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E.V.
Electirc Vehicles are our future. Doesn’t matter. There are lots of reasons for this.
What will be here
This section is being developed. Mostly it will be about issues and needs for regulations and standards in electronic vehicles.
Open and Standard
We need open and standards for electronic vehicles.
Battery Management System - an example
One of the big costs in all EVs is batteries. A BMS can manage every individual cell. However, in my Prius, I can’t get access to that information. And although Telsla and Nissan users have hacked and made their own software to access the cells, this is a hard task. And as the number of vehicles and number of manufacturers is increasing, this is becoming more difficult.
It should just be completely standard on the ODB connector using standard and open code.
EVs are and shoudl be cheap to build and maintain
EV compoonents are a fraction of the number and a minute fraction of the complexity of any ICE.
Components are almost all easy to maintain yourself. There are always specialist areas on cars - specifically the steering and braking. The motor, electronics, air conditioner, heater, music, heated seats, auxilary, gps, main battery, motors, etc are all really easy to maintain.
However this is the issue - companies are making it hard. They are either making the batteries or motors or inverters locked in ways that can’t be managed personally. This is of course on purpose to require people to go back to the manufacturer for changes.
It is getting even worse - now we are getting features - e.g. heated seats or on bikes, heated grips, that require you to pay a fee to enable - they are already there, just turning on software.
Software is expensive to write. Someone writing a new high performance engine controller needs to be paid. Whether that is in the manufacturer or 3rd party, should be paid.
But charging a subscription fee for turning on heated grips - Say no to those manufacturers, we must stop them.
1 - Battery
Monitoring the battery and fixing it
1.4 - Monitoring
Monitoring - specicially by ODB/CAN/Bluetooth
1.5 - Repairing
Repairing, specifically replacing a cell.
1.6 - Size
What size are you batteries
There is a lot of confusion over battery sizes. This is due to the way the industry will document things.
Definitions
These definitions are simplified and only a guilde. They approimate how things are converted
How are things connected together
We have this thing called a metre. It is a length was (untile recently) defined by a bit of metal. Originally defined as 1, tenmillionth of the distance between the equator and north poll. More recently it is defined speed of light in some amount of time.
Then we have seconds based on a day.
Finally we have celsius - based on freezing and boiling pure water at sea level.
Combine these together, we can then get Joules and Watts - its all connected.
Amps vs Volts vs Watts
What really matters is watts. This is a measurement of energy. Volts and Amps will be moved between at each point in your system. Main transmission lines are often 20,000 volts, while single phase in my house is 240 volts to ground, and 3 phase is 400 between each phase.
Watts = Amps * Volts. So your Kettle is 10Amps, 240Volts it is therefore 2400 Watts.
Amp Hours and Watt Hours
Joules are energy and defineds as a watt in 1 second. But in energy terms we use Amp Hours and Watt Hours.
When you pay your electricity, it is measured in Watt Hours, or more specifically KWH - 1000 Watt Hours.
Batteries
Since our batteries are DC and a specific volts, we often see mentioned Amp Hours. This is especially true for 12 Volt batteries.
However, to compare everything equally, we must convert to Watt Hours.
So a 12V 100Ah battery = 1200 Watt Hours.
And a 24V 50Ah battery = 1200 Watt Hours.
Battery Type
The battery type is very significant. And this is where we have a bit of a painful situation.
Lead Acid 100Ah batteries may contain 100Ah of power at 12 volts, but you generally can not access more than 50Ah without damaging the battery. 80Ah depth of discharge will generally permenantly damage the battery.
Where as Lithium Batteries can be discharged 80-95%.
So when you purchase a 100Ah lithium battery, you can get almost twice the power of a 100Ah lead acid battery.
Some Sizes Compared
My Electric Bike
Lithium Ion battery, 72Volts and 80Ah = 5760 Watt Hours.
My Caravan Battery
A 12 volt lithium Ion battery, 100Ah = 1200 Watt Hours
Tesla Power Wall
These are variable, but the internet suggests 13000 Watt Hours.
My 22 Year Old House Solar
48 Volt Lead Acid, XXX Amp Hours = ???
But note these are Lead Acid, so I can only use about XXX
Your Phone
Approximately 3000mAh, and 3.7Ah (aka, a single sell lithium) = 11 Watt Hours
Car Starter Battery
All different sizes but approximately often about 40Ah = 480 Watt Hours. This is lead acid, and you can’t even really use all that power, these are high current batteries to start your car.
Prius 2010 Battery
These are 1.2V nickel-metal-hydride cells. Totally = 1600 Watt Hours
1.7 - Testing
Testing - specifically standard methods and range/degregation testing
2 - Ideas
Ideas for EV projects and more
2.1 - Prius 2010
Prius 2010 fully electric
The plug in (adding lithium batteries) hybrid kits for Prius have some small issues. One is that they often run the ICE even if in idle mode. I would like to see the ICE removed completely. Not only lowering some weight and adding space for batteries - petrol tank too remember, but also removing that maintenance and complexity.
There are some projects that have done it, but it is more complicated than it needs to be.
- We already know that the Prius can be electric plugin and therefore has enough power on electric motor.
- We already know that plugin hybrid works.
- Really it is only a matter of removing the ICE, disabling the power distribution (what connects the ICE and electric motor together) and changing some software.
Rather than a donner car that is being upgraded from ICE to Electric - this is already 90% there. This should massively simplify approvals, and most of the electronics and hardware. No mounting motors, just batteries and some controller changes. The important parts - motor and inverter, are already in place.
4 - TODO
TODO
Just starting, lots to come.