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.

0.2 kWh = 2.6 Cents @ 13 Cents per kWh

That was the cost to recharge my electricfly tonight - just 2.6 Cents Canadian, that's about 2.5 Cents US! I admit, it was just for driving to work, and then back home, and I do make a real short drive to work - 0.7 Km today (back of parking lot - usually 0.9 km!), for a total of 1.4 km home - to work, to home, and the 200 watt hours used to recharge - after all charging losses are burned, still leaves an energy consumption of 142.857 Watt Hours per Kilometer (Km), or 1.9 Cents per Km!

Summary
1.4 Km
0.2 kWh Recharge Energy
$0.026 to recharge
142.857 W/hrs per Km
$0.019 Per Km Driving Cost.

Please Remember - this is with batteries that are getting old, some are abused more than others - from driving them before I had installed PakTrakr and Display, on the Freeway, and draining the heck out of them to the point of barely able to crawl! A Few Times! Batteries that I bought - that a good frined told me they don't hold up well! And - Before I charged them up on Sunday evening - I watered them, and 2 cells were just starting to peak out of the water / electrolyte!

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Pursuing a Battery So Electric Vehicles Can Go the Extra Miles

The New York Times: Published September 14, 2009

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A future generation lithium-air battery might be the much sought after power source for electric vehicles with ranges that match gasoline powered cars of today.

The interest in the as-yet-unproven technology was underscored this summer when I.B.M. said it had begun to pursue a tenfold improvement in battery storage, with hopes of reaching the goal before the end of the next decade.

I.B.M. executives said the company was unlikely to enter the battery business directly but was aiming toward a partnership that would marry its hardware and systems design expertise with ultralight battery technology.

Such a strategy would follow the lead of Tesla Motors, a new California company that produced a high-end electric roadster based on a computerized and sensor-based battery system. Tesla put 6,800 standard lithium-ion battery cells designed for consumer electronic products into a 992 pound package.

“I strongly believe that climbing this Mount Everest of 10 times better, given resources, time and patience, will happen,” said Winfried Wilcke, a physicist and I.B.M.’s senior manager for nanoscale science and technology here at the Almaden Research Center. “This is simply so overwhelming in its simplicity and its clarity and the socioeconomic consequences it would have, that it deserves a Manhattan-like effort.” Continue reading the Original Post Here

Electricfly Continues to Log Energy Consumption

It has been some time since the last post due to continuing efforts in a variety of areas - no the least of which is the logging of PakTrakr energy use data and UM100 Energy Monitor recharge energy consumption data for comparisons.

Of course the time involved with the AeroCap Project and Website development, some time on the website for my electricfly, and duties as the webmaster for The Electric Vehicle Society of Canada, as well as their Editor for EV Surge - Their Newsletter.

Oh yes - I also work a regular Job at Bombardier Aerospace - DeHaviland, full time, as an Aircraft Assembler, and have been spending some time trying to return to the re-design of my first website - Aircraft Computational, wherein I largely was able to collate a large number of interesting links in the Aviation and PC fields - under - links, and to create and share - for free - pdf based Tutorials for Alibre Design - and excellent 3D CAD Solids Modeler.

Beyond that I have been trying to find time to develop our new - Telecommunications Business, which means learning the ropes, and helping people save money on their home phone, Internet, and long distance communications, as well as get good deals on Cell Phones, Home Security, and Satellite Digital TV. Of these - my Favourite is the Video Phone

On to the Electricfly - the Data logging is a process of logging on an SD Flash Memory Card the running data with the Woodward PakTrakr Display with the SD Card Reader/Writer, then taking the card and uploading the raw data to my PC in .csv format and giving it and easily identifiable name to match the date and activity. This is then tweaked - removing the data that is not deciphered, or that is reserved, but not interpreted, and the file is re-saved with a modified name - still as a .csv file.

The new .csv file is then re-saved with a normal excel extension, and the data is then tallied, added, averaged, checked for peaks in a min-max format, and simplified for easier grasping.

Unfortunately, of late I have only been able to log the data and upload it in raw form to the PC for later cleaning up. I did clean up some of the files this spring, but the process is a bit slow, when combined with, or inserted into the flow of everything else to do.

This coming Thursday - September 18th, 2009 - is the next general meeting for the Electric Vehicle Society, and I still have to complete the July-Aug 2009 EV Surge Newsletter, so I have been a bit behind. They are having an executive meeting today to plan some things, which I have committed to attend. So - as you see - the electricfly has some time competition now.

Since the UM100 Energy Monitor does not have any data card storage system, I have captured that data by taking pictures of the monitors display after a charge cycle is completed, along with Pictures of the Odometer and trip meters for reference. This information is compared to the energy consumed between charges according to the PakTrakr Display SD Card data, The UM100 shows time, kwh's used, and as I have programmed the current 13 cents per kwh net that I pay -the total dollars (or cents) worth of electricity used.