell boy and I were off for a quick ride around the block! When we returned, my passenger got out and immediately started to rave about the fast electric car…this certainly lifted the eyebrows of the BMW fold. One guy spouted off with, “Yeah, but you really can’t go anywhere in one of those without running out of power…aren’t you worried about getting stranded?” My response…”Well, I’ve just driven down from Orange County, and because I got a bit turned around with my directions, I’ve driven for nearly two hours straight to get here. I didn’t get stranded, and the car still has plenty of power left, enough to blow off any one of these pollutionmobiles.”

This brought a bit of laughter out from some, but this dude kept going with, “Yeah, but where are you going to plug it in now?” My response…”Well, if you’d step aside, I’ll be driving it down there around the corner and into the parking garage, where my EV parking spot awaits me. Once there, I’ll slip in the charge paddle, let the charger’s computer take over, and walk away to get settled down in my room. By the way, I drove here without using a drop of fuel, without making any pollution, and will now charge the car up for free as my reward for doing so….how much did your last tank of fuel cost you, and what are you doing to help keep our air breathable? Surrounded by snickers, he gave up.

Thursday morning after I had checked out of the Hyatt, when I arrived at the Magna-charger, I was a bit alarmed that someone had removed the charge paddle from the slot in the EV1′s nose and had neatly tucked it away back inside the charger’s paddle cradle. I pulled the paddle back out and inserted it to see what had gone on in the night, to see if this was someone’s idea of a joke, or if someone had thought they were helping me out over worries of an overcharge (not possible with this sophisticated charger). The charger’s digital display told me that 97% of the charge had been returned to the batteries, and that there was 10 minutes left of charging ‘time to full’. I surmised that perhaps an overzealous valet attendant had been, well, ‘attending’ the EV1 and probably thought they were doing me a favor.

It was time to leave, time to head east, then north up a good incline, towards Rancho Bernardo to the work site. The EV1′s odometer indicated just shy of 184 miles, and the range meter told me that I had 127 miles possible range. In spite of my late night aggressive run with the bell boy, the sedate 85 mile drive down from Orange County to La Jolla had caused the computer to reconsider my previously harder driving style, and it had arrived at this new, more optimistic estimated range figure.

It was about a 20 mile drive to Rancho Bernardo, and with no on site charging in the plans, I parked the EV1 and reported to work. If all had gone well, by the day’s end, I would be headed further north where I’d give my electric horse a drink at the Magna-charger trough, courtesy of Saturn of Escondido. However, all did not go well with my workday, and I found myself making overnight arrangements so that I could return a second day to complete the job.

I drove back to the Hyatt Regency in the early evening, and slipping the charge paddle into the slot once again, the charger started to replenish what approximately 40 miles of driving had subtracted….the odometer read 224.4 miles. A while later, I drove away for a quick dinner break, and so added a few miles to the total before putting the car back on charge and retiring for the night.

Thursday morning it was check out time again, and as I squared up my bill for the second night’s stay, I noticed I had been charged an additional $13 for parking charges. When I politely asked about the charges and told them that the only reason I had used their parking garage, was to gain access to the Magna-charger, they quickly apologized and removed the charges….I had been told ahead of time, that parking was free for electrics!

Punching in the startup code (the EV1 has no conventional ignition or door lock key) and awakening the car, the range meter indicated 125 miles, and the odometer was at 228.2 miles. As before, it was pretty much all an uphill pull to the Rancho Bernardo location where I needed to complete my job duties, and as I arrived the odometer showed 247.5 miles, while the range meter indicated there was still 102 miles in the tank. This time the job went according to plan and I was finished in time to make a short drive north to Escondido where I figured I’d top off the charge and have a late lunch.

On my way to the freeway, I stopped at a full service type gas station where they had a handy air/water station. I checked the EV1′s high pressure Michelin Proxima LRR tires, and found that they were all below the 50 psi GM suggests, and so I pumped them up accordingly, two of them took nearly 15 lbs. of air! I wondered how much better this EV that was already getting terrific range, could do. My hybrid Honda Insight really responded to running higher air pressure levels in its LRR Bridgestone RE92 tires, so I was curious to see what difference I would find in the EV1′s range per charge performance.

I began my official trip back towards LA, with the stop in Escondido along the way for a top-off charge before the long drive back to EV Rentals. Heading the extra miles to Escondido, the elevation continued to rise. It was 1:15 PM when I got to the Saturn dealer, and the odometer read 258.2 miles while the range per charge meter was down to 74 miles. I had only put about 30 miles on the car since starting out in the morning from La Jolla, but the uphill freeway pulls had drawn heavier than average currents and the computer figured this was how things might continue, so it reduced the estimated range.

I was greeted by Andrea McLean and I found her to be well informed about EV1′s, Magna-chargers, and the state of the EV1 in today’s market. She informed me that one could still order and get an EV1, whether it was a refurbished Gen I model, a Gen II lead acid model, or a Gen II NiMH model. She and her associates were quite friendly towards me, and after showing me to the Magna-charger (it reported that the batteries were 72% full) , they even gave me a desk where I could run my computer and check emails while the EV1 was on charge. The charger had estimated that it the would take 1 hour, 20 minutes to fill the batteries back up, so this seemed like a great time to have lunch. I walked a short distance away to the restaurant, Mexican, of course, and enjoyed my Tamale, rice, and bean meal. After stuffing myself full, I returned to a nearly full car as well, and at 3:15 PM with the pack at 97% full, I considered it close enough, removed the paddle, and left for the longest stretch back to LA.

Leaving Escondido on highway 78, the range meter indicated 119 miles were available. This wide open freeway was slightly downhill for several miles, and as I drove along at minimum current levels, the computer kept refiguring the estimated range. With 270 total miles on the odometer, the range per charge estimate had actually risen to 130 miles. As I cruised along seemingly effortlessly (a combination of the level and smooth freeway and the higher tire pressures), even though I was racking up more miles on the odometer, the range meter continued to upgrade with even higher range estimates…136, 142, 143…..to a high of 145 miles, this, after driving a little over 20 miles since leaving Escondido!

With approximately 100 more miles to cover before reaching my destination, I had planned to stop along the way for a charge if needed, but with a heady 145 miles of estimated range left, thoughts of opportunity charging faded away. I crossed the 308 mile mark on the odometer, and having traveled exactly 50 miles at freeway speeds, the NiMH pack was taking it all in stride with 101 miles of estimated range still in the tank! Twenty seven miles later, I had gone nearly 80 miles and was flying past Newport Beach at 80 mph with an estimated range of 90 miles still left, down just 4 bars on the fuel level gauge!

The fun of those higher speeds suddenly went away as I entered into a full-on traffic jamb near John Wayne International, and I had to pull back the reins and slow down to a crawl. After a few miles of stop and go driving (EVs love this sort of thing), I remembered that sticker affixed to the butt of the EV1 that read ‘<> Access OK, Clean Air’ that allowed me to use the HOV lane.

In seconds, I had found my way into the special purpose lane, and was once again, cruising along at a good clip. At 348 miles on the odometer, I had traveled 90 miles when the fuel gauge dropped to half at 5 bars, but there was still an estimated 61 miles left…this while averaging 75 mph or so. Even when I had crossed over the 100 mile mark, the car was still full of power, and the lightest dip of the throttle would bring an immediate power rush forward as if I had only driven a few miles.

At almost exactly 110 miles since I left the Saturn dealership, I had pulled off the freeway and was on Century Drive, stopped at a traffic light near EV Rentals. The EV1 had been flying along for about an hour and a half at 70-80 mph speeds, and had never once felt like it was running short on power. I noticed that there was an estimated 36 miles left on the range meter, so when the light went green, I decided to see what was left as I planted my right foot down one last time…..screeeeechhhh….,chirp-chirp…..scrreeechh….damn that traction control! What an EV! After running along at freeway speeds for so long, and after 110 miles, the thing could still fry the tires at will!

I reluctantly pulled into the EV Rental lot and finding a Magna-charger, parked my electric friend and slipped the charge paddle into its nose…..29% battery left! And so ended my four day love affair with the Gen II EV1…one terrific electric car.

It’s a shame GM has to put their negative spin on this wonderful achievement, and its a shame the rest of the world can only dream of having such a beauty to drive everyday. While the naysayers are still out there telling everyone electrics don’t work, the EV1 continues to deliver 0-60 in the mid sevens and 130-160 miles range per charge. So, how do I sum this all up?

Likes:

(1) Great acceleration performance! (It eats Insights, Priuses, and BMWs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.)
(2) 130-160 mpc range
(3) Great handling
(4) Great braking
(5) Futuristic space ship styling
(6) Intimate cabin with futuristic controls
(7) The digital dash gauges (not the dash pod as a whole) are wonderful and easy to read, once you’ve taken your eyes off the road and have looked over to the middle of the car.
(7) Advanced, automated, and easy to use charger setup

Dislikes:

(1) Horrible ‘takes longer to warm up than an ICE’ heater system
(2) Funky, uninspired steering wheel (it needs the wonderful Momoesque wheel of an Insight)
(3) Cheesy sounding stereo with overpowering rear speakers that like the front ones, sound bad.
(4) Though I love the look and effect of the console switches and controls, the ergonomics are pretty bad, with important switches almost impossible to get to.
(5) Central dash located gauge pod is about as bad as that in the Prius…it belongs in front of the driver!
(6) Get rid of that traction control and let me have my way with those tires!

Conclusion? I want one!!!!!!!

Hello to All,

It’s been a rough road to get to where we are today with the Silver
Streak project, the l-o-n-g range 71.5 kWh, EV1-powered Insight, but I’m
happy to report that this past weekend on Saturday Sept. 17th, we
finally began the conversion process. A project of this magnitude needs
to be carefully planned with all the pieces lined up before the
tear-down can begin. The final crucial element I had been searching for
- the all important inverter/controller, has been procured. I am very
excited to announce that we have partnered with Rinehart Motion Systems
(RMS) and will be using their model PM100DX to power up Silver Streak’s
very special AC motor. Conservatively rated at 70 kW continuous, this liquid-cooled inverter can easily output 100 kW and is an ideal match up to this car, as it’s compact size and resulting light weight (just 16.5 lbs.) frees up valuable real estate under the hood while its output capacity is right at my target power level. More details on this great product – including how I will squeeze a bit more power from it, and RMS’s involvement in the project, to follow.

The focus of the Silver Streak project is simple. Take the 1st gen. Honda Insight to where we had all hoped it would go – a full electric version, and take an artifact from the glory days of the GM EV1, it’s 137 hp AC drive motor/transaxle, and drop it into the Insight. When first introduced, Honda used the Insight (as did Toyota their Prius) to poke at pure EVs, boasting how you ‘never had to plug it in’. That really stung to this die hard EVer and it nearly kept me from purchasing my Insight. I ended up buying it anyway, but with an eye towards some day, finishing the job Honda failed to do. My late 90′s – early 2000 experiences renting and driving EV1′s when traveling turned me into a big fan of that ground-breaking EV, so it was a dark period when GM recalled them all and began crushing them in an attempt to extinguish the electric car.

Fast forward to now… I’ve owned the Insight since I bought it new in
2000 (ser. # 904), I have this new condition EV1 motor/transaxle that
escaped the crusher – special thanks to Otmar Ebenhoech for his friend’s
‘insight’ to source it over a GM parts counter before they were all gone, with generous sponsorship from Dow Kokam I also have 258, 75 ahr LiPol cells, and I now have an inverter… no more excuses! My wife had accused me of being nuts for wanting to take apart our like-new car that we paid $21,000 for in 2000, while at the same time – as she always did, challenged me to follow my dream. The car has just 46,193 miles on it, it’s in as-new condition, and it ran perfectly, but this past weekend it got totally disassembled with video cameras rolling – I am now knee deep into it, and there’s no turning back! The FabTek duo of Bob Westcott and Mike Christopherson, Team Plasma Boy members Steve ‘The Taunter’ Schrab, Gaylen Aust and J Bills (capturing Hi Def footage), and a special producer/ film crew on hand, unanimously designated me as ‘Project Manager’ … then they told me to stay out oftheir way! They attacked the mint condition Insight, like Piranha devouring an unsuspecting Capybara crossing a tropical stream, and literally picked all the meat off the bones. With not a spot of grease on my hands (project manager, remember), I delegated other duties to myself. Perhaps the hardest one, was the disassembly and total removal of the competition grade stereo system I had painstakingly designed and assembled into this car eleven years ago. The high end stereo system made my Insight the world’s first car audio soundoff hybrid, and landed it on the cover and was the featured install of the October 2001 issue of ‘Car Audio and Electronics’ magazine.

It was emotionally tough to tear down the system I had put so much effort into. The original story can be read here:

<http://caraudiomag.com/articles/hybrid-heaven>

The amps and audio processors were contained in a custom upholstered aluminum enclosure (crafted by Marko Mongillo) that resided over the hatch floor area just behind the seats, and most notably immediately above the car’s hidden IMA (integrated motor assist) compartment where the factory NiMH battery pack, inverter, DC-DC converter and other electrical stuff was located.

Once gutted, the empty IMA chamber would be used for lithium cell storage. In addition to the amps and processors rack, in the right rear corner of the car there was also another signal processor, a 12 disc CD changer, a 144V – 14V DC-DC converter used to charge a Hawker 12V AGM battery, and various fuses and brackets – dedicated to running the power-hungry 700 watt rms system.

Central and in the rear the tw in 12 subwoofer enclosure and the hidden 26 ah 12V stereo system battery were also removed. It was a lot of work, and I was at the same time, amazed and appalled at the complexity of my design. For those who have heard the system and may be lamenting its disassembly, no worries – an improved (simplified) version using most of the same audio gear is going back into this machine. Plasma Boy cannot hit the road for hours on end without a rock’n sound system! Disclaimer…I actually did do this on this past summer’s long road trips in White Zombie, but there’s something musical about the whir of a Siamese 9 motor at the upper edges of the 70 mph speed limit

In addition to its inherently light weight body structure’s aluminum
construction, shedding weight on nearly all items is how Honda was able
to get the Insight’s curb weight down to 1887 lbs.! There were many
impressive ‘weight savings’ techniques that kept leaping out at us,
everything from formed hollow aluminum tube braces, to Styrofoam support
blocks, to paper-thin aluminum sheet metal shaped, bent and stamped into
a strong enclosure, to the air-cooled power electronics, it’s all
designed to be efficient and light. All this had me sweating over my
target converted weight of 2850 lbs., as it wasn’t looking like I could
count on much weight being removed from the car to offset the heavy
battery pack that was going into it.

There was however, considerably more weight pulled out (that won’t be going back in) than I had expected. The Insight’s ICE lean burn engine was touted as the lightest 3 cylinder passenger car engine in the
world at just 124 lbs. and I had worried that it and the other removed
items would not do much to offset the 985 lbs. of Dow Kokam LiPol cells
I was about to stuff into the car. As it turns out, that 124 lb. figure
did not include the IMA’s electric motor, nor the 5 speed transaxle. I
was pretty happy, when we weighed the removed assembly and saw 278
lbs. on the scale. The reported 55 lb. weight of the car’s 144V D cell battery pack
turned out to be 71 lbs. with its modules, fuses, brackets and such
still attached. The fan-cooled ‘power sandwich’ of the little 10 kW
inverter and 75 amp DC-DC was another 25 lbs. of stuff pulled. The 12V
under-hood battery, the exhaust system, and other parts all pushed the
removed weight to comfortably more than 400 lbs.

Replacing about 300 ‘under hood’ lbs. with the 152 lb. EV1 motor/transaxle gets rid of weight while the more compact electric drive assembly frees up the area considerably. The stock 3 cylinder was centered in the engine bay while its transaxle was offset rearwards towards the firewall. The EV1 motor is positioned nearly directly above
its single speed transaxle’s axle shafts, so it mounts much further back in the engine bay, opening up the space between it and the radiators – a lot! I had hoped to gain enough space for one battery module, but
there’s enough for three. At a projected 100 lbs. per module (one will be less at 80 lbs.) 300 lbs. of the ~ 1080 lb. pack will be in the nose of the car to help balance the pack weight. Front end weight then, goes from about 300 lbs. to about 450-475 lbs., just right. Of course, the suspension is all being upgraded by FabTek. The rest of the batteries will be midship in the IMA chamber and underneath it where the fuel tank was…all of it, a very tight fit! It will be a difficult task, but well worth it with a total capacity of 71.5 kWh.

Unlike the Zombie’s smaller prototype-only Dow Kokam ‘Ultra High Power’
30 ah cells, these larger ‘High Power’ 75 ah cells are a regular Dow
Kokam product (model SLPB125255255H). The cells shrug off 100%
discharges, and at 80% DOD they are good for 1600 cycles, so shooting
for longest possible range by occasionally extracting the full rated
capacity is no big deal. Additionally, Dow Kokam cells are very
conservatively rated – case in point, these 75 ah cells are typically closer to 76.5 ahr, so the actual pack capacity could be as high as 73 kWh. I imagine we will be able to pull 71.5 kWh with change left over. Dow Kokam makes ‘High Energy’ (HE), ‘High Power’ (HP) and ‘Ultra High Power’ type cells, and with its modest max power draw of 117 amps per cell (each module is 3P8S), an HE type would have been the cell of choice for this application, but you take what’s being offered under sponsorship, thus the use of HP type cells. At 3.82 lbs. HP vs 3.55 lbs. HE per 75 ah cell and considering the cell count of 258, in the weight game it amounts to a 67 lb. penalty. On the flip side, using the more aggressive HP cells means less voltage sag, even considering the low max. currents involved, and less voltage sag at a given current draw amounts to more hp. The extra hp should more than negate the extra 67 lbs. in terms of acceleration, but those 67 extra lbs. don’t help in the range per charge game. It’s an accepted compromise that worked out well for both Dow Kokam, and Plasma Boy Racing . We are very appreciative of their support for this project.

Plasma Boy Racing and Manzanita Micro have been a team for years now, so it should be no surprise that Silver Streak’s high capacity pack will be juiced by a custom liquid-cooled Manzanita Micro PFC charger. The car will also be equipped with a J1772 interface – the new EV standard for level one and level two charging, so the electrified Insight can suck amps alongside Nissan Leafs and other new factory EVs at the various charge stations popping up. All 258 cells will be protected by the same Bruce Sherry/Manzanita Micro 8 ch. BMS we use in the Zombie, but plugged into specially designed RegDeck boards (circuit board interface for the BMS) the Madman himself designed for us. These RegDeck boards are in the prototype stage and will mate to the 75 ah cell tab clamps (8 cells in series) and will become a new Manzanita Micro product.

Team Plasma Boy member and longtime EV sidekick, Marko Mongillo, gets the first ‘test set’ of the RegDeck boards for his 36 cell pack going into his cute ’59 Fiat, the dumpster green inverted Italian bathtub he affectionately calls ‘Fiamp’.

Fiamp’s previous pack – 610 lbs. of Optima group 31, 75 ah (C20) Yellow Top lead acid batteries, was 120V and in warm summer months gave about 50 ah under easy driving EV traction use for about 6 kWh capacity…less as the temperature dropped in the Fall and Winter. Being such a little vehicle, even with this modest kWh rating, the 1800 lb. car could do about 40-45 miles with fresh batteries. Of course, lead being lead, that range dropped to about 35-40 miles after a year or so as the batteries aged and the deep cycles added up. The new 36 cell Dow Kokam pack is a carry-on luggage sized affair rated at 133V, 75 ah (C1) and will give that ah rating under pretty much any type of driving style in EV traction use. The cells can output 750 amps for 10 seconds or so and about 450 amps continuous, so a simple series string can handle most EV conversion applications. Cycle life with 80% DOD is about 1600 cycles, so the little Fiat should be good to go for 100,000+ miles! The completed traction pack assembly weighs a ridiculous 150 lbs. while storing just shy of 10 kWh. The assembled lead acid pack weighed about 650 lbs., so Fiamp’s curb weight

is dropping 500 lbs., putting the tiny car close to its gas car stock weight of 1330 lbs. again. Even with a pack just 1/4 the size of the outgoing lead pack, we are expecting range to improve to about 60 miles, regardless of temperature and minus any ‘egg-under-the-foot’ antics, and as high as 75 miles at lower urban speeds. The same RegDeck boards and 8 ch. BMS is being used for the revitalized Blue Meanie project with its 20 kWh ~290 lb. (fully assembled) pack based on the same 75 ah Dow Kokam cells. The Meanie will drop from 2460 lbs. to about 1950 lbs. with the range projected to about three times greater at 90-100 miles.

With these two EVs powered by the same cells as a comparison point,
here’s how the range per charge for Silver Streak pencils out. The EV1
was heavier but had a better cd of .19 compared to the Insight’s .25
rating, and managed an impressive 164 Wh per mile @65 mph. I feel the
less areo but still very slippery Insight at ~ 100 lbs. less weight,
with identical-sized wheels and LRR tires as the EV1, with the identical
AC motor and a slightly more efficient inverter, will achieve at the
minimum, 185 Wh per mile @ 65 mph – this translates to 386 miles @ 65
mph! If I’m off and it gets more like 180 Wh per mile, then we’re
looking at right near 400 miles @ 65 mph. At a more sedate 55 mph, the
Wh per mile consumption should drop to about 160 for close to 450
miles…hence, my claim of building a 400 mile per charge EV.

Back to the Rinehart PM100DX … I had struggled for some time with the
dilemma of the all important inverter to run the EV1 motor, before getting in touch with my friend Chris Brune. Chris has followed what I’ve been doing with EVs all these years, and has been very supportive of the White Zombie electric drag car project. Back in the days of lead acid power, Chris would ride shotgun setting up controller parameters and helping us collect valuable data. Working in the high tech industry, Chris had created a DC-DC converter for us to use in the Zombie. A few years ago he told me he was changing jobs and joining a start-up in the area. With big changes in his life and the same for me, we didn’t see each other as the years ticked by. I was pleased to learn Chris was the VP of Engineering at Rinehart Motion Systems (RMS), a company I had heard great things about. The Motoczysz electric bike that won the Isle of Man TT Zero did so using a Rinehart inverter, and the Lightning Bike that just hit 214 mph at Bonneville did it on AC power created by a Rinehart inverter – the company is obviously into EVs that push the envelope, just the kind of guys I like to work with! Chris Brune and Larry Rinehart have agreed to help get the EV1 motor powered up and are lending their expertise to the project by custom matching an inverter to the special motor. Additional help from famous EVers / designers and very good friends, Otmar Ebenhoech and Dale Glubrecht, is making this a fun exercise that brings back the good old days of EV skunk works.

The PM100DX inverter is rated for 300 amps, but it can actually do 350
amps for 30 seconds, and the mighty 318V (nominal) Dow Kokam pack with
its triple paralleled cell setup will supply that kind juice without
breaking a sweat. Each 75 ah cell can do 10C, so the triple parallel
stack (if asked to) could belt out 2250 amps! At just 350 amps (less
than 120 amps per cell) the voltage sag will be ridiculously low, and
at 80% SOC (like driving 80 miles before testing acceleration) the pack
will be at around 330V, so I expect loaded to 350 amps there will still
be 320V on tap. 320V x 350 amps = 112 kW, boosting the EV1 motor up from its 102 kW, 137 hp rating when powering the 2970 lb. EV1, to an
estimated 150 hp for the 2850 lb. Silver Streak. Motor Trend road tested
the EV1′s 0-60 in 7.7 seconds. Tipping the scales 100 lbs. less and with
an additional 13 hp, I expect Silver Streak to do the deed at 7.2 – 7.4
seconds, absolutely vaporizing the former hybrid’s tepid 10+ second 0-60 time. Though the electric version will be about 1000 lbs. heavier, it will
have fabulous pure electric torque – flat as a ruler from 0-7000 rpm,
and more than double the hp stretching out over a broad power band!
While it certainly won’t be a muscle car, it will nonetheless be quite
snappy and should do a nice job of roasting the tires at will
- not that I’ve ever done that before

<http://www.electrifyingtimes.com/sniffergoesdragracing.html>

Stay tuned for more reports, as the car is on a fast track to hit the road by December.

See Ya…John Wayland

By the way of HIGH PERSONAL CURIOSITY, how is the Insight project coming ?? Keep thinking for my self a 60 or 80 mile per charge All Electric Insight.. say… round the $22,000. price tag.

The Silver Streak Insight project is behind schedule but is still very much alive. We had a glitch with the CNC guy we had been using and have been waiting for clamp/conductor parts for more than a month. A new shop is now being looked into. The clamp/conductors we’ve designed for these larger 75 ah cells (the Zombie uses 30 ah cells) are totally different than what we use in the race car’s modules, and have to be made ‘just so’. Once I have the hundreds of clamp/conductors in hand, the dress rehearsal Meanie project’s 20 kWh, 266V pack can be assembled and road-tested. Then, the Insight goes under the knife.

I am very happy with both the track performance and the street performance of the Zombie’s large format 30 ah Dow Kokam ‘ultra high power’ cells, and am looking forward to seeing what these even larger format 75 ah ‘high power’ cells will do. As the model type name suggests, though physically larger than what we are using in the Zombie, the 75 ah cells are not as crazy-powerful, so instead of 1200 amps @ 10 seconds (40C), these guys are rated at just 750 amps (10C) @ 10 seconds. Their continuous rating is 6C, or 450 amps. Both the Meanie and Silver Streak need less peak power than 750 amps (the Insight’s max. current should be 380 amps or so and Blue Meanie should be about 600 amps), and both will merely sip juice on the open highway at around 40 amps for the Meanie and 25-30 amps for Silver Streak. The stronger suit of these 75 ah cells, is their energy density. One 75 ah cells weighs 3.81 lbs, nearly the same of what a paralleled pair of the 30 ah cells weigh (1.8lbs. X 2 = 3.6 lbs.), so that’s 75 ah for 3.81 lbs. vs 60 ah for 3.6 lbs.

Minus its 147 lb. 9 inch DC motor, flywheel, clutch, transmission, 700 lbs. of 12V batteries and all the brackets, enclosures and heavy cabling for them, and with just 275 lbs. of cells in one light container and a smaller and lighter AC drive, I am predicting that the Meanie will drop about 500 lbs. in weight from its former 2460 lbs. and will be at around 1950 lbs. curb weight. Using a 93% efficient AC motor and a 20 kWh LiPol pack, I am predicting 100 miles range. Given this info and with regard to Steven’s electrification of his Insight, I think a 20 kWh pack of less costly cells in the similarly light but much more areo car, and using an affordable small (light) DC motor and using the stock tranny, 80-90 miles range is very likely for about $22,000.

Speaking of range…

I had previously written:

The Zombie is fully street legal and is driven often on the streets with its 100+ miles range per charge. Last weekend it delivered 60 miles in aggressive driving that included a 3 mile 6.5% grade pull at 65 mph (punched it once and shot way past the speed limit briefly going uphill just for fun), freeway cruising, and in-town side streets as well. Returning to the EV Juice bar the lithium pack had about 55% capacity remaining!

 

The Zombie on display in late April at Rosedale Elementary School’s ’Green Festival’ in  Hillsboro, Oregon, after traveling 30 miles west of Portland.

Completing a 60 mile round trip to Hillsboro and back, without a recharge the car sat for a week. The following weekend I took it back out for some around-town runs to see how close to my prediction of range per charge the car could come. As before, I used a GPS unit to keep track of the exact miles driven. This weekend, I am ‘finally’ getting a proper sensor wheel built and installed on the Siamese 9 motor so all the cool functions of the EVision system can be utilized. I am also ‘properly’ installing the Bruce Sherry SOC gauge as well. The two systems will really give me accurate data on the next range tests. I again, did not baby the car and drove in a spirited fashion. Another welcome change is the new Superior Gear brand ring and pinion set, at the same 3:50 ratio used to get the 10.2 runs…only these are heavy duty street cut gears, not race cut as were the previous set that were ear-splitting LOUD! The new gears are super quiet, though you can still hear the whir of the meshing teeth. The Zombie is now very quiet and smooth on the road at speed sup to about 45 mph. After that, the age-old drive line rumble comes into play – we’re working on a solution for this as well.

I know many think my estimates of my EVs’ performance capabilities are too optimistic at times (many doubted the Zombie could run high 10s, let alone nearly cracking the 9s), so I love to prove them wrong I am happy to report it is the same with my range predictions for the Zombie. I have been saying that even with the car’s high drag Ford 9 inch rear end (they are known to be bullet proof tough while at the same time inefficient) and it’s fat 225 rear tires on 8 inch rims, that due to efforts to reduce drag in all other areas (145/65 LRR tires on 4 inch rims up front) and with the Datsun 1200′s small frontal area and the Zombie’s low curb weight (2352 lbs.) that the car would achieve somewhere in the neighborhood of 195 Wh per mile when driven conservatively. Based on all this, plus my general seat-of-pants feelings I’ve been predicting that with a 100% discharge (the cells can do this 1440 times and still retain 81.1% capacity) 90 miles urban driving and 110-120 miles highway.

Drum roll please…with the front LRR tires at 45 psi and the drag radials pumped-up to 43 psi (they are rated to 44 psi) the Zombie logged 82 miles total with 23% charge still remaining. I would have kept going with the tests, but had to get the car to a show (May 2nd ‘Taste of the Nation’ charity event) I had made a commitment for. This last portion of the range test included several hard near-full-throttle street launches, too…as I said, I did not baby the car, traveled at speeds in excess of 70 mph at times, and fully expected the Wh per mile to be higher than for more moderate 55 mph cruising. The pack’s resting voltage is only a few volts higher than the indicated voltage while driving under light cruise conditions, and was down to 325V after 82 miles for 3.38V per cell. I consider the safe discharge range to be from 4.0V down to 3.0V, even though they are rated from 4.2 – 2.7V. The cells are 30 ah rated @ C1, but are 32 ah at C3, so the paralleled cell pairs are 64 ah (X 355V gives the 22.7 kWh rating). It took exactly 49 recharge ahs to put all the cells into low current regulation at 4.17V per cell. 49 ah X 355V = 17.4 kWh used for 82 miles driven, giving 212 Wh per mile…22.7 kW divided by 212 Wh per mile gives 107 miles range – this with aggressive style driving.

It’s clear the Zombie can easily hit my predicted 90 miles city driving range, even when driving with a heavy foot. In a more conservative style and at a steady 55 mph the Wh per mile should be quite close to my estimate of 195-200 Wh per mile. I don’t think there are too many EVs are there that can rip 0-60 in 1.8 seconds, run a 10.2 @ 123 mph 1/4 mile ‘and’ do this kind of range With exception to the EV1s I used to drive and the Teslas I’ve had the pleasure to drive, the only other EV I’ve had that gave this type of range was Red Beastie – Dick Finley’s Toyota truck stuffed to the gills with just shy of 2500 lbs. of lead acid batteries. Though I ran that truck 120 miles on one charge, it was a 100% discharge that left the 6V batteries with their tongues hanging out and ‘not happy’ about it. Staying within the reasonable 80% DOD for lead acid, the 5300 lb. truck could do about 95 miles per charge. Of course, its 0-60 was a bit slower than the Zombie’s! It took 2500 lbs. of lead acid to get 100 non-pack damaging miles per charge – the Zombie has this same range with just 345 lbs. of LiPol cells contained in the trunk, 11 of the 12 modules recessed down low in the floor. Were it not for the required 6 point roll bar system the Zombie would still have its back seat.

Though the Zombie’s Dow Kokams have seen many high current discharges at the drag track, this range test was the first deep cycling of the 355V pack. After the recharge the already stiff cells seemed even stiffer. Typically, after taking the pack to full charge at 400V on the nose, right off charge the pack sits at 395-397V ‘surface charge’. Keying-on and moving the car out the driveway dissipates that surface charge quickly though, and the pack settles in at 383-385V…3.99-4.0V per cell. Moderate driving at 45 mph sags the pack to somewhere around 379-380V, but after the 82 mile/49 ah run and subsequent recharge, driving on the freeway at 60 mph the pack was hanging at 381V!

The Dow Kokam cells have been fantastic and have surpassed my expectations. Though they were delivered in un-opened boxes in the Fall of 2009, they were already nearly 3 calendar years old. They are now 4 years old, have seen 1500+ amp discharges per cell, and are easily hitting their rated ah capacity. I realize I am fortunate to have Dow Kokam as a sponsor and wish these large format ‘ultra high power’ type LiPol cells would be mass produced at a reasonable price that everyone could afford. The new even larger 75 ah ‘high power’ type cells that are going into both Blue Meanie and Silver Streak will be fun to wring out to see what they can do.

See Ya…John Wayland

I had previously written:

The much-awaited shipment of LiPol cells were delivered on Tuesday this week, when 1300 lbs. of lithium arrived at the NorthWest Handling Systems shipping dock. Just shy of 1000 lbs. of these are earmarked for the Insight project.

Hmmm…I wonder where those extra cells are going? Here’s a hint – last weekend we had an EV party in my backyard shop where fueled by pizza and beer, we got together to pull the 700 lbs. of Hawker lead acid batteries (168V pack) from the Meanie. Those 12V batteries are still in very good condition with maybe 30 heavy cycles on them and they’re going to a very good home to re-power J Bills’ (Mr. Softy) Fiat EV convertible.

In terms of lead acid, 700 lbs. is a small and light weight pack, especially when it’s compared to larger lead acid packs like the standard fair set of 20, 6V golf car battery range-oriented packs often used in small pickups. Still, in the little Datsun those 14 good sized 12V lead acid batteries took up some real estate with 6 of them under the hood area and the remaining eight tucked away midship just behind the rear seat back (factory location of the gas tank) in the car’s motorized retractable rear battery tray. That clever rear storage system allowed the Meanie to keep all of its original trunk space and its rear seat in tact while the well distributed batteries gave the car good balance. The 168V lead pack able could effortlessly feed a full 1000 amps to a Zilla Z1k while sagging down to 130V and making an impressive 130 kW of power. Pumped into an ADC 9 inch motor mated to a lightened flywheel and heavy duty clutch with the factory 4 speed tranny, it was enough juice to rock the little Datsun 0-60 in ~ 5.5 seconds. That’s what happens when you put ~ 130 hp @ 300 ft. lbs in a sub-2500 lb, car! While the Hawkers are rated at 60 ah @C20, their C1 rating is 47 ah – this of course, is the most realistic rating for EV traction applications. When they were new and discharged at C1, in the warm summer months the battery pack made about 7.8 kWh of usable energy giving the Meanie 30-35 miles range per charge under Wayland style driving. Here’s what the web page ‘Blue Meanie’ section has had up for the past couple of years:

25-30 miles driven aggressively, 35-40 miles at constant 55 mph, 45-50 miles at lower urban speeds of 35-45 mph

I admit that the past year or so hasn’t been kind to the battery pack, as the Meanie hasn’t been driven as much as it should have been. A lot of the fun went away some time ago when I broke the tranny for the third time, wiping out 2nd gear – too many 2nd gear foot-to-the-floor tire squealing launches The car was still usable, but the days of EV grin inducing acceleration blasts had given way to lethargic 3rd gear roll-offs from rest, or a balky 1-3-4 shift pattern. Last summer I scored two 1200 trannys, one that had been rebuilt, too, but what little free time I had went into pushing the Zombie ever quicker down the track while the trannys sat in the shop. Languishing sometimes months at a time, the Meanie’s batteries weren’t properly exercised so the capacity has diminished to where in these recent cold months the car’s range is down considerably. For now then, the Meanie sits in the shop 700 lbs. lighter, and minus a battery pack. The rest of the Plasma Boy team will be assisting Mr. Softy in getting his Fiat back on the road, and Hawkers being Hawkers, they’ll more than likely bounce back and work well for him.

Drum roll please…tomorrow we are headed to the metal shop with the Meanie’s rear slide-out tray. We are making a new one, very simliar but a few inches wider while being shallower in depth, designed to hold the entire Meanie replacement battery pack! Back in the early ’80s as I stuffed 1000-1200 lbs. of lead into everything from Ford Escorts to pickups, I would tell anyone who would listen, that some day we’d have battery packs the size of a suitcase that could take an EV 100 miles even in the winter time…I’m happy to report that day has arrived! Using the same 75 ah high power Dow Kokam cells we are using for the Silver Streak long range Insight project, 72 of them (275 lbs.) will be strung in a simple series affair to make up a 266V, 750 amp capable 20 kWh rectangular shaped pack that is indeed, the size of a suitcase! With a battery pack more than 400 lbs. lighter and able to make an easy 162 kW of power, and with the Meanie’s curb weight dropping to ~ 2035 lbs., with the current 9 inch motor, Zilla controller, and a rebuilt tranny the 0-60 run would be in the 4s! With 20 kWh of storage capacity, the flat discharge profile of a LiPol pack, and a 400+ lb. curb weight reduction, I predict the car’s range would go up to about 100 miles. As a comparison point, the Zombie is heavier by 300 lbs. and has a high drag Ford 9 inch ring and pinion plus high drag fat rear tires to push and yet, it can do 110-120 miles on its 22.7 kWh pack, so 100 miles for the svelt Blue Meanie with its 175/70 13 LRR tires and 88% the capacity of the Zombie’s pack, seems reasonable. Which brings me to the next subject…

What if I diss the LRR tires at all four corners? What if I pull the stock light duty rear axle with its tiny rear pumpkin and replace it with the chopped and narrowed heavy duty Nissan axle affair with the large case pumpkin that was once used in the Zombie in the Late ’90s? What if I return to the classic ’70s Datsun setup of American Racing four spoke alloys – 13 x 5.5 up front and the rare 13 x 7 wheels in the rear? The narrowed heavy duty Nissan axle allows the normally too-wide 7 inch wheels to barely stuff under and clear the rear fenders. What if I then lower the car to improve handling and toughen the stance a bit? Seems taking a hit in range down to say, 90 miles from the possible 100 with the benefit of way better handling and superior traction in back, is worth it. Did I say superior traction? Why would I need that? This brings me to the next subject…

As much as I love the power that this car currently has with the 9 inch series motor and Z1k, the Meanie is going AC direct drive! Unlike some other AC drive conversions that have tepid performance however, the AC drive in this car will deliver POWER! Though I cannot reveal all the details yet, let it suffice to say I’m working with a group of performance freaks and am considering using their 150 kW system with BIG torque. The beauty of the large case Nissan third member, is that I can get a seriously low ratios (higher numerically) which would work well with the high-revving AC motor. Using the efficent AC drive would push the range per charge back up to around 100 miles, too. This AC system also weighs less than the previous DC system, and there’s even more weight savings from discarded bracketry for the Meanie’s former lead acid pack. These weight reductions will help offset the increased weight of the beefier rear axle setup.

When it all comes together, the meaner Meanie stats might look like this:

~2000 lbs, curb weight (down from 2460 lbs.)
20 kWh LiPol pack (up from 7.8 kWh)
150 kW, 200 hp AC drive (up from 130 kW, 130 hp DC)
~100 miles range (up from 35 miles)
~0-60 in 4 seconds (down from 5.5 seconds)
~13.2 @ 104 mph 1/4 mile ET (quicker and faster than the current estimated DC stats)

With no more transmissions to break, no arcing brushes/commutator to worry about, a stout Dow Kokam LiPol battery pack, and enough ahrs to drive to the track, race, then drive home without recharges, the Meanie will see 1/4 mile action. Stay tuned!

See Ya…John Wayland

‘Rubber ought to be laid electrically’ (Dale Glubrecht)

Some may recall this car has already been in the spotlight years ago, when in 2001 it graced the cover of ‘Car Audio and Electronics’ magazine. Search ‘Hybrid Heaven Car Audio’ to find the original story and photos. Back then, the emphasis was on the soundoff quality audio system’s light weight components so as not to interfere with the car’s mission of being very light weight. I’m happy to report that ultra hi fi system is alive and well, and it will stay in the car. My 2000 Insight has 45,000 actual miles on it, and it’s in mint condition. It’s IMA inverter/controller and NiMH battery pack were swapped out for new items at 41,000 miles under a warranty situation, and its 3 cylinder lean-burn engine runs like new – yet here I am, about to tear the entire car down! Someone out there looking for perhaps a replacement power train for their Insight will have hit the jackpot if they get these from my car – the 3 banger with just 45,000 easy miles on it, and the IMA/battery system with just 4000 miles of use.

White Zombie has pretty much settled the argument of whether or not an electric car could provide muscle car acceleration (or better), so we are now moving onto the open road for the Silver Streak ‘long distance’ project. It will take an extraordinary battery pack to accomplish our goal, so we have once again partnered with Dow Kokam.This time, it’s one of distance rather than ultimate acceleration. The challenge is simple and straight forward – travel from Portland, Oregon to Seattle, Washington and back on a single charge at the posted freeway speed limits in a converted modern production car for ~ 350 miles at 55-70 mph on the I-5 freeway system.

To accomplish this we needed to have a very high capacity battery pack, and we now have the cells to do it. The much-awaited shipment of LiPol cells were delivered on Tuesday this week, when 1300 lbs. of lithium arrived at the NorthWest Handling Systems shipping dock. Just shy of 1000 lbs. of these are earmarked for the Insight project. When completed, the pack will be a 318V, 225 ah, 71.5 kWh LiPol setup consisting of 258 cells in a 3P86S design employing Dow Kokam’s 75 ah high power cells. These are similar to the ultra high power cells we use in the Zombie, but they are not as outrageously powerful as those smaller 30 ahr cells. They do however, have a higher energy density – perfect for a range oriented car. The Zombie’s cells can crank-out 40C currents (1200 amps), where these are more like 10C – still, 750 amps from each cell is nothing to sneeze at. As used in this pack, even this level of power density will be way overkill. To get the ahrs up, the cells will be paralleled in groups of three to make 225 ah, then those buddied cells will be strung 86 long to get to 318V. Three cells in parallel raise the 10 second max current rating to 2250 amps, but the Insight will never tap into that level, as the peak amp pull will be in the 300 amp range for the 100 kW inverter and about 600 amps for the optional 200 kW inverter – yes, I’m still weighing my inverter options. With the 100 kW inverter 0-60 should come up in about 8-9 seconds, with the 200 kW inverter 0-60 should be in the 5 second range. Cruise current at 65 mph should be very low, in the 30-35 amp range…even lower to about 25 amps at 55 mph.

Whichever inverter way I go, Metric Mind, longtime sponsors of Plasma Boy Racing, will be deep into this project with us. Over the years, Victor Tichonov and I have taken jabs at one another on the various discussion groups in the never ending AC vs DC argument, but we’ve always had respect for each other. In fact, even though most think he’s an AC-only type of guy, Victor has always been there at the drag track cheering on the DC powered Zombie, and his company is one of our great sponsors – I’m still crazy over his EVision all-encompassing EV battery and performance monitoring system with its artfully executed brightly lit LED display! One will be used in this project. On the flip side, as I usually argue in favor of affordable and very powerful DC drives, so many may think I’m an DC-only type of guy, but that is far from the truth. My work as a forklift tech. has me immersed in AC drives every day, and I’ve been involved with AC powered EVs for a very long time. Both drive types have their place, but have advantages and disadvantages, for sure. DC still rules the drag strip in four wheeled vehicles, and this Spring we are looking to push into the 9s with the Zombie, but for Silver Streak, it’s AC, baby!

We are of course, staying with Manzanita Micro as our battery charger experts. A custom liquid-cooled charger is being built for us. We will be using the same Bruce Sherry designed wonderful 8 ch. BMS as is used in the Zombie. Bruce’s SOC gauge, too will be used. The Metric Mind EVision system will also be used – can’t have enough instrumentation in this car! We will have the ability to transmit data from the road, so full and open data will stream from the car as we travel the freeway system, negotiate hills, regen down the hills, and drive in city traffic.

Another terrific sponsor is FabTek, our suspension and brake experts that helped transform the Zombie’s under-performing front suspension and wimpy stock brakes into high performance items that helped the car set new world record ETs. FabTek is on board to redo the Insight’s suspension and do the structural mods needed to help the aluminum-bodied car handle a half ton of LiPol cells.

The heart of Silver Streak will be a genuine EV1 motor/transaxle setup powered by either the aforementioned 100 kw MES inverter or possibly a prototype Metric Mind 200 kw inverter. You’ll find lots of references to the EV1 as this projects unfolds, as the thrust in this whole project is to take both the EV1′s light and powerful AC induction motor and Honda’s original Insight to the levels they both should have attained. Go back to the introduction of the 2000 Honda Insight, America’s first hybrid, and remember how Honda made fun of cars that had to be plugged-in…then realize that still today, Honda does not embrace full electric drive. It’s my opinion that the Insight should have been offered as a full electric in addition to the hybrid model. Now go back to earlier on in this decade and remember GM crushing to death the EV1. The Insight’s body size, teardrop aero shape (including rear fender skirts and narrower-than-front rear track), and low curb weight were all derived from the EV1 (Honda even admits this).
GM had a red EV1 test car with a lithium pack – I saw it with my own eyes, but it too, was crushed. The special combination of an Insight powered by an EV1 AC drive with energy coming from a high storage capacity lithium pack is definitely going to raise a few eyebrows!

Considering the .25 cd aero capabilities of a stock Insight, its LRR tires mounted on ultra-light alloy wheels (identical tire and wheel size as the EV1), projected converted weight hundreds of lbs. lighter than an EV1, and the super efficient AC drive, I’m predicting an efficiency of 185 Wh per mile at 65 mph, or 386 miles @ 65 mph on level ground. As a comparison point, the EV1 was more aero at .19 cd but it was heavier – it achieved 167 Wh per mile at 65 mph. At 55 mph, Silver Streak’s efficiency should improve to about 160 Wh per mile, so a steady state 55 mph on level ground would give close to 450 miles. The 2723 lb. Tesla with its 53 kWh pack can do 245 miles per charge in spite of its so-so aero and 225 section width rear tires.

The round trip drive on I-5 between Portland and Seattle is a mix of long flat runs but also miles of grades to negotiate, too…the regen will come in handy to recoup things on the downhill portions. The grand plan is to make the run in style flanked by a squadron of Teslas while a film crew captures the entire affair. In fact, producer Vince Patton (Oregon Field Guide ’07 Zombie video) has already begun filming of this exciting project that will show the world what Honda and GM could have done! We’ve already got some footage of Chris Paine (Who Killed the Electric Car?) and I discussing the project while looking at photos of the saved-from-the-crusher EV1 motor. Our own J Bills will be capturing everything on video as well.

There’s more exciting things planned for 2011, so stay tuned!

See Ya…John Wayland

No, it’s not the same story you’ve all heard about when we raced a
menacing Skyline GTR in our Godzilla vs Godzilla drag race – this is a
new story!

It was during my work day as a forklift wrench, and I had a need to make
a stop at the local hardware store to pick up some non-stock hardware. I
pulled my clattering service truck into the lot and as I was parking,
saw a gun metal colored Skyline GTR parked in the end spot near the
store entrance – diagonal of course, so as to avoid door dings. Yup,
there it was, the same badass machine we all drooled over that exciting
night back July 30th. My mission to the hardware store suddenly changed
from finding a few 1/4 -20 Allen cap screws, to finding the large man we
met during our record-setting 10.4 run at PIR. Matt is a big buff guy,
so I knew he’d be easy to spot in the store. So I’m walking around in my
grungy work-stained uniform stalking Matt, but he’s nowhere to be
found…then I spot him, no, not Matt, but a fellow about my size and a
bit older, grey-haired and wearing a black racer’s coat embroidered with
‘SCCA’…this ‘had’ to be the Skyline guy. I had assumed that at ~ $85K
and a limited production type machine, there was probably only one gun
metal grey Skyline roaming in my area – I was mistaken!

I found him just paying for his hardware and about to exit the building,
so I nearly missed the opportunity to chat with him and check out his
beautiful twin turbo super car. As he was still at the cash register,
there was a line of customers behind him waiting to pay, so there was a
mini audience for what was to follow – a ‘very’ entertaining back and
forth with the GTR guy. I approached and asked:

“You the owner of the gorgeous Skyline out there? Don’t worry, I didn’t
hit it or anything, I’m just a big fan!”

Skyline guy (look of relief knowing I hadn’t run into his car): “Yes,
it’s mine, and thank you.”

Me: “I had the thrill to race against a Skyline, the same color as yours.”

Skyline guy (with his mild British accent): “Oh, what course?” (he is
wearing an SCCA badge, after all)

Me: “PIR’s 1/4 mile drag track”

Skyline guy (with a smile): “Oh…drag racing, how bad did he beat you?”

(at this point, pretty much all the guys in line to pay are now leaning
in to hear)

Me: “Oh, he didn’t beat us, we had the better ET”

Skyline guy: “You out-accelerated a Skyline? Must be a powerful car-
what is it?”

Me: “An electric ’72 Datsun”

Skyline guy (puzzled look on his face): “I’m sorry…I thought you said
you beat the GTR?”

Me: “Oh, we did! He ran an 11.8 – we ran a 10.4″

Skyline guy: “You beat a Skyline in a drag race, with an electric car???
How’d you do that?”

Me: “1250 ft. lbs. of torque – 538 electric horses!”

At this point, there are many jaws hanging open. I tell all, that they
can go to YouTube to see the Skyline vs Zombie race. The SCCA guy pulls his iPhone out at the same time I’m reaching for mine, and in short
order there’s twin viewing screens playing the same video…what fun!

The Skyline guy paid his bill, then a bunch of us went outside to see
the car. A good time for everyone, and a nice break in an otherwise
ordinary work day.

See Ya…John Wayland

Each year I try to put together something comparing the Zombie’s current performance to high powered production gas cars, and with our recent runs at the track have set out to do it again. I have been traveling a lot recently, and as I always do, I picked up a car mag or two to keep myself entertained and informed. The November issue of Car and Driver’s cover story caught my eye immediately … ‘ExotiCar Mega-Test!’ This bold title has an intro above it that reads ‘The State of the Supercar Art’, and the eye candy cover photo shows this list of formidable machines:

Audi R8 V-10
Ferrari 458 Italia
Mercedes SLS
Aston Martin V-12 Vantage
Porsche Turbo S

I love all of these cars, but I’ve always had a special place in
my heart for the Porsche Turbo – it’s a badass machine with blistering 0-60 and 1/4 mile performance! The 2011 Turbo is simply over the top! It is one of very few production gas cars no matter what the price, that can run 0-60 in under 3 seconds. Years ago I thought it would be super cool, if I could ever make my electrified Datsun out-accelerate a 911Turbo, but Porsche being Porsche, always keeps raising the ante! This year their Turbo dipped into the 2s in the 0-60 run and into the rarified 10 second ET region of the standing 1/4! With exception to the 1.4 million dollar 1005 hp Bugatti Veyron, the Porsche’s stats are simply the best for any production gas car you can buy…period! Nonetheless, I am happy to report that in terms of 0-60 and 1/4 ET, the Zombie now outguns this icon!

As always, a disclaimer before the comparo list that follows. Yes, the Zombie is not a production car you can buy, it’s a purpose built drag machine, it’s about 1200-1300 lbs. lighter than these cars, and with its high end Dow Kokam batteries it’s no longer a $15,000 car. If put in regular production, the battery pack might be in the $30,000 range, so it would be fair to project the cost of the Zombie to about $50,000 – gad, a $50,000 Datsun? The Zombie cannot begin to compete with these exotic machines when it comes to handling, top speed, comfort, and fit and finish. On the other side of things, the Zombie is a home built car without the benefit of the R&D a high end car manufacturer has at its disposal. The Zombie is still way cheaper than any of these cars, it achieves it’s performance without a drop of gas and gets the equivalent of about 200 mpg, and is still after all, a converted econo-box! It’s also fully street legal and is indeed now regularly driven practical distances with its 110-120 mile range per charge.

OK, there will be varying opinions on whether or not this is a fair comparo, but I think everyone will agree that it is very interesting! With the disclaimer out of the way, and knowing that White Zombie’s mission has always been to dispel the myth that EVs are slow, dull, and boring; check out the following:

Aston Martin V-12 Vantage… $197,165, 3738 lbs., 510hp – 420 ft. lbs., 0-60 in 4.2 seconds, 12.5 @ 117 mph 1/4 mile, 17 mpg

Audi R8 5.2 FSI… $171,900, 3671 lbs., 525hp – 391ft. lbs., 0-60 in 3.7 seconds, 12.0 @ 118 mph 1/4 mile, 17 mpg

Ferrari 458 Italia… $210,790, 3451 lbs., 562hp – 398ft. lbs., 0-60 in 3.3 seconds, 11.5 @ 125 mph 1/4 mile, 15 mpg

Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG… $203,500, 3748 lbs., 563hp – 479 ft. lbs., 0-60 in 3.5 seconds, 11.6 @ 125 mph 1/4 mile, 16 mpg

Porsche 911 Turbo S… $162,460, 3491 lbs., 530hp – 516 ft. lbs., 0-60 in 2.7 seconds, 10.8 @ 129 mph 1/4 mile, 20 mpg

White Zombie … $50,000, 2348 lbs., 538hp (est) – 1250 ft. lbs. (est.), 0-60 in 1.8 seconds, 10.2 @ 123 mph 1/4 mile, 200 mpg (equiv.)

The Zombie’s hp figure listed was obtained using the Wallace Racing calculator and actual stats from time slips. Data from the car’s BMS seem to validate this ‘motor’ power level in that battery hp peaked at 981 hp with no current limits, and with limits back in place was in the 720 hp area on all of the low 10 second runs. Lightened muscle cars with a gutted interior, Lexan windows, etc. that are of simliar weight to the Zombie that weigh in the 2400-2600 lb. range need about 550-700 hp to run mid to low 10s, and heavier regular non-gutted muscle cars weighing 3000 lbs. with 500+ hp run in the mid to high 11s, so that 538 hp figure seems correct for the 2348 lb. low 10 second Zombie.

See Ya…John Wayland

OK, it’s now been one week since the NEDRA Nationals, so most already know that the Zombie laid down record ETs approaching (but not hitting) the 9s with four runs in the 10.2xx @ 123.xx mph range, and on the same weekend the Zombie also became the 1st street-bodied (or street legal) electric car to ever run faster than 125 mph in the 1/4 mile…but this story has already been told. What’s not yet been told, is the chain of EVents that led up to all this. It seems that immediately preceding any successful racing EVents, at least in Plasma Boy’s case, there’s always some kind of drama-trauma that has to be played out. You know that saying ‘We blow things up, so you don’t have to!’? Well, it’s safe to say I lived up to that mantra! It has always been my policy to help others learn from both our accomplishments and the mistakes we (I) make along the way. Though this is sure to be another long-winded Waylandesque tale, I’ll give you the ending up front for those who may not wish to wade through this post, summed up as follows:

1. Because of a controller cabling error, the Zombie was insanely powerful but a nearly uncontrollable beast!
2. Because of a controller cabling error, we learned that ‘Cool Hand Luke’ Tim Brehm has terrific sphincter control!
3. Because of a controller cabling error, the Zombie had worse 60 ft., and higher ET numbers.
4. Because of a controller cabling error, the Zombie blasted through the 125 mph barrier and into the Roger Hedlund 125 mph club!
5. Because of a controller cabling error, we discovered just how much power the Dow Kokam batteries could make!
6. Because of a controller cabling error, we learned that a Zilla Z2K can output 3000+ amps and live through it!
7. Because of a controller cabling error, we learned that Jim Husted’s Siamese 9 can handle 3000+ amps and live through it!
8. With the controller error corrected the Zombie posted the quickest and fastest 1/8 mile numbers of any street legal electric car!
9. With the controller error corrected the Zombie posted the quickest 1/4 mile ET of any street legal electric car!

OK, on with the story…

Team member Gaylen Aust wrote:

Some nut that changed the Zilla the week prior for reasons I will not say had reversed 2 motor leads that caused it to not current limit.

That would be me

It all started out quite innocently, really. I had been out in the Wayland EV laboratory the week before the NEDRA Nationals, all by myself and in quite a relaxed mood as I was tidying up things on the car, checking this and that out to make sure the car would be ready for the following week’s racing weekend. I decided to freshen-up the 12V system’s 13.4V battery and hooked up a charger to a connection point under the hood, as I’d done many times before. There was a design flaw at the main 12V circuit breaker that I had made note of and needed to change to avoid a possible electrical catastrophe. It was wired in a fashion where the 50 amp Anderson charger input port was on the load side while the battery positive cable was on the other. Connected this way, if the breaker was flipped ‘open’ the charge port was disconnected from the battery while still being connected to ‘certain’ 12V loads. It was a simple error I had made where the 8 gauge loop end connector off the positive leg of the Anderson connector was secured to the wrong side of the circuit breaker…I knew about it and was going to get it changed around, but then I forgot to actually do it. No problem, because as long as the breaker was closed the charge port was connected to the battery B+. Because of the 13.4V battery’s need to go to 16+ volts to get a full charge and because other more important items on the car took precedence over finishing a dedicated charger for this battery, I had gotten lazy and would connect a mighty PFC50 charger to the 12V system’s charge port. Continuing the lazy theme, I didn’t bother to readjust the fully charged voltage set point either, because I never charged it this way without being ‘right there’ watching both charging amps and the rising battery voltage and being ready to shut it down manually. I know, I know, it was a bad idea.

So anyway…I had just plugged the 50 amp Anderson extension cable from the PFC50 into the car, set the current knob to a low area, and flipped the charger’s breaker on. I had walked away and was on the other side of the shop when I heard a sound that made my stomach ache…’BZZ-ZAPP-ZORCH’!!!!! This all too familiar sound was accompanied by a mini mushroom cloud rising from of all things, the Zilla’s Hairball! As I rushed to get back to the charger’s breaker the sounds worsened to where I could hear popping noises that resembled fire crackers going off as the acrid smell of vaporized silicon filled the shop air! Once I had the power shut down, the Hairball continued to sizzle and smoke …it ‘was not’ a good situation I had of course, failed to close the car’s 12V system breaker, thus the PFC50′s output was unloaded and had sent 480+ volts through the Hairball! In the horror of the moment my thought turned to the charger – had I blown it up as well? They are known to not like being unloaded. My mind then switched to the Zilla itself. Could the unleashed high voltage have traveled through the data cable and into the Zilla’s internal electronics board? Man oh man, this was definitely not a good situation! It was late at night, I had to go to work early the next morning, and so after waiting to make sure nothing might erupt into flames, I closed down the shop and went back to the house to go to bed. Yes, I actually had nightmares about what I had done.

Following work the next day, I went back out to the shop to do a post-mortem. Pulling the still-pungent smelling Hairball and carrying it to the workbench, a couple of good shakes turned this Zilla control box into a fairly effective maraca. Inside, it was as ugly as it gets Bye, bye, Hairball! No problem, I’m a quad Zilla guy – got a Z2K in the Zombie, a Z1K in the Meanie, a spare Z2K on the shelf and next to it a spare Z1K. Oh-oh, wait…that’s right, I had loaned my spare Z2K to Madman Rudman…no wait, it had come back on a ride south from Seattle to Portland with Mike Willmon…no wait, inside the box was the Z2K but no Hairball…oh yeah, that’s right, he had kept the Hairball but returned the Zilla…damn! Hey, that’s OK, there’s still that brand new Z1K in the box…I’ll use its Hairball. And so I did – got it all mounted and hooked up, had the car up on jack stands, then tried to power things up…silence, no ‘click’ of the main contactor, and a glowing error light on the Hairball Oh no, had the high voltage of the 12V line made its way to the Bubba contactor’s coil? These babies go for a cool $1000 nowadays – time to meter-out the coil. Whew, Bubba OK and clicks in nicely with an external 12V input – OK, dodged that bullet. Checking the codes of the Hairball, one kept cropping up, the dreaded ’1132′ code ‘Controller did not communicate during precharge’! Calls on the secret Bat Cave line to Otmar were ‘interesting’ and to my surprise, my longtime friend didn’t scold me at all – whew! He didn’t feel the high volts would have migrated down the data cable into the Zilla to damage things, but subsequent tries at everything to wake up the Zilla failed – more of that sick stomach feeling. Time to pull the other Z2K out of the box. Removing the shock therapy brain dead Z2k, I took the time to clean off the power cables to make them conform to my wiring neatness standards, as someone had marked them with goofy white dots from a white-out pen…note to self: sometimes having cables clearly labeled is a good thing. Once the backup Z2K #2 was mounted and hooked up, the car woke up on 1st try and all was well again – well, except for one fried Hairball and a dead Z2K. At this point I am now down to no spare Z2K with a racing weekend approaching, and a Z1K minus its requisite Hairball interface.

A new problem arose though, when trying to feather-on the throttle, as the motor would instead jump to a fast idle type rpm, then after that not-so-subtle ramp up, it was very controllable…hmmm. I left the car up on the jack stands. Monday night, Sept. 6, after we were both off work, Gaylen showed up to pull the rear end so we could do the 3:70 to 3:50 gear swap…the races were just 4 days away. Gaylen lives very close to our great sponsor FabTek, so before starting work Tuesday morning, he delivered the rear end to FabTek’s Bob Wescot could set up the Strange differential with the new gear set. Bob had previously sent the 3:50 gear set out to have the same special low friction process done to them, as we had done to the 3:70 set. The 3:50 gear set was not new…they had been given to me from a friend who runs an 8 second class rail dragster, and the set actually came from his friend who races in the same points series – nice gasser guys who just wanted to see the little Datsun go quicker and faster Trying to avoid last minute work on the car, we had hoped to get the diff. back Tuesday night, but business is good for FabTek right now and Bob couldn’t finish it until the following day, Wednesday. Bob had trouble getting to the job on Wednesday too, but being the good guy he is, he stayed late finishing it by around 7 pm! Gaylen picked up the rear end in the early-evening, then arrived at my place to put the rear axle assembly back together. Spinning things up with the car still off the ground, we were both taken back by a very loud gear whine…I mean LOUD! Just what I needed, more problems just before a big NEDRA race weekend!

Thursday, the day before the races, Gaylen and I took the car out for ride to see if the gears would be safe to run on. From Gaylen:

…we head down the road and he just barely gets into it and the back kicked out and the car just took off. I can say that I have never been in a car that accelerated that fast it was insane but so much fun.

Yes, the Zombie had more power than I had ever experienced! It was weird though, because other than the slight lurch on what would otherwise have been a butter-smooth take-off, the car was easily driven with smooth throttle response – but when you pushed your foot down harder, there seemed to suddenly be hundreds of horsepower more! I know, many of you are thinking, “For crying out loud, it’s a 10 second street car”, but trust me on this, it felt way stronger than that! At the time, we couldn’t quite figure it out, and so chalked it up to the gear ratio change…silly us! Back in the EV shop, opening the trunk to check the batteries out, I was quite surprised to see many red LED low voltage set point lights on…what the heck? I had the battery current limit set to 1500 amps. With the low volt set point adjusted to 2.8V per cell, even with 1800 battery amps dialed in, they had never come on before, why were they coming on now? With the charger connected and cranked to 29.7 amps, the pack was initially at 396V (a cool 11.7 kW charge rate) and it quickly came back up to 400V at low current as all the green bypass LEDs winked, reset the BMS, and knocked out the red LED low volt indicators. Hmmm…it didn’t take much of a charge to turn off the telltale red LEDs, so the pack was never at a low SOC…hmmm.

Friday arrived with c-cold temps, dark grey skies, and a chill in the air that promised a night of poor traction at the track. July’s mid 90 temps were a warm memory, it was September now and summer was definitely slipping through our fingers here in Oregon. Though forecasted to be in the low 70s, I think it never got any warmer than just above 60 degrees. By the time we arrived the track it was early evening and the temperature was down to the mid-50s. The conditions were bad with a cold track surface – even the low hp street cars were having traction problems.

Our first run of the night was at 7:28, a run I’ll remember for a very long time. Steve ‘The Taunter’ Schrab had picked a hot Firebird running 11s as our first match up. Realizing traction was going to be an issue, Tim and I discussed the importance of getting the tires as hot and sticky as we could, so the burnout was spectacular! Tim didn’t waste any time staging so as to keep the tires warm, but when the tree sent him on his way, instead of our usual ‘stick & go’ hole shot, the Zombie instead lit up the G Force drag radials like a funny car! The Firebird got a decent 1.748 second 60 ft., while the Zombie’s fog show gave us a miserable 2.480 second 60 ft. The Firebird left the Zombie far behind and roared on to a quick 11.697 ET, while the Zombie’s tires kept smoking – 40,50,60,70,80 mph and they’re still boiling! I’ve had this car at speed with the tires breaking loose – not a good situation in a short wheel base car, and I knew what was coming next as the blood surely drained from my face. Then it happened. The Zombie pitched sideways then fishtailed as it tried to get away from Tim, but he would have none of that and he expertly kept control of the car. The gasps from the bleachers turned to cheers as the Zombie rocked to a full stop, albeit a bit sideways out on the track. Tim then planted his foot back down to show the car who was boss, and even after coming to a full stop, managed to run 14.553 @ 113.06 mph.

Back in the pit area the Firebird driver joined us, wondering what had happened to the little electric car he was convinced was going to blow him away, as we all tried to regain our composure after such a scary run. Laptop screens were glowing while connected to the Zombie gathering data, but there other things glowing as well – those red LED low volt telltales again. Bruce ‘Doc’ Sherry’s wonderful Manzanita Micro BMS system had the evidence we were looking for and showed that the stout Dow Kokam cells had dipped to 2.44V! What?? It takes HUGE amounts of current to make them dip that low! What was going on here?

We reduced the battery amps and motor amps numbers in Hairball, and sent Tim back to the track, where at 8:12 he was staged at the tree. Things were still not right, as the tires refused to grip, we got another 2+ second 60 ft., and we still could not get back into the 10s with an 11.008 @ 122.28 mph pass. The only good thing was that trap speed of 122 mph, the fastest the Zombie had ever run in the 1/4 mile.

Back in the pit we again saw the red LEDs, but the Dow Kokams had not broken a sweat and were barely warm to the touch. We force-cooled the motor with cold compressed air and looked at data again, Dr. Sherry looking at BMS info and ReVolt’s Mark Farver looking at the DAQ4 Hairball info. Mark tired to tell us about the odd fact he was not seeing ‘any’ amperage readings and that they all came in as ’0′…hmmm. Should have listened to him. Meanwhile, the rest of us ampheads were adjusting tire pressure for the next run.

At 9:26 Tim and the Zombie were back on the line while the rest of us were zipping up our hoodies trying to stay warm. Another poor launch at 2+ seconds 60 ft. and another 1/8 mile at over 7 seconds, but in spite of smoking tires and constant wheel spin we finally got back to the 10s with a 10.846 @ 124.91 mph pass. Though nearly a half second slower than July 30th’s record 10.40 run, we had just raised the bar for an electric street car trap speed and by the narrowest of margins had just missed getting into the 125 mph club! It looked like the decision to go taller to a 3:50 gear ratio was the right choice. Back in the pit area once again, we saw the red LEDs. A quick recharge turned them back off, so again the pack was not depleted in any way…hmmm.

The car was back at the tree at 10.08 for what would be the final run of the night for us. It was just too cold, the track was not being cooperate traction wise, and the Zombie was still a real handful to keep straight. We were all concerned for Tim’s safety and I was ready to pull the plug if things got worse…and they did! I think Roderick Wilde covered this better than I can:

The Zombie had been having massive traction problems all night. Tim was trying to get the tires a bit stickier, but the batteries didn’t care. When he launched it still boiled the the tires until it hit about 80 mph and then came up into one of the best wheelstands I’ve seen in years. It was long and drawn out and came down like the nose on on jetliner on landing, nice and easy, and shot straight forward. It crossed the eighth mile at 108.57 mph. At this time it had left the nitrous enhanced Dodge Charger in the left-over tire smoke from the launch. He crossed the finish line and into the history books as being the first street bodied car on this planet to break 125 mph with a speed of 126.01 mph. This put the car firmly in NEDRA’s Roger Hedlund 125 mph club.

The ET was the best of the night at 10.542 and though the Zombie easily took out the 500+ hp Nitrous Hemi Charger, it was still not as good as we had done back in late July (10.400). As Rod pointed out, we at least set a new number for street EVs in terms of trap speed….still, it’s the ET that counts. After the power wheelstand at speed where the ~ 80 mph wind under the car appeared to have kept the car’s nose floating in the air (visions of the car lifting higher and flipping over), I had seen enough and made the decision we would not be going back out. There was a new forecast calling for mid 70s on Saturday, and with the prospect of a warmer and hopefully stickier track, we were determined to return the next night to get the job done.

To be continued…

See Ya…John ‘Plasma Boy’ Wayland

We had left off:

After the power wheelstand at speed…I had seen enough and made the decision we would not be going back out. There was a new forecast calling for mid 70s on Saturday, and with the prospect of a warmer and hopefully stickier track, we were determined to return the next night to get the job done.

Saturday arrived with more ocean clouds blanketing the Portland metro area, but it was still warmer than Friday’s unfriendly weather. We all gathered at the Village Inn for the traditional Electric Breakfast show & shine EVent, and it was as usual, a great time for all. As the hours clicked by, the clouds gave way to warm sunshine and clear skies. We had all hoped for this so the track could be heated up all day for a better night of racing.

Back at the Wayland EV Juice Bar, everyone did their typical fix and repair thing before the night of racing. We were still perplexed as to why the Zilla in the Zombie was being so unruly with it’s not-so-smooth throttle making for jerky take-offs from rest in mild street driving, and of course its insane power bursts whenever pressing hard on the Go pedal. It was also weird to see those red low Volt set point LEDs lit up on the battery pack modules, even after brief throttle jabs on the street – accompanied by instant twin black marks on the road! The pack was still measuring 4.05V per cell even with the tell-tale LEDs glowing. What the heck?

Once again, in a non-typical mode, we all left for the track on time and we caravaned down to the track. It was now in the mid-70s and it was windows down driving. Upon arrival, we could tell this night was much busier and had to wait in line for nearly 1/2 hour. After tech-in and a recharge to top the pack off, we were ready to see what the night had in store for us. There was a group of bracket racers running 9-11 second cars, so lots of rubber was being laid down and the track was the opposite of Friday night’s horrible conditions, with a hot sticky surface to give good launches…we would soon explore this situation like never before!

Tim and I discussed the technique to hopefully get the car to hook up, which included dropping the tire pressure in back and doing extended burnouts to ensure hot sticky tires. It worked, but just a tad bit too well! The car had crazy wheel stand launches that continued even after leaving the 60ft. area and the nose popped up multiple times as the Zombie went down the track. A longtime drag racing friend, Bob, was on hand to give his always respected analysis of what was going on. He helped us adjust the pre-load of the CalTrac bars, but that made the car hook up even harder! Turning down the battery and motor amps in the Hairball had no effect, and each time Tim returned after a run, he had that look on his face of ‘HOLY sh#%&*tt!!!’ We ran high 10s and an 11 flat, not bad but not as good as in late July when we ran 10.4. The cell low set point LEDs were always lit after the pass, yet the pack seemed unaffected and was at very good cell EQ and SOC. Doc Sherry was pointing out the lowest sag levels per cell that we had never seen before and suggested that we were somehow pulling really BIG currents to make then dip to around 2.5V per cell. Meanwhile poor Mark Farver was still trying to get me to pay attention to his warnings that something was not right in the Zilla’s data that contained no amp readings. I had both Bruce Sherry and Mark Farver with their respective laptops connected to all the Zombie’s electronics pulling data and helping us try to solve the problem at hand…note to self: ‘listen’ to them!

Otmar joined in with us while we were all trying to figure things out, as we decided to simply pull my Zilla and swap it out for the one from Otmar’s 914 Porsche…and that’s when he noticed that some idiot had reversed the B- and M- power cables at the controller’s lug terminals! Remember that bit about how I had removed those annoying white marker dots? From my pt.1 story:

I took the time to clean off the power cables to make them conform to my wiring neatness standards, as someone had marked them with goofy white dots from a white-out pen…note to self: sometimes having cables clearly labeled is a good thing.

This ‘unique’ way of connecting a Zilla resulted in an interesting situation to where the controller still worked and still varied the speed to the motor, but it was running blind as to how much current it was making. Here’s the deal…the B- and M- power studs enter the Zilla and are bolted directly to the two ends of an internal shunt. If you were to measure this chunk of metal with a simply DVM it would be pretty much at 0 ohms, but it is of course, it’s not exactly 0, and from one end to the other it generates a varying amount of mv in proportion to the amps flowing through it to tell the Zilla’s brain what’s going on. With the two power cables reversed, the controller still had a B- input to operate on, and the motor as well, had its B- to operate on. The Zilla could still output the pulsed B+ juice to the motor, but it had no idea as to how much juice it was sending. In fact, as it was sending pulses out, it was probably saying ‘Huh? No amps yet? OK, I’ll send more!”…reminds me of ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’…”Mom, he’s a vegetarian” – (Greek mother’s reaction)…”What, he don’t eat meat? – OK, I make you lamb!” Good thing Otmar over-built his creation, because absent feedback from its internal shunt it just kept cranking up the amps to the tune of more than 3000 amps! How do we know this? OK, we really don’t know the exact figure right now, but we do have a pretty good idea based on the cell volt sag we saw in the BMS data, the lowest being 2.44V under the highest loads – thus those 2.8V low set point LEDs lighting up!

Here’s how we have figured things. Note that we have also talked with our good friend and engineer at Dow Kokam on this and he too, is working on the data we provided him to see just how much juice we actually pulled from those ultra high power cells. At the near-400V pack level, the Zilla will limit its max battery input to 1800 amps, and we have very accurate data on cell sag at 1800 amps, that being 3.12V for a paralleled pair or 900 amps per cell. The cells sit at 4.13V or so off of charge, and settle in to 4.05V after pulling them down a bit, then just stay there. The cells sag from 4.05V to 3.12V @ 900 amps. From what we’ve seen all along as we’ve gradually pulled increasing amps from the battery pack (that is until the 9-10 thru 9-11 weekend’s crazy stunt), the cells seem to be very linear and predictable. I saw this trait last Winter when initially testing the cells. We saw it as we started using the pack in the car, and we continue to see it. Subtracting 3.12V from 4.05V, we get a .93V drop, so that is .103V per 100 amps pulled. Now, knowing the cells sagged to 2.44V with the unlimited Zilla doing its thing, we see the cells dipped 1.61V…divide that by .103 and you get 15.63 times, or 1563 amps per cell! In the paralleled pairs then, this was 3126 amps! There are 96 pairs of 3.7V cells to get the pack’s 355V nominal rating, but at the 2.44V per cell low point this was 234.2V @ 3126 amps, or a whopping 732 kW of power for 981 hp! I had written a long time ago as we were creating the pack for the Zombie, that it would make 926 hp and it seemed that some thought that might have been an exaggeration. From my 11-28-09 post entitled ‘Dow/Kokam Powered Zombie…10s in 2010! (pt. 3)’:

I wanted to assemble these cells into modules. I worked closely with Rich Rudman on this with many brainstorming sessions over pie and scribbled-on napkins, and also with him back in Missouri where we ran the concept past the Kokam engineering team. The idea was to keep the design clean, simple, and accessible. It’s the accessible part that dictated a modular design, because having a large assembly of cells all ganged together in the trunk space of the car, makes a package that although small compared to the lead acid pack, is still too heavy and bulky to work on. It also makes it difficult to quickly get to cells if there’s a problem. With a possible TV show in the works (more on this in pt.4) and with Kokam interested in being a supplier of cells for that project, I wanted the modular design so other packs could be configured by adjusting the numbers of and the placement of modules for a given vehicle. Other factors that shaped the module’s design were weight, physical size, shape, current carrying ability, and cell numbers per module. I wanted each module to not be too heavy, so 35-37 lbs. was the goal. Rudman’s newest BMS board is an 8 channel unit, meaning it can keep track of 8 cells (or 8 paralleled groups of cells). At 1.8 lbs. per cell, and needing to have pairs of cells in parallel, a 2P X 8S, 16 cell module made sense. Each module would be made of tough clear Lexan, and the cell’s output tabs would be tied together with high current nickel plated copper buss and clamp bars. With just shy of 29 lbs. of active material (cells) and the heavy 3-4 lbs. of copper interconnects (needed to pass 2.4 kiloamps), hitting that 35-37 lb. goal would be a challenge. At 29.6V, 64 ahr @ C2, and ~36 lbs. per module, and with pack voltage, space constraints, and a pack target weight including cabling and hold-downs of 450-460 lbs., I went with a 12 module, 192 cell design for a 355V nominal, 22.7 kWhr @ C2 power package capable of outputting 2.4 kiloamps for 10 seconds! The very low voltage sag at high currents is very impressive with these particular cells. Graphs provided by Kokam reveal that for every 5C rate of discharge, the cell sags ~.1V, so beginning at 3.8V if one were to extract 150 amps, the cell drops to 3.7V, and at 10C or 300 amps, it goes to 3.6V, so at its continuous rating of 20C or 600 amps, the cell drops and stays at 3.4V…this is very impressive stuff! In theory, at the 10 second rate of 40C -1200 amps, the cell still hangs at 3V! Do the math for our 2P96S pack, and this equates to a staggering 691 kW! It’s amazing, that 345 lbs. of Kokam cells will generate 926 battery hp! This is terrific power density.

Well, as the bad toys out for a night on the town say in that great Kia commercial (music by The Heavy) say, ‘How you like me now?” As is typical from what we’ve seen with Dow Kokam’s cells, they have once again exceeded their specs, in that the Sept. ’09 predicted 926 hp actually turned out to be 981 hp! Note that a year ago I had said “Graphs provided by Kokam reveal that for every 5C rate of discharge, the cell sags ~.1V”…looks like these guys know their cells, as we saw .103V per 100 amps pulled – lining right up to that ~.1V per 100 amps from the Dow Kokam specs! Of course, the Zombie’s motor didn’t make 981 hp, but it’s a good guess it was well over 700 hp at times. No wonder the car went airborne at 80 mph on Friday night and did monster wheel stands on Saturday night! 700+ hp in a 2348 lb. car is for now, too much power. I know, I know, I’ve always subscribed to the notion that ‘too much is just right’, but watching Tim save the car numerous times (and himself) plus seeing much worse ETs with this level confirms it was way too much.

Getting back to the story…once we had the controller swap done, with the Zombie up on blocks in the pits the more typical butter-smooth throttle response was back. Having survived crazy power levels, we were no longer too afraid to crank the Zilla all the way up, which we did with 2000 battery amps and the full 2000 motor amps. As noted earlier, the Zilla would only pull 1800 battery amps due to our pack’s near 400V level. The next trip to the line was entirely different. The Zombie simply stuck, raised up the body level, then shot straight and true to the tune of a 10.258 @ 123.58 mph establishing the best ET ever for a street legal electric car…cheers from the bleachers and lots of sighs of relief!

Back in the pit, Tim said the car was boring now Not a single red LED could be found, and the pack had stayed right near 300V for the run… if my memory serves me correctly, Doc Sherry figured it went to 305V @ 1800 amps…incredible cells! The car didn’t spin much, and simply took care of business, knocking down run after run in the 10.2-10.3 range, all at 122-123 mph. With it’s 110-120 mile range per charge energy density, the last two runs on of 10.261 @ 123.54 mph and 10.287 @ 123.38 mph were done without prior recharges, then the car was driven a bit hard leaving the track, then driven 16 miles uphill back home. The next morning the 3.7V nominal cells were at 3.87V, and not a single red LED could be found!

It was a weekend we’ll all remember for a long time, and though we didn’t make it to the 9s, none of us are too upset about only running 10.2 with a street legal electric car! We had gone to the dark side of electric power, but lived to tell about it. That being said and strange as it seems right now, Otmar and I have been scheming together again just as it was all those years ago during the skunkworks days. With some new ideas about Zilla current control mods, and with more suspension work to the car, we’ll return to the dark side in 2011 as we head into the single digit ETs! A note on safety here…my accidental mod to my Zilla is not something anyone should purposefully do in terms of safety and in terms of possible damage to an expensive Zilla Z2K. The controller was not intended to run this way, and I in no way am recommending it. It does however underscore the high degree of ruggedness Otmar designed into this mighty controller!

Thanks go out to our sponsors, the Plasma Boy Team, and all our friends who were there to cheer us on.

See Ya…John ‘Plasma Boy’ Wayland