CALB and lithium

[Bob Bath]

Hey,
Like others, I'm mulling over selling and upgrading to a Leaf.
The Leaf will set me back at least 17K plus anything I get from
selling the Civvy. I'd get
- normal suspension
- air conditioning
- power steering, door locks, windows
- I'd be rid of human monitoring state of batteries (equalization).
Alternatively, I could throw $8,800 at a LiFePO4 pack plus
another 1K on paint and keep exactly where I am right now.
I think we need to open a dialogue about what we know so far
regarding what CALBs will fit where, and best with the CALBs. Do we
still use a 50/50 split? Do we have to insulate the racks? (How bad
will it be if we don't? Paul Pancella has outfitted his Civvy with
them, and has a great blog to start. There's also a New Zealander who
did the same. I look forward to hearing from you and re-invigorating
our rides. By the way, I did hook up the clock. (;-p
Collegially,

[Tim Kutscha]

Hi Bob,

 Good to hear from you.  I ditched the Civic-EV and purchased a Leaf and never looked back.

It has all the luxury amenities as well as lots of room, power, range, warranty and air conditioning.

A few things I learned about converting cars to electric:

- You'll never do better than the big auto-makers like Nissan who have hundreds of engineers and massive resources

- If you do convert a car, convert a car that you absolutely love.  For me the Civic was very practical but I loved driving my EV Porsche 914.  Most people went gaga over the 914 and thought the civic was completely boring.

In short, if you don't want the hassle, the $17K is well worth the cost of getting a car that rocks and has no issues.  In the long run, the $17K will become a distant memory.

On the other hand, if you have tons of energy and want to spend it working on electric cars, pick a super-cool one that you've always dreamed of and work on that one.

Best wishes with your decision,

Tim

---

From: Bob Bath <civicwi...@gmail.com>
To: Civic EV Kit <civic-...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Friday, April 13, 2012 3:12 PM
Subject: [CivicEVKit] CALB and lithium

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Civic EV Kit" group.
To post to this group, send email to civic-...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to civic-ev-kit+unsub...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/civic-ev-kit?hl=en.

[Bob Bath]

For those who've not heard, issues with the LEAF and high temps (ie loss of capacity) are likely due to the use of a lithium-manganese battery, as opposed to the CALB cells which are lithium iron phosphate.