New website is up!

I'm happy to say the new website is finally up! We've been working on getting the kits ready to ship, getting the new web site designed, working through a bunch of issues with PayPal then Google Checkout, but it's finally ready to go - at least close enough, and I'm tired of looking at it.

The kits are orderable from the pricing page and we decided to have a special introductory price of $2,000 instead of the $2,500 we plan on charging. How long will the discount last? Don't know. You might want to buy one now while you can save the $500.

I was hoping to have a shipping through a couple of carriers but this turned out to be a big hassle, so shipping is through UPS only for now.

I no longer have a link from the site to this blog - I wanted to keep it the way it was rather than try to give it a serious business tone. I have another blog - EV Miata News - for the serious business stuff.

If you feel like it, drop me an email to let me know what you think and especially if you find any bugs, typos or etc.

The Tail

I'm not one for a lot of stickers on my car, so I find most people don't notice that my car is electric. One afternoon I was thinking of putting something where the tailpipe was and struck upon the idea of hanging an electrical plug there.

It's not connected to anything - in fact it's just the plug I cut off my Iota dc/dc converter connected to a vacuum hose tie wrapped to a bolt. But it does the job. It swings around as I drive pointing out that my car has no exhaust pipe and plugs in.
As soon as the day after I did it I started getting complements from the neighbors, so I knew it was working.
So this morning I was stopped at a traffic light on the way to work and happened to look in the read view mirror as the driver behind me mouthed the words "oh look, that's an electric car." Now, as a EV owner, you should seize the opportunity to show the superiority of electric drive when they present themselves - at least that's my story...
I was lined up at the light next to a Porsche Boxster, so when the light turned green, I punched it. The rear wheels chirped, a whiff of burning rubber and the Porsche was in the rear view mirror. Now, the Porsche driver didn't know he was racing anyone, but, for what it was worth, I think the point was made.

Burning rubber

I've been trying to get a 0-60 time on the car and I found that it's not as easy as it sounds.

First you need to find a place with a 60 mph speed limit, with light traffic, that is level for about a 1/4 mile and has a wide shoulder for you to start from. I'm also looking for a place that's along my commute or nearby so that I won't have to drive out of my way to do the test.

I found a place that is pretty close and bought a cheap stopwatch and made several attempts. Problem is, I'm better behind a wrench than behind the wheel. I shift too late, feather the accelerator too much not to mention being late with the stopwatch...

In my latest attempts I decided to just hammer it and shift at 5000 rpm and see how we do.
The first time I tried it the Zilla cut out - I started moving then, no power. After I released the acceleration and step on the juice returned. No point working the stop watch on this run.
I found that the Zilla Stall Detect was the culprit and disabled it.

The next morning I reset my stopwatch and drive out to the spot, pull to the shoulder, put it in second gear and wait for the traffic to clear. Once the coast is clear I hit the stopwatch and floor it. The motor revs and we start moving, but not too very fast - and then there is the smell of something burning. I back off the pedal and get to 60, but the stopwatch shows 14.4 seconds and the smell is now clearly burning rubber. I drive around the block and see about a ten foot strip of rubber leading off the shoulder and into the street.

So, the hammer plan obviously won't work.
I still don't have my 0-60 time, but I do have a nice strip of rubber to show for my trouble.

Visit to the scales

Just made it back from the scales at the dump. I know, but I didn't have a truck scale nearby...
Anyway, after a little confusion I was able to get the guy in the booth to tell me the front total and rear weight.
The total weight (less the driver) comes to 2680 lbs. That's 564 lbs heavier than stock - not surprising with the amount of lead in the car.

The front came to 1460 and the rear to 1220 lbs. This works out to 54/46 weight distribution.

The Miata is known for it's "near perfect 50/50" weight distribution, but after a little research I found it was either 49/51 or 48/52 depending on the source. The designers of the Miata planned to even out the weight to 50/50 once the driver got in the cockpit.

I was out of the car when I did the weights, but given the extra total weight, I wouldn't expect my weight to influence the distribution by more than a point which would possibly make my car 55/45.

Charge Timer

Since I'm now on a time of day meter, I need to take advantage of the lower rates after midnight by using a timer.
If I was using 110 vac I could have used a $3.00 timer - actually, probably not, but a cheaper one, just the same...
I use 220 vac so I needed to use a high end timer designed to control an electric water heater - $41 at Home Depot.
The instructions were pretty clear and wiring it up was pretty simple.
Now I'm charging at $.05 a KWH.

Shock Absorbing Stud Mounts

I have a bunch of speed bumps in the parking garage at work. Even though I try to ease over them, sometimes I hit them pretty hard. I started wondering what this was doing to my electronics - like my Zivan charger and Zilla controller. . .
I ordered some rubber mounts for my vacuum pump and thought I'd order 8 of them to use on my Zivan and Zilla. They are a little tricky to install - the rubber tries to twist rather as you tighten the nuts. If you put pressure on them, the rubber compresses and won't twist allowing the nuts to tighten up nicely.

Now both my Zivan and Zilla have a little give and I won't be worried about hitting those speed bumps a bit to hard.

Discount Power

Power companies have excess power in the early morning hours. There generators are running, but since everyone is asleep, most of the power isn't used. Hence, this is the best time from the power company's perspective, to charge EVs - no need for additional power plants and extra revenue for the power companies. To encourage us to use this late night charging, many power companies have time of day metering where the late night power is significantly cheaper.

The local power company, PG & E has a special rate schedule for "experimental electric vehicles" called E-9. Applying for E-9 is tricky - you can find the rate schedule and a form to apply, but it doesn't tell you where to send the form and references a E-Net application that isn't mentioned on the web site at all. I sent them an email which gave me a contact that gave me the address.

After reviewing the rates, we decide to have a second meter installed for the car - that way we aren't paying $.28instead of $.11 a KWH for household appliances during peak summer months.

Okay, the form filled out I pop in in the mail and hear nothing. Friday morning a blue truck pulls up and a guy has a work order to swamp our residential meeter with a time of day unit programmed for E-9 rates. Not what we wanted, but after talking with him, we could either have him put the house on E-9 or not, he couldn't put a second meeter in. We decided we'd give it a try for a month and see how it worked.

Now I need to put in a timer on my charger circuit so that it only kicks in after midnight...