March 27, 2007 by Rob.

Just to hammer home my thoughts about cost of hybrids not justifying the benefit.  BusinessWeek says that hybrid sales are declining because consumers are not seeing the ROI from the extra $3,000+ added cost.  I believe that the hybrid’s that look like regular cars will not sell as fast as the Prius.  Consumers who pay the premium want “green geek” vanity.

Posted in EV News | 2 Comments »

March 27, 2007 by Rob.

I’m excited post that I’ve been in touch with Larry E.  I’ve had a link to his 97 RAV4 conversion blog for a while.  I’m hoping that he’ll give me to OK to post some/all of our conversation and his pictures.

Larry’s got a TON of EV conversion experience and made different large scale decisions for his conversion (AC, AGM, etc), but he is very similar on the details like MR2 p/s and brake system.  Hopefully he can help me tune my decisions based on hands-on experience with the RAV.

One big suggestion from Larry is to use RAV4-EV springs to improve the suspension.

Posted in Storyline, Planning | 1 Comment »

March 27, 2007 by Rob.

I managed to read the WSJ article (full text from Northwest Florida Daily News) from my last post. I think this is exactly the type of PR that EVs need. There is a powerful economic motivation for EVs if you are able to buy power cheap and sell it back at peak. Wow - your car battery could become an energy arbitrage. How would you factor that into your MPG calculation!

One gripe: everyone seems to be hung up on Li batteries. I consider Li batteries on par with a sports car engine: great for special performance requirements, but not required for most users based on the added cost. Lead-Acid works fine for my application w/ daily charging. I’m not trying to get a 200 mile range. If my household was 100% EV, then I could rent a deluxe car on long trips and still have $ left over from the non-Li savings.

Posted in EV News, AustinEV | No Comments »