August 4, 2007 by Rob.

Today was RAVolt maintenance day: we checked and watered the batteries. My flooded lead acid batteries slowly use up the distilled water in the cells so every month I need to add water to the cells. While charging, they also produce egg smelling sulfur and flammable H2 gas.  Except for the few places where I ran cable over the battery holes, it’s a painless process. I rigged up a funnel to make it less messy and Alex took over most of the work (yea!).

I also decided to add lock washers to all my terminal connections while I was working with the batteries. A loose terminal will cause sparking, reduce the pack performance, and eventually melt. That would be bad.

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August 4, 2007 by Rob.

I just told my American National insurance agent that my car is electric. When I removed the ICE, I’d told him that I was replacing it (true) and omitted that the new model was CO2 free.

He did not immediately say “what!!!” and I’m taking that as a good sign. It would suck if they won’t insure the RAVolt because I’d have to drop them for all of our policies and find a new insurer. After the government and mortgage company, they get more of our $ than any other company.

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