Any Brammo Owners up for a Men'sHealth electric car tour meet'n'greet?

[Brammofan]

@Brammosays posted this on twitter:

Men’s Health, the world’s largest men’s magazine, announces the launch of its 2012 Electric Car Challenge... ow.ly/a5y0Z

Better link here: http://www.menshealth.com/techlust/electric-car-challenge-about
The Route: http://www.menshealth.com/techlust/electric-car-challenge-map

They note that they'll have to stop many times along the route for 2-4 hours to charge.  Any Brammo Owners up for a diverging diversion?

Oh Gavin... looks like they'll be going through Albuquerque.   

The date's are not certain, other than they'll be leaving from the New York International Auto Show on April 11 and that they hope to arrive at Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles "10-12 days" later, hopefully on Earth Day, April 22.

The closest they come to me is St. Louis - 4 hours away (probably a good decision on the route-planner's part, as they will avoid the ascent of the Rocky Mountains).

Follow @MHTechLust on twitter for more info and the twitter hashtag is #ElectrifyUS .

[Gavin]

yeah...looks like they should be coming through Albuquerque around the 18th or 19th...I will be happy to ride a bit with the cars and stop for some photos when they are stopped to charge...hopefully not around 3 am...

Gavin

[protomech]

Meh.

1. They're charging on level 2 service. Even with a 6 kW charger, level 2 service will charge no faster than about 24-30 miles per hour. Not what you want to use for a cross-country trip - though level 3 charging stations are no doubt few and far between.
2. They're bringing along a F150 gas support vehicle. Drivers will take turns riding / napping in the support vehicle.

These guys did it first and better.
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/09/electrified-beetle-goes-coast-to-coast-in-canada/

[Brammofan]

Yeah, I'm wondering if they have underestimated the time it will take them to travel that far. 

[FreepZ]

Heck, it's a start, and something to build on. If they take a long time to do the trip, it might encourage someone else to beat their time.

I agree with protomech; the limiting factor is charge time, and 24-30 miles per hour is what they've got.
Ways to improve that:

• Improve the vehicle (make it vehicle lighter, less drag, more efficient transmission...)
• Charge faster (level 3).
• Charge on the way (solar), so that you're not waiting while you charge.
• Drive very carefully, so you get the most miles per hour between driving and charging.

It would be interesting to do this with an Empulse, but even going as slow as 45 mph and using the 240V supply, the charge speed is still going to be only about 26 miles per hour.

[protomech]

On-road charging with solar is a pipe-dream in anything resembling a conventional car or motorcycle.

Here's one of the most well-executed solar bike designs I've seen:


Its onboard solar panel (home-built from individual cells) is good for somewhere around 100W. On a low-weight recumbent bike, that'll get you moving at around 8 mph using only solar power. On a freeway-capable e-motorcycle, it'll power your headlight and a bit more.

Put another way: if you ride for an hour on an electric motorcycle, the solar panel would get you about a mile of extra range. The aerodynamic tail would have more benefits for increasing range than the solar panel would.

Now, left outside to charge on a workday? You'd pick up maybe 4-5 extra miles of range, or a bit more on a sunny day. That's not terrible. If you had room to spread out some thin-film panels (see previous discussion), you could seriously mitigate your need to charge, at least in the summer.

Here's a version with deployable wings which he thinks will get 70-100 miles on solar per day:


My normal commute is 25 miles @ 45-55 mph, uses around 3.3 kWh at the wall. North AL gets around 4.5 hours of sunlight averaged over the year, maybe as much as 6 hours in the summer. To recover all the energy for a typical commute, I would need around 800W of panels to fully charge on a typical sunny day. Using the same Powerfilm thin film panels that solarstik uses, you'd need about $10k in panels (which weigh 50+ lbs and unfold to around 20' x 12').

[Brammofan]

My normal commute is 25 miles @ 45-55 mph, uses around 3.3 kWh at the wall. North AL gets around 4.5 hours of sunlight averaged over the year, maybe as much as 6 hours in the summer. To recover all the energy for a typical commute, I would need around 800W of panels to fully charge on a typical sunny day. Using the same Powerfilm thin film panels that solarstik uses, you'd need about $10k in panels (which weigh 50+ lbs and unfold to around 20' x 12').

If only someone on this forum were a Photoshop whiz and could do a scale illustration of this kind of array on a Zero or Brammo. 

[protomech]

Here's an overhead shot : P

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