How Many EV Conversions are out there? How are They Powered?

That Answer could take a while to get accurate - but those that have posted on EV Album - http://www.evalbum.com/ - can be counted! Today - at this point that stands at a Current Total: 3,487 Vehicles!

This of course does not include the many that have been converted and not listed here! (I know of a couple in Ontario, near the GTA alone!)

The Largest number by a country is the United States with 1891 listings, Lead by California with 426, then Washington State with 135, and Texas with 114. Oregon comes in with an Honorable Mention at 104 Listings!

Canada - comes in with 186, Lead by Quebec with 67, Ontario with 47, and British Columbia with 42. Alberta Gets Honorable Mention with 18!

Australia comes in with 120, Lead by New South Wales with 31, followed by Western Australia with 24, and Queensland with 22. Honorable Mention goes to Victoria with 18!

The 'Motherland' - Great Britain, comes in with 103 listings, Lead by England with 70, Scotland with 21, and Wales with 9. Isle of Wight brings in the last 3!

That leaves 1,181 remaining vehicles sprinkled around the planet in numerous countries - all doing something to do their part in moving away from burning something to move around!

You can do your own check - here - http://www.evalbum.com/geo

You can also research by other than location - for Example - Motor Types - http://www.evalbum.com/mtrtp to get an idea of what is the most popular motors, and with searches like this - it is good to track this over time to see how the numbers change as we get newer and better motors for use in EV Conversions!

The Quantity leader today is the Series Wound DC Motor - with 1,574 units chosen, followed by the Permanent Magnet DC with 620 units chosen, and coming up fast is the 3-Phase AC motors with 403 Units Chosen! Honorable Mention would go to the Brushless DC with 297 Units Chosen! This is something you should check at least each month to get a feel for what is the uptake of each type and how it is progressing, to get an idea of what is preferable!

Next - a Look at Battery Types - http://www.evalbum.com/battt - will show that the predominant EV Conversion Choice is lead by Flooded Lead Acid at 1,109 Vehicles using this! Followed close behind with the Absorbed Glass Mat Lead Acid (AGM) with 809 Vehicles using this, and then Lead-Acid Gel Batteries with 272.

These numbers are largely due to the lack of any other choices in the last decade as many of these conversion are older ones, and also due to the idea that these batteries are less expensive (They have not read my current white papers from my website yet - http://www.myelectricfly.com/whitepapers.php to do the math as I have presented it, or they to might change their mind!)

Interestingly enough though - the next three choices are all Lithium Variants, with Lithium-Ion Being Chosen for 252 Vehicles and Lithium Iron Phosphate for 235 Vehicles, and Lithium Polymer for 138 Vehicles!

So - While 2,190 Batteries are of the Lead Acid Variety, I know that many of these are being changed to variations of Lithium Technology as the price for these drops, supply becomes more available, and awareness of the value increases. So while there are just 625 listed vehicles today using Lithium Variants, if you check back regularly over the next few years, on a month to month basis - I am sure you will see a slowing of the uptake of Lead Acid, and an increase in the uptake of Lithium Choices!

So - Now you know a pretty good answer to the questions of How many EV Conversions are out there and How are they Powered! Happy Hunting!

My First Whitepaper - Free Sneak Highlights!

My first white paper discusses in some detail - Lead Acid versus LiFePO4.

Here is a quick summary of the high points:

• EnerSys 12V, 17.2AH Sealed Lead Acid Battery at the 1 hour rate deliver just under 60% of their rated power, at 10.3 Ah that means - 0.6C load.


• 100% Depth of Discharge will shorten the life of the battery to just 250 cycles. That is 1/6th of the life of a smaller 30% Discharge, of 1,200 Cycles.


• (.3 [30% Discharge] X .6 [.6C Load of 10.3 Amps] = .18 X the Available 1 hour Energy [18% times the 10.3 Ah = 1.854 ah per Cycle] to get to the 1200 cycles!)


• ThunderSky 40Ah Cell = 1/4 the weight, Enersys costs more than 2.1 times the price.


• ThunderSky Cell can do 1000 Cycles at 100% discharge, and at 80% Discharge do 3000 Cycles, and at this point, = 64 Enersys Batteries for total energy delivery.

Bottom Line - it covers some excelent general comparisons.

I found some good data on the 20Ah SLA versus a 20 Ah LiFePO4 today too!

PakTrakr interesting situation

The PakTrakr main display is telling that the pack won't charge more than 78% in this cold weather - but - when I look at the data on the SD Card from the Woodward large Pak Trakr Display with Data Logging, - I see the front remote data says that part of the pack is at 100%, and the rear remote says that part of the pack is at 100%, and - the individual battery chargers are saying each battery is charged to 100% and is stable at about 13.2 Volts, all leaves me wondering what happened?

Current Cold weather, wet & snowy weather, and work schedules make checking it all out a bit more difficult, and other issues of late to deal with have left little time or energy to dig into it!

Likely - my last thought of simply - take the car for a drive, keep the batteries out of the danger zine, and come back and put them right away on the charger is made more difficult due to the Rehab center customer stream that usually is in the way for me to plug in, except for Friday Afternoon and Saturday Afternoon. However - for some reason - this past Friday - there was a late night stream of clients to the center!

If the actual power consumption of my battery pack was measured from the beginning with the Data logging PakTrakr Display - I would have a tally of how many Watt hours I had taken from it - but the pack was driven for wome time with just the analog Voltmeter and Ammeter, so no real way to know! (And those trips where I drained the batteries and limpled along - both in warmer weather the first time, and in cold weather the second time, likely took a lot of life out of the set!)

In any case - we are seeing more and more places supplying and promoting LiFePO4 (Lithium Iron Phosphate) cells and packs for cars and eBikes too! Just looked today for a few minutes at San Diego Electric Bike. they have some good information there, and there was some other good stuff I will report on shortly!

First Whitepaper Posted by MyElectricfly

Since I have began to drive this Electric Vehicle, even though it's been converted from a fairly efficient Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) Vehicle to Electric - it is to date still powered by old school batteries: Flooded Lead Acid.

This new Whitepaper takes a good look at the performance issues with using Lead Acid Batteries - even the Sealed AGM (Absorbed Glass Matt) types versus Lithium Iron Phosphate. It compares a fairly common Supplier's Product - the EnerSys 12V, 17.2 Ah Sealed Lead Acid (SLA) Battery, and compares it to one of the Lower Performance Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4) cells - a small 40 Ah Cell from ThunderSky.

(I say Lower Performance - in that it is rated for a Max Continuous Load of 3C versus some that state up to 30c Continuous, but cost 4 - 6 X more per cell, and use smaller cells - requiring more work to build a pack!)

Jump over to my web site and read about it here.

As you read it - you will start to see a trend with Lead Acid (PbA) Batteries - they may be fine at low loads, and long run times are fine like that - but bump up the loads to something used in an Electric Vehicle - and you start to see they just poop out before you know it!

If you think this is unfair to PbA Batteries - well - just think of it like this - first - it is very hard to get specific data like that refered to in the article for a reference Lead Acid Battery - and one can only guess why they make it hard to get cycle life specs at varying loads, as well as actual deliverable amp hour capacity at a large variety of run times. They are typically listed in 20 Hour Ratings - meaning - how much energy can it deliver at a specific load over a 20 hour period.

Take another look at the whitepaper, and then come back to me with more than a half a dozen sites that list battery capacity of PbA (Lead Acid) Batteries at increments of 1 hour declining from the 20 hour starting point to 1 hour, and in your research - you will start to see - that so few suppliers list the data, or make it easy to find, and second - when you find it - you will see - how little they can deliver if you crank up the load just a little bit!

The reality is - for my car - since it was built the way it was when I got it - I have to work with the motor specs that I have! It has a GE (General Electric) Motor rated for 20.9 HP at 90 Volts DC X 184 Amps!

Therefore - we should have a battery (pack) that can decently deliver at least a steady 184 Amps without killing the battery, and then - for a reasonable run time to get the desired range.

We will come back and talk more on this issue in the future! (It will be a bit revealing, for many - I am sure!)

Other Whitepapers with more data will be published and listed here, so keep coming back to see them, or scroll to the bottom of the page and enter your email address where it says - * Be notified when this page changes * to get a notice in your email inbox to go look at it again.