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First drives are always an excellent event. Weeks, and for us, usually months of effort in the shop eventually lead to a vehicle, still in some disassembly, but running out of excuses NOT to go drive. And then it rolls. The magic never lessens for me. It is always an exhilarating moment to see the car GO after months of being shackled to the lift.
In the days just prior to the EVCCON, the eCobra was reaching that point. It was my FIRST build where she I decided it was time to roll, it refused to roll. The thrill of victory. And in this case the agony of defeat as they used to say on ABC's wide world of sports.
After a roll, there are always new issues come to light that have to be worked off - kind of like the tick list on a new house. But I have never just had one refuse to roll at all. The eCobra crept off the ramp ok, but when we hit the pedal, it appeared to have a severe case of clutch slip and really just wouldn't go.
As I say, that's a first for me and I take these things poorly.
As it turns out, it WAS a slipping clutch, but not the clutch we were engaging. Rather, it turned out to be the clutch in the limited slip differential third member we had added to eCobra in an errant attempt to save weight, which turned out to be a thoroughly discouraging 7.5 lbs anyway.
This was discovered by one of our EVCCON attendees after two days of furious work by probably 50 people who looked at it at one time or another, including the builder of the original car.
In any event, Paul Lin had flown from Taiwan, DURING a typhoon, to be with us and to drive his car on its first drive. It was not to be.
In the few days since the event, we did get a new drive shaft made to accommodate the original third member, which had been reinstalled. And the vehicle was thereby made capable of movement.
We also had some controller issues traced to a very demanding controller who insisted that 12v be about 12v and noise free. We had to add an aux battery and rewire the way 12v comes up when using the ignition key to do that. I have a mini-white board session on this simple circuitry change in the video.
Once accomplished, we not only had a new drive to take on a sunny autumn day in Cape Girardeau, but we had a new camera to play with as well. We've been playing with a Contour Plus mini camera that provides excellent HD quality images but more importantly, an astounding 170 degree field of view - very close to the human field of view. Its a bit distorted, but hugely wide. And for shooting in vehicles, this is a huge plus.
Unfortunately the camera controls are pretty meager, there is no viewfinder, you don't really know what you're shooting, and the build quality is actually surprisingly poor given the $499 price. But we have persevered and learned pretty much how to work with it.
The result is first drive with a bit different video view. We think its engaging and another step toward putting you IN the car with us on these drives.
And indeed, first drive was exhilarating. Given his actually masterfully precise execution of an incredible array of details surrounding the EVCCON, Mr. Noto was privileged the honors on first drive.
Let me digress here just a bit to pass on some lessons hard won over time that have little to do with electricity.
I like people with good intentions. Your intentions should be good. Evil intentions are fortunately rare, but of course unpleasant.
It's nice to be among men of vision. A grand vision is a grand thing. Out of the box thinking is always a joy to observe and participate in. A meager approach to life from a position of want and need is not who we are meant to be. A grand vision assuming a universe of unlimited resource is much more productive.
Pleasant manners are of course most characterized by being "pleasant". Who doesn't like minimal confrontation and maximum pleasant.
And I like smart people. The bandwidth of conversation and ideas simply is more enjoyable at a faster pace. Having to stop and explain the obvious and the given or worse actually get into a debate over things that no longer need debate is frustrating and annoying.
But I can convene ROOMS full of very smart, pleasant people of grand vision with good intentions. Unfortunately, as a general rule none of them have ever actually done anything of note or had any impact on anything. Too often, they spend too much time thinking pretty thoughts of a grand future where everyone is pleasant and has good intentions.
Great effort too is admirable. One of my favorite films is Rudy. Maximum effort with limited tools - the underdog story. I cry like a baby.
But in the end, the thing I prize most of all is execution. Some very small percentage of our population is simply capable of making things HAPPEN. They can execute. If you aim them at a target, you can pretty much then walk away and begin the next process because you KNOW the target either no longer exists, or will not exist very much longer. They will assemble whatever resources are necessary, employ whatever tools are necessary, identify any further needs necessary, but when the smoke clears - target gone and ready for the next mission. To execute with precision is an art form.
I was privileged to work with both Brian Noto and Christopher Fisher on this EVCCON 2011. I really did very little toward the mission of success with this conference. And both simply had this process of "execution" down to an implicit act. And they were both so calm about it. It is a thing to admire. Minimum fuss. Minimum noise. Lots of smoldering holes where at times difficult targets used to be. And a pathological, at times even obsessive, attention to detail.
I would have those skills for myself but I am not, unfortunately, graced in that way. Having the attention span of a four-year-old is of course its own reward. But in the unlikely event that I DID miraculously grow up, I would that I were as these two guys.
In any event, the drive was fun. Despite the false starts, the first real DRIVE was a hoot. This car is growing on me. First, it's LARGER than the cars we've been doing. It is of course 3000 lbs - at least. We'll probably weigh it this week once the charger is onboard. I can kind of stretch out and it lets me sit up kind of high rather than "down" in a hole. Second, the weight causes the adjustable springs to be tweaked up pretty tight to hold the car up. And it glides along with authority - no jouncing around really. Like a heavier car - which it is.
The Netgain 11HV and Warp Drive Industrial are starting to look like a fortuitous design selection. Under the rubric that even a blind hog gets an acorn now and again, I think I had a lucky pick here. Better to be lucky than good. It moves that 3000 lbs out smartly. No real testing yet of course. But I think we may have something a little special here. Not a drag strip dominator. But it will feel good to drive this car and I think we will accomplish our mission of making things in that rear view mirror get small quickly and in keeping with the Cobra culture and concept.
We really didn't shoot much video of the convention. A lot less than I would have liked actually. But by stealing some photos from George Hamstra, and using some footage my daughter shot from her helicopter, we've cobbled together a recap of the convention that is hopefully both artful and representative. It is simply not possible to duplicate the conference on video anyway.
A number of attendees have requested access to the powerpoint presentations from various speakers. I've given this some thought. I may inherently have the right to do this but I'm going to pass on this. You have the attendee book listing the speakers and their contact info. This is their material they have developed and may quite likely use for a variety of purposes and conferences. It's not really mine to give. Contact those speakers directly with requests for powerpoint presentations and notes. This is a "convention" of adults and viewpoints and information sources and it is little enough to contact the owner directly with your requests. If they want to deal with that en masse, they can of course post a link here for general download. This is not something I should try to arbitrage.
EVCCON 2012 will be presented in the 32,000 sf ShowMe Center here in Cape Girardeau. We hope for a larger assemblage of enthusiasts and cars for this event. Registration opens today at $400 until June 1. For those bringing cars, we will discount this to $99 this year. We had 23 attendees and two vendors sign up on site at the dinner where we made the final decision and announced the second annual Electric Vehicle Conversion Convention. I would that we would have more speakers, more attendee delegates, and more cars at next years event. I would like to thank those who DID go through the rigors of bringing their cars this year - they were some absolutely inspiring builds.
We're going to work toward incentivizing this further. The builds were SO good I want more of them. Greed is a great motivator. So we're working on some more thought through "classes" of builds, some more considered judging, and some SUBSTANTIAL componentry prizes for winners not so much on the race side but on the car show side. It was clear attendees who DID go through the logistical nightmare of bringing their vehicle, took no small pride in displaying to the public, but I think to even a greater degree presenting to their qualified peers in the EV community itself. And so I'm working toward more formal classes of builds, more considered and qualified judging, and as I say, some substantial componentry as awards, along with of course the usual cheesy trophy. Rather than our promotional contest for the pile of components, I thinks we can do more by rewarding the GREAT builds I'm seeing out there with components and providing recognition for the incredible amount of work that goes into some of these cars which are not just functional, but in some cases border on works of art.
We will probably issue ballots to all paid conference attendees and allow them to vote on the "Best of Show" build. I haven't' quite worked out how to tally all that in time for the awards dinner. But I would like for EVCCON to grow into a place where you can bring and display your work to the approbation of your peers.
Enjoy the video. If you have any ideas on how to make EVCCON 2012 bigger and better, I'm all ears.
HERE ARE SOME INCREDIBLE PHOTOS OF THE EVENT taken by Duane Lindsey
Jack Rickard
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Saturday, October 1, 2011
CHRIS PAINE ADDRESSES EVCCON 2011
Still catching up with all that happened at the Electric Vehicle Conversion Convention EVCCON 2011.
One of the "featured" speakers of the event was Chris Paine. I often ask people how they got started in electric vehicles as kind of a warm up question. The most common answer is "I saw this documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car, and it made me really angry."
This answer comes up SO often, it is kind of a mantra among the people converting cars to electric drive. The documentary, and the first real availability of LiFePo4 cells from China, occurred almost on the same day. So the two are kind of inextricably linked. The enabling technology and the motivating force. I find this fascinating.
So we actually paid to have Chris Paine come address our first "convention" of electric car conversion enthusiasts.
The setting was supposed to be at my house. We were going to have kind of a private "car show" hood popper on the front lawn of the adjoining Southeast Missouri University River Campus School of Visual and Performing Arts. This is a very scenic setting literally right ON the banks of the Mississippi River, almost under the new suspension bridge which is very nicely lit at night. Jerrry Ford's band, a kind of 40's Big Band group of about 13 musicians, was to play and the local Port of Cape Girardeau was to cater the event.
It was thoroughly rained out.
So we moved the band and the food to the hangar where we were having sessions, and served dinner while Jerry Ford did his best to play Basil Poulidoris, along with the usual 1940's hits. The music was FANTASTIC and the food very good.
Mr. Paine tried desperately to devine the party line and get some guidance on how to tune to the audience. Instead, I kind of described who was here, why they were here, and what they hoped to do hear and left it to hime what to talk about and what to show by way of documentaries. He did ask which I thought they would rather see, "Charged" or "Revenge of the Electric Car" and I mentioned that "Revenge" would undoubtedly be the overwhelming choice.
Revenge actually has gone into distribution, meaning the control of the rights and so forth has passed to another entity and the film is scheduled to open in theaters in late NOvember, actually in St. Louis it will open on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving - a curious time to debut a film in theaters.
In any event, if a crowd shows up in theaters, this will cause some press attention, DVD sales etc and it is important that people turn out for the theatre release.
In any event, after dinner Paine addressed the group with a kind of alphabet presentation of various curious elements of the electric car universe and I would describe the audience as rapt. Kind of a special sermon to the choir in this case, he was very well received.
After some texting back and forth with his distribution manager, he decided to go ahead and screen "Revenge of the Electric Car." This is where rain plays a role. We were able to completely darken the hangar and had a nine foot rear projection system on hand for the sessions. The result was a sparkling clear presentation of the documentary.
The documentary was NOT what I expected. The first documentary was a little simplistic for my tastes with very bad guys and very good guys and presented in an almost fairy tale like simplicity built around that. But it WAS motivating and I WAS angry at the end so it was enormously effective.
Somehow I expected Revenge to reverse this into a big hooray for GM and Nissan who now of course have products.
Instead, what we saw was a much more mature and developed view of four players in the EV space, with four different visions of an electric car future. It was a parallel comparison in many ways bizarrely presented with a Gregorian chant background and MUCH higher production values and camera work than Who Killed the Electric Car.
The four players were Bob Lutz with General Motors and the Volt, Carlos Ghosn with Nissan Motor Company, Elon Musk with Tesla Motors, and Greg "Gadget" Abbott of Left Coast Electric Conversions - a small conversion shop in California, ironically specializing in 1957 Porsche Speedster Replicas.
The documentary cycled between profiles of these players quite artfully, bringing out a number of interesting and indeed crucial points in the development of an electric car that could be adopted by the market. Bob Lutz came across as a big booming guy with a vision and a very corporate way of presenting his product. Carlos Ghosn was an almost steely autocratic leader betting his company's fortune on electric cars surrounded by people who had only one answer for his every question - YES.
Elon Musk actually didn't fair too well in the documentary I thought, but I rather lionize this guy as he is very much out of the Internet school and Silicon Valley. He came across as very devoted to the cause, but somehow struggling to master the exigencies of automobile production and with an uncertain future.
OF course, the surprise was the essentially equal treatment of Greg Abbott - identified only as Gadget in the film. Gadget operated a small conversion business out of a warehouse in Los Angeles. He specializes in reproduction Porsche's, most notably 1957 Porsche Speedsers, converted of course to electric drive. I had two we had done on hand at the show, and Carey Hines of Special Editions Inc. had a roller on display in the vendor area, so this hit home pretty well.
Unbeknownst to Paine, there was a critical part of the documentary where they actually showed footage of Gadget's warehouse - TOTALLY destroyed by fire. His workshop, all the cars, tools, and equipment just totally wiped out. The documentary vaguely asserted that the cause had been traced to ARSON.
Our group let out a totally collective SIGH at the sight right on cue. On the screen we could clearly see that most of the cars were burned, but largely intact with warehouse debris kind of toppled all over them. But a single car was burnt TO THE GROUND. The blackened debris you usually see at a natural fire, was not only not present, but the entire scene was in the by now familiar whitewash white/grey of an INTENSE battery fire. And incredibly, they showed Gadget pawing through the debris and holding the remnants of his BATTERY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM AND CHARGER up for all to see.
I quickly surveyed the room and the dawning realization was so total, I do not believe ANYONE in the room missed any part of this. To the point that I never mentioned it at all during the remainder of the EVCCON. There is a saying "when in a hole, stop digging." The corollary is "when you've clearly won the battle, put down your sword." There's no point really in slaughtering the survivors. This film made this point, entirely accidentally, probably better than I have done in the past year. And I don't think any single one of our attendees missed it at all.
All that aside from begging the question "Who would bother to burn down a small electric car conversion shop?" For what?
After the screening, Paine noted that he had brought a few copies of CHARGED his other documentary about electric motor cycle racing that he would make available for $20 each. They were "Gone in Sixty Seconds" to borrow another film title and he seemed genuinely surprised at the $400 per minute. He'd only brought 20 copies.
He then asked that we turn out as a "buzz" audience and encourage others to attend the theatre release as this is most important to its' success. Everyone pretty much agreed to do that. Anne Knoppenberg asked if he would be interested in coming to speak and screen in Amsterdam. It was a comic moment when Chris repeated "Amsterdam?? Ahh..YES to that."
He also held up his cell phone and announced he had a text from Gadget who regretted his lack of attendance and promised to join us at EVCCON next year.
After the showing, despite the late hour, Paine and a few of the attendees retired to our downtown area to visit The Library, a local bar frequented most notably by young female college students from the University and featuring an able selection of potable spirits.
And a good time was had by all.
I am not a film critic precisely, but I would rate REVENGE OF THE ELECTRIC CAR a must see. It presents a more mature and developed view of the difficulties faced by the men of vision who are striving to bring this technology to the masses. It rather left the question open, and so does not provide the satisfying anger of the first documentary. But for my tastes, it was a better film and in many ways more useful, and thought provoking. That a small conversion shop was profiled right along with Tesla was the surprise element we simply did not expect.
I would urge everyone to see this film. I found Chris Paine very intelligent, and most gracious in all respects.
Jack RIckard
One of the "featured" speakers of the event was Chris Paine. I often ask people how they got started in electric vehicles as kind of a warm up question. The most common answer is "I saw this documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car, and it made me really angry."
This answer comes up SO often, it is kind of a mantra among the people converting cars to electric drive. The documentary, and the first real availability of LiFePo4 cells from China, occurred almost on the same day. So the two are kind of inextricably linked. The enabling technology and the motivating force. I find this fascinating.
So we actually paid to have Chris Paine come address our first "convention" of electric car conversion enthusiasts.
The setting was supposed to be at my house. We were going to have kind of a private "car show" hood popper on the front lawn of the adjoining Southeast Missouri University River Campus School of Visual and Performing Arts. This is a very scenic setting literally right ON the banks of the Mississippi River, almost under the new suspension bridge which is very nicely lit at night. Jerrry Ford's band, a kind of 40's Big Band group of about 13 musicians, was to play and the local Port of Cape Girardeau was to cater the event.
It was thoroughly rained out.
So we moved the band and the food to the hangar where we were having sessions, and served dinner while Jerry Ford did his best to play Basil Poulidoris, along with the usual 1940's hits. The music was FANTASTIC and the food very good.
Mr. Paine tried desperately to devine the party line and get some guidance on how to tune to the audience. Instead, I kind of described who was here, why they were here, and what they hoped to do hear and left it to hime what to talk about and what to show by way of documentaries. He did ask which I thought they would rather see, "Charged" or "Revenge of the Electric Car" and I mentioned that "Revenge" would undoubtedly be the overwhelming choice.
Revenge actually has gone into distribution, meaning the control of the rights and so forth has passed to another entity and the film is scheduled to open in theaters in late NOvember, actually in St. Louis it will open on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving - a curious time to debut a film in theaters.
In any event, if a crowd shows up in theaters, this will cause some press attention, DVD sales etc and it is important that people turn out for the theatre release.
In any event, after dinner Paine addressed the group with a kind of alphabet presentation of various curious elements of the electric car universe and I would describe the audience as rapt. Kind of a special sermon to the choir in this case, he was very well received.
After some texting back and forth with his distribution manager, he decided to go ahead and screen "Revenge of the Electric Car." This is where rain plays a role. We were able to completely darken the hangar and had a nine foot rear projection system on hand for the sessions. The result was a sparkling clear presentation of the documentary.
The documentary was NOT what I expected. The first documentary was a little simplistic for my tastes with very bad guys and very good guys and presented in an almost fairy tale like simplicity built around that. But it WAS motivating and I WAS angry at the end so it was enormously effective.
Somehow I expected Revenge to reverse this into a big hooray for GM and Nissan who now of course have products.
Instead, what we saw was a much more mature and developed view of four players in the EV space, with four different visions of an electric car future. It was a parallel comparison in many ways bizarrely presented with a Gregorian chant background and MUCH higher production values and camera work than Who Killed the Electric Car.
The four players were Bob Lutz with General Motors and the Volt, Carlos Ghosn with Nissan Motor Company, Elon Musk with Tesla Motors, and Greg "Gadget" Abbott of Left Coast Electric Conversions - a small conversion shop in California, ironically specializing in 1957 Porsche Speedster Replicas.
The documentary cycled between profiles of these players quite artfully, bringing out a number of interesting and indeed crucial points in the development of an electric car that could be adopted by the market. Bob Lutz came across as a big booming guy with a vision and a very corporate way of presenting his product. Carlos Ghosn was an almost steely autocratic leader betting his company's fortune on electric cars surrounded by people who had only one answer for his every question - YES.
Elon Musk actually didn't fair too well in the documentary I thought, but I rather lionize this guy as he is very much out of the Internet school and Silicon Valley. He came across as very devoted to the cause, but somehow struggling to master the exigencies of automobile production and with an uncertain future.
OF course, the surprise was the essentially equal treatment of Greg Abbott - identified only as Gadget in the film. Gadget operated a small conversion business out of a warehouse in Los Angeles. He specializes in reproduction Porsche's, most notably 1957 Porsche Speedsers, converted of course to electric drive. I had two we had done on hand at the show, and Carey Hines of Special Editions Inc. had a roller on display in the vendor area, so this hit home pretty well.
Unbeknownst to Paine, there was a critical part of the documentary where they actually showed footage of Gadget's warehouse - TOTALLY destroyed by fire. His workshop, all the cars, tools, and equipment just totally wiped out. The documentary vaguely asserted that the cause had been traced to ARSON.
Our group let out a totally collective SIGH at the sight right on cue. On the screen we could clearly see that most of the cars were burned, but largely intact with warehouse debris kind of toppled all over them. But a single car was burnt TO THE GROUND. The blackened debris you usually see at a natural fire, was not only not present, but the entire scene was in the by now familiar whitewash white/grey of an INTENSE battery fire. And incredibly, they showed Gadget pawing through the debris and holding the remnants of his BATTERY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM AND CHARGER up for all to see.
I quickly surveyed the room and the dawning realization was so total, I do not believe ANYONE in the room missed any part of this. To the point that I never mentioned it at all during the remainder of the EVCCON. There is a saying "when in a hole, stop digging." The corollary is "when you've clearly won the battle, put down your sword." There's no point really in slaughtering the survivors. This film made this point, entirely accidentally, probably better than I have done in the past year. And I don't think any single one of our attendees missed it at all.
All that aside from begging the question "Who would bother to burn down a small electric car conversion shop?" For what?
After the screening, Paine noted that he had brought a few copies of CHARGED his other documentary about electric motor cycle racing that he would make available for $20 each. They were "Gone in Sixty Seconds" to borrow another film title and he seemed genuinely surprised at the $400 per minute. He'd only brought 20 copies.
He then asked that we turn out as a "buzz" audience and encourage others to attend the theatre release as this is most important to its' success. Everyone pretty much agreed to do that. Anne Knoppenberg asked if he would be interested in coming to speak and screen in Amsterdam. It was a comic moment when Chris repeated "Amsterdam?? Ahh..YES to that."
He also held up his cell phone and announced he had a text from Gadget who regretted his lack of attendance and promised to join us at EVCCON next year.
After the showing, despite the late hour, Paine and a few of the attendees retired to our downtown area to visit The Library, a local bar frequented most notably by young female college students from the University and featuring an able selection of potable spirits.
And a good time was had by all.
I am not a film critic precisely, but I would rate REVENGE OF THE ELECTRIC CAR a must see. It presents a more mature and developed view of the difficulties faced by the men of vision who are striving to bring this technology to the masses. It rather left the question open, and so does not provide the satisfying anger of the first documentary. But for my tastes, it was a better film and in many ways more useful, and thought provoking. That a small conversion shop was profiled right along with Tesla was the surprise element we simply did not expect.
I would urge everyone to see this film. I found Chris Paine very intelligent, and most gracious in all respects.
Jack RIckard
Thursday, September 29, 2011
ANNOUNCING THE WINNER OF THE EVTV $2500 OPEN DRAG RACE
On Friday, after a long day of technical sessions, EVCCON attendees turned outside to nice weather and a bit of a play day. We had a weigh station where attendees could get the weight and distribution of their cars, a drag race, and an autocross.
To spice it up, EVTV had offered a purse of $2500 to the fastest full bodied four wheel car at the event.
At the dinner Saturday night, I presented Ron Adamowicz with a check for $2500. His Warp Factor II Camaro, featuring two Netgain Warp 11HV motors and two Zilla 2K controllers turned in a time of 11.50 seconds and a speed of 91.20 mph to win the event - on airport ramp concrete which was a bit "grabby". The Team Haiyin Camaro is sponsored by the Haiyin Battery Company. Ron has an agreement to distribute these very small 6.5 AH high power pouch cells and describes them as perfect for racing. Ron did describe these $29 cells in detail at session on Saturday morning. More info at his Battery Shop web site. Congratulations Ron.
David Hrivnak was awarded a trophy for fastest production car for his 2008 Tesla Roadster posting a time of 13.13 reaching a top speed of 88.25
The race of the day was never actually run as they didn't go head to head. But Sebastien Bourgoius 1978 Porsche 911 featured TWO Netgain Warp 9 motors and an EVnetics Soliton1 controller came in at 14.66 seconds and 89.15 mph while our own 1957 Porsche Speedster Redux with ONE Netgain Warp 9 and the SAME controller posted a 14.75 at 78.5 mph. Next year we will have to run these two cars head to head. In fairness, Sebastien's car left the aromatic smell of burning clutch wafting over the crowd the full length of the raceway, while Matt Hauber chirped merrily down the strip in our own REDUX. No sympathy. Bourgois was IN our shop when we burned a stock clutch out on Redux and replaced it with a Stage IV Kennedy competition clutch. Nonetheless, on building his 911 he avowed a stock clutch would be adequate. Build and learn. The disparity in top speeds between the two cars indicates that once under way, the 911 was indeed fast. But until he gets a clutch, we can probably take him in the 1/8th mile.
11.50 // 91.20
1981 Camaro Drag Car - Ron Adamowicz
13.13 // 88.25
2008 Tesla Roadster - David Hrivnak
14.66 // 89.15
1978 Porsche 911 - Sebastien Bourgeois
14.75 // 78.51
1957 Porsche 356 Speedster - EVTV / Matt Hauber
16.75 // 80.70
Seven Illuminati - Kevin Smith
17.14 // 76.14
Car #128 ???????????
17.21 // 69.79
Porsche 904 Carrera GTS Duane Ball
17.69 // 67.40
1973 Opel GT - Charlie Rickman
18.54 // 73.49
2007 Toyota Prius Limo - Steve Woodruff
18.90 // 66.41
2000 BMW Z3 - Tim Catellier
19.12 // 71.42
1955 Porsche Spyder 550- EVTV / Brian Noto
19.81 // 68.30
1974 Porsche 914 - Rich Rodriguez
19.84 // 65.16
1981 VW Pick-Up - Jim Hanna
20.22 // 63.06
1999 Saturn SL1 - Daniel Lynn
20.29 // 54.50
1993 Ford Ranger - John Yecker
20.35 // 61.97
2000 Ford Ranger - James Edmonson
21.26 // 47.63
1960 Austin Healey - Fred Behning
21.27 // 58.86
1987 Dodge Daytona - Jason Horak
22.57 // 61.92
1957 Beck Porsche 356A - Eric Kriss
22.86 // 57.92
2001 Subaru Forester - Michel / Denis Bondy
24.02 // 54.43
1993 Geo Metro - William Dennis
24.82 // 44.33
Car #185 ???????????
25.18 // 42.53
2005 Porsche Cayenne - Daniel Yohannes
The other head to head we will have to run again is Richard Rodriguez's Porsche 914 at 19.81 seconds and our own 1955 Porsche Spyder 550 at 19.12 seconds. These DID go head to head and it was an exciting heat.
But as long as I live, I believe the definitive image I shall carry to the grave of "drag racing" is Steve Woodruff in a 2007 Toyota Prius STRETCH Limo - obviously the definitive drag racing monster machine. We believe this to be an EVCCON exclusive. You'll rarely see such in an NHRA event.
The objective here was to take a break from two solid days of technical sessions, get out in the sunshine and play with the cars. We drove each other's cars in the drag race where you could line up for run after run without restriction. Looked at the cars between heats. Talked about the builds. And drank Stag beer out of a keg TRAILER with spigots down the side. We had announcers and screens showing times which made it much more interesting as a spectator event. And we really didn't have to deal with the OTHER detritus of being at a real track on race day with a lot of other events. It was perhaps not as official, but a lot more fun and ALL about electric cars. And the car owners now know exactly what their cars/limousines can do in a timed quarter mile.
Rumor has it that NHRA is going to add electric classes to the big time drag racing circuit, making the weeny NEDRA/ECEDRA events rather obsolete on contact. But we think we can continue our own unique "drag race" as a fun day in the sun at each EVCCON. We hope to add a dynamometer to next year's event so you can weigh your car, get a dyno printout, run the quarter, and do the autocross. We'll offer a purse again next year and hopefully lure some other electric cars to compete with the purpose builts like Ron's Warp Factor II to spice up the show. But it's all about fun and electric cars.
There's just nothing like tanking up on a bellyful of Stag beer, playing with some high voltage, and going for an afternoon drive...
Team Illuminati was actually a pretty serious contender in the Progressive Auto Insurance XPrize held last year. They lost their transmission at a crucial point in the competition and dropped out. They again demonstrated this technique at the EVCCON Autocross track. You can hear it let go in the last seconds of this video.
To spice it up, EVTV had offered a purse of $2500 to the fastest full bodied four wheel car at the event.
At the dinner Saturday night, I presented Ron Adamowicz with a check for $2500. His Warp Factor II Camaro, featuring two Netgain Warp 11HV motors and two Zilla 2K controllers turned in a time of 11.50 seconds and a speed of 91.20 mph to win the event - on airport ramp concrete which was a bit "grabby". The Team Haiyin Camaro is sponsored by the Haiyin Battery Company. Ron has an agreement to distribute these very small 6.5 AH high power pouch cells and describes them as perfect for racing. Ron did describe these $29 cells in detail at session on Saturday morning. More info at his Battery Shop web site. Congratulations Ron.
David Hrivnak was awarded a trophy for fastest production car for his 2008 Tesla Roadster posting a time of 13.13 reaching a top speed of 88.25
The race of the day was never actually run as they didn't go head to head. But Sebastien Bourgoius 1978 Porsche 911 featured TWO Netgain Warp 9 motors and an EVnetics Soliton1 controller came in at 14.66 seconds and 89.15 mph while our own 1957 Porsche Speedster Redux with ONE Netgain Warp 9 and the SAME controller posted a 14.75 at 78.5 mph. Next year we will have to run these two cars head to head. In fairness, Sebastien's car left the aromatic smell of burning clutch wafting over the crowd the full length of the raceway, while Matt Hauber chirped merrily down the strip in our own REDUX. No sympathy. Bourgois was IN our shop when we burned a stock clutch out on Redux and replaced it with a Stage IV Kennedy competition clutch. Nonetheless, on building his 911 he avowed a stock clutch would be adequate. Build and learn. The disparity in top speeds between the two cars indicates that once under way, the 911 was indeed fast. But until he gets a clutch, we can probably take him in the 1/8th mile.
11.50 // 91.20
1981 Camaro Drag Car - Ron Adamowicz
13.13 // 88.25
2008 Tesla Roadster - David Hrivnak
14.66 // 89.15
1978 Porsche 911 - Sebastien Bourgeois
14.75 // 78.51
1957 Porsche 356 Speedster - EVTV / Matt Hauber
16.75 // 80.70
Seven Illuminati - Kevin Smith
17.14 // 76.14
Car #128 ???????????
17.21 // 69.79
Porsche 904 Carrera GTS Duane Ball
17.69 // 67.40
1973 Opel GT - Charlie Rickman
18.54 // 73.49
2007 Toyota Prius Limo - Steve Woodruff
18.90 // 66.41
2000 BMW Z3 - Tim Catellier
19.12 // 71.42
1955 Porsche Spyder 550- EVTV / Brian Noto
19.81 // 68.30
1974 Porsche 914 - Rich Rodriguez
19.84 // 65.16
1981 VW Pick-Up - Jim Hanna
20.22 // 63.06
1999 Saturn SL1 - Daniel Lynn
20.29 // 54.50
1993 Ford Ranger - John Yecker
20.35 // 61.97
2000 Ford Ranger - James Edmonson
21.26 // 47.63
1960 Austin Healey - Fred Behning
21.27 // 58.86
1987 Dodge Daytona - Jason Horak
22.57 // 61.92
1957 Beck Porsche 356A - Eric Kriss
22.86 // 57.92
2001 Subaru Forester - Michel / Denis Bondy
24.02 // 54.43
1993 Geo Metro - William Dennis
24.82 // 44.33
Car #185 ???????????
25.18 // 42.53
2005 Porsche Cayenne - Daniel Yohannes
The other head to head we will have to run again is Richard Rodriguez's Porsche 914 at 19.81 seconds and our own 1955 Porsche Spyder 550 at 19.12 seconds. These DID go head to head and it was an exciting heat.
But as long as I live, I believe the definitive image I shall carry to the grave of "drag racing" is Steve Woodruff in a 2007 Toyota Prius STRETCH Limo - obviously the definitive drag racing monster machine. We believe this to be an EVCCON exclusive. You'll rarely see such in an NHRA event.
The objective here was to take a break from two solid days of technical sessions, get out in the sunshine and play with the cars. We drove each other's cars in the drag race where you could line up for run after run without restriction. Looked at the cars between heats. Talked about the builds. And drank Stag beer out of a keg TRAILER with spigots down the side. We had announcers and screens showing times which made it much more interesting as a spectator event. And we really didn't have to deal with the OTHER detritus of being at a real track on race day with a lot of other events. It was perhaps not as official, but a lot more fun and ALL about electric cars. And the car owners now know exactly what their cars/limousines can do in a timed quarter mile.
Rumor has it that NHRA is going to add electric classes to the big time drag racing circuit, making the weeny NEDRA/ECEDRA events rather obsolete on contact. But we think we can continue our own unique "drag race" as a fun day in the sun at each EVCCON. We hope to add a dynamometer to next year's event so you can weigh your car, get a dyno printout, run the quarter, and do the autocross. We'll offer a purse again next year and hopefully lure some other electric cars to compete with the purpose builts like Ron's Warp Factor II to spice up the show. But it's all about fun and electric cars.
There's just nothing like tanking up on a bellyful of Stag beer, playing with some high voltage, and going for an afternoon drive...
Team Illuminati was actually a pretty serious contender in the Progressive Auto Insurance XPrize held last year. They lost their transmission at a crucial point in the competition and dropped out. They again demonstrated this technique at the EVCCON Autocross track. You can hear it let go in the last seconds of this video.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
EVCCON ATTENDEE PRIVATE FORUM
Christopher Fisher has created a private forum on LinkedIn for EVCCON attendees to stay in touch. I kind of like this service as everyone has a photograph next to their posts and I'll e able to connect the face and name. No little kid "handles" and stuff on LinkedIn. More of a professional service.
EVCCON 2011
EVCCON 2011
LEAD, FOLLOW, OR GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY
Jack Rickard and George Hamstra at EVCCON 2011.
Electric cars rolling out of 100,000 garages across the land. Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way....
I LOVED this photo....
Thanks George...
EVTV Build Your Dream Contest Winner Announced at EVCCON 2011
The Electric Vehicle Conversion Convention is mostly over. Actually about 16 showed up at the house for Sunday dinner and we've had three or four linger till midweek - the convention that just won't end.
I'm drained and recovering. We have a TON of video and photos - actually it has me a bit overwhelmed. I don't know how to sort through it all and there's got to be 70 hours of video and so forth here. It would take months.
But we are going to do some announcements on the highlights.
First is the announcement of the winner of our EVTV Build Your Dream Contest. This thing has gone on for over a YEAR proving just how bad we are at holding a contest while making it up as we go along. Reminds me of the my old partner Phil Becker's favorite analogy. "We have the skills = we know how to make parachutes. We have the materials to make a parachute. We have the equipment to make a parachute. Now all we have to do is jump out of the plane, make a parachute, get it on, and pull the cord BEFORE we hit the ground."
I'm very pleased to announce that Brandon Hollinger of ampRevolt has won the EVTV Build Your Dream Contest with his proposal to convert a 1971 Austin FX4, aka a London Taxi.
Ultimately, the winner was selected by Internet ballot with our viewers making the selection. This was a great relief to me personally (I can't take the pressure). But I'm extraordinarily pleased with the result as you'll see.
The contest seesawed between Brandon and Mike Picard's 1952 Willy's Jeep for most of the summer. But AFTER we closed visibility on the horse race for the final two weeks, Hollinger put together a video appeal for votes he posted on YouTube. It's actually quite artful, and apparently made the difference in the contest as we had a sudden influx of about 500 votes in his camp.
The convention purported to start Wednesday evening, September 21 with an icebreaker welcoming reception. Two guys, Steve Conley and Mark Wiesberg, showed up Sunday, September 18th. Steve was driving a purple Prowler and went downtown looking for us. They were having a hot rod show downtown and assumed he was an entry. He was looking for parking and found $15 a bit steep but paid it. A few hours later he had won his class, barely aware by then that he had entered it.
By Monday afternoon we had 25 people in the shop poring over cars with various problems and having the time of their lives. And it grew in intensity from there.
By Saturday evening, EVERYONE was drained and exhausted. Brandon, due to obligations with his job as a musician in Pennsylvannia, was unable to join us until Saturday afternoon.
We had an excellent dinner Saturday evening at the historic Southeast University River Campus School of Visual and Performing arts. This is a renovated Seminary originally built in 1843 as the first institution of higher learning west of the Mississippi, albeit not very much west. Actually on the west bank. In the shadow of our gorgeous new suspension bridge, it is a scenic setting for the evening meal. Chartwells catered a just outstanding smoked prime rib and baked potato. Brain Noto had cunningly provisioned the August release of Silver Oak's 2007 Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon which was superb. One of the contest finalists, Mark Emon, of St Michael's Winery had also generously brought a number of bottles of their white wine which was also received with broad approval all around.
We introduced each of the ten finalists with the exception of Ralph Tate, who had scored last and was unable to attend. And we introduced Mr. Hollinger as the prize winner. Sponsors Netgain Motors, EVNetics, and Recharge Car were all in attendance.
Mr. Hollinger spoke briefly on how he got involved in electric vehicles and where he saw it going over the next few years. His address was very self effacing and modest, but generally managed to bring the entire group of 160 at dinner to tears in rather obvious manner. Mike Picard, the runner up, seemed particularly tearful.
And why was I so pleased? I spent some time talking with Mr. Hollinger at Sunday dinner at my house and indeed he spent the evening there before his flight Monday morning. This is an enormously thoughtful and intelligent young man, very much on the left side liberal end of the spectrum politically, but with very reasoned process leading to some resentment at a number of the coercive things in our society but particularly the oil/OEM/government triumvirate that would seem to keep us serfing on the fiefdom of gasoline. He's really quite determined to do something about it with regards to championing the advantages of the electric car. And while a slender musician from Lancaster might seem unlikely, the Austin FX-4 will be his FOURTH conversion.
My own satisfaction is a bit more pragmatic. The guy is good with a video camera. That's how he won the contest. Obviously we want to follow up with updates on his build and that's a bit of travel for us unless he can be persuaded to document it by video for us. And he appears to be more than capable. Take a gander:
This was all done on the run. This guy has many talents and many blessings. We look forward to what effect the award of these components will have on the future of electric cars.
Our thanks to George Hamtsra of Netgain Motors , Sebastien Bourgois, of EVnetics, and Josh Stilwalt of RechargeCar - all displaying vendors at the EVCCON as well as in attendance at the dinner. Along with Masterflux, they of course sponsored the "Build Your Dream EV" contest.
I can't wait to see, and perhaps ride in this Austin FX-4.
Jack Rickard
Jack Rickard and Contest Winner Brandon Hollinger with the Pile Of Loot
I'm drained and recovering. We have a TON of video and photos - actually it has me a bit overwhelmed. I don't know how to sort through it all and there's got to be 70 hours of video and so forth here. It would take months.
But we are going to do some announcements on the highlights.
First is the announcement of the winner of our EVTV Build Your Dream Contest. This thing has gone on for over a YEAR proving just how bad we are at holding a contest while making it up as we go along. Reminds me of the my old partner Phil Becker's favorite analogy. "We have the skills = we know how to make parachutes. We have the materials to make a parachute. We have the equipment to make a parachute. Now all we have to do is jump out of the plane, make a parachute, get it on, and pull the cord BEFORE we hit the ground."
I'm very pleased to announce that Brandon Hollinger of ampRevolt has won the EVTV Build Your Dream Contest with his proposal to convert a 1971 Austin FX4, aka a London Taxi.
Ultimately, the winner was selected by Internet ballot with our viewers making the selection. This was a great relief to me personally (I can't take the pressure). But I'm extraordinarily pleased with the result as you'll see.
The contest seesawed between Brandon and Mike Picard's 1952 Willy's Jeep for most of the summer. But AFTER we closed visibility on the horse race for the final two weeks, Hollinger put together a video appeal for votes he posted on YouTube. It's actually quite artful, and apparently made the difference in the contest as we had a sudden influx of about 500 votes in his camp.
The convention purported to start Wednesday evening, September 21 with an icebreaker welcoming reception. Two guys, Steve Conley and Mark Wiesberg, showed up Sunday, September 18th. Steve was driving a purple Prowler and went downtown looking for us. They were having a hot rod show downtown and assumed he was an entry. He was looking for parking and found $15 a bit steep but paid it. A few hours later he had won his class, barely aware by then that he had entered it.
By Monday afternoon we had 25 people in the shop poring over cars with various problems and having the time of their lives. And it grew in intensity from there.
By Saturday evening, EVERYONE was drained and exhausted. Brandon, due to obligations with his job as a musician in Pennsylvannia, was unable to join us until Saturday afternoon.
We had an excellent dinner Saturday evening at the historic Southeast University River Campus School of Visual and Performing arts. This is a renovated Seminary originally built in 1843 as the first institution of higher learning west of the Mississippi, albeit not very much west. Actually on the west bank. In the shadow of our gorgeous new suspension bridge, it is a scenic setting for the evening meal. Chartwells catered a just outstanding smoked prime rib and baked potato. Brain Noto had cunningly provisioned the August release of Silver Oak's 2007 Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon which was superb. One of the contest finalists, Mark Emon, of St Michael's Winery had also generously brought a number of bottles of their white wine which was also received with broad approval all around.
We introduced each of the ten finalists with the exception of Ralph Tate, who had scored last and was unable to attend. And we introduced Mr. Hollinger as the prize winner. Sponsors Netgain Motors, EVNetics, and Recharge Car were all in attendance.
Mr. Hollinger spoke briefly on how he got involved in electric vehicles and where he saw it going over the next few years. His address was very self effacing and modest, but generally managed to bring the entire group of 160 at dinner to tears in rather obvious manner. Mike Picard, the runner up, seemed particularly tearful.
And why was I so pleased? I spent some time talking with Mr. Hollinger at Sunday dinner at my house and indeed he spent the evening there before his flight Monday morning. This is an enormously thoughtful and intelligent young man, very much on the left side liberal end of the spectrum politically, but with very reasoned process leading to some resentment at a number of the coercive things in our society but particularly the oil/OEM/government triumvirate that would seem to keep us serfing on the fiefdom of gasoline. He's really quite determined to do something about it with regards to championing the advantages of the electric car. And while a slender musician from Lancaster might seem unlikely, the Austin FX-4 will be his FOURTH conversion.
My own satisfaction is a bit more pragmatic. The guy is good with a video camera. That's how he won the contest. Obviously we want to follow up with updates on his build and that's a bit of travel for us unless he can be persuaded to document it by video for us. And he appears to be more than capable. Take a gander:
This was all done on the run. This guy has many talents and many blessings. We look forward to what effect the award of these components will have on the future of electric cars.
Our thanks to George Hamtsra of Netgain Motors , Sebastien Bourgois, of EVnetics, and Josh Stilwalt of RechargeCar - all displaying vendors at the EVCCON as well as in attendance at the dinner. Along with Masterflux, they of course sponsored the "Build Your Dream EV" contest.
I can't wait to see, and perhaps ride in this Austin FX-4.
Jack Rickard
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
EVTV on National Public Radio.
Jacob Mcclelland of local NPR affiliate KRCU has kind of broken into the national story team at National Public Radio with one of his first national stories - about EVTV. Aired this morning, September 21, 2011 on NPR's Morning Edition.
Our congratulations to Jacob on getting into national reporting and our appreciation for this very timely story for us.
Our web site would be overrun this morning, but we host on Amazon's AWS service and it is very nearly infinitely scalable. So not to worry. This should spread the word to many more potential viewers. We'll see.
Using a service called WEB STAT I can actually see individual connections to the web site and how many are "online" simultaneously. I'm sitting here watch 160 simultaneous video downloads from the Amazon Cloud - a surprising number from RUSSIA and the UKRAINE. Morning Edition must be very early there.
It is a machine of beauty. Amazon's Cloudnet is bestially arcane to deal with, but a thing of beauty in operation.
The Amazon CloudFront Edge Network
To deliver content to end users with lower latency, Amazon CloudFront uses a network of edge locations world-wide. Amazon CloudFront uses the following edge locations:
United States
Ashburn, VA
Dallas/Fort Worth,
Jacksonville, FL
Los Angeles, CA
Miami, FL Paris
New York, NY
Newark, NJ
Palo Alto, CA
Seattle, WA
St. Louis, MO
Europe
Amsterdam
Dublin
Frankfurt
London
Stockholm
Paris
Asia
Hong Kong
Singapore
Tokyo
Jack Rickard
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