You are currently browsing the Rob’s RAVolt! weblog archives for the day September 4, 2007.
September 4, 2007 by Rob.
Sometimes I get stuck in an ICE rut even when I live in an EV world. Picture the RAVolt stranded in a parking lot because my auxiliary battery died. Luckily, I’ve packed jumper cables so I can start the EV with the cables. Thinking with my ICE hat on, I ask the guy next to me for a jump. He’s pretty amused to provide a jump to an EV and happily opens up his hood. I connect up the cables and the RAVolt “starts” like a champ; however, it dies when I disconnect the cables because the auxiliary is too dead to run my vacuum pump. Oh No! I’m stranded - better call Laura and get a ride home.
Finally, I realize that I can give myself the friggin’ jump from any of my traction batteries! 20 seconds later I’m ready to drive again. Before I go, I ask the guy who game me the jump why he didn’t say anything. He just shrugged and said “yeah, it seemed strange, but I figured you knew what you were doing.”
After thinking on it a while, I realize that I’ve gotten so used to seeing the traction (main) battery pack as a single unit that it’s hard to treat it like a chain of 12 batteries. Even when I describe it as 5 in the front and 7 in the back, I’d been thinking of it as one part. What an unexpected lesson in the dangers of pattern thinking!
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