MIT's electric Porsche uses $40,000 of LiFePo4

[needWheels]

I thought this was kinda interesting:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/porsche-tt0521.html

The student project took off last year when Valence Technology Inc. donated 18 lithium phosphate rechargeable batteries valued at $2,030 each, plus a battery-management system. The team began by removing the original engine, exhaust lines and fuel tank and installing an electric motor and motor controller, the batteries and battery-management system, a battery charger and various smaller components. Each of the batteries is equipped with a built-in computer that monitors its conditions--ideal for the data-gathering task.

This seems pretty poor though, only 65mpg equivalent? Is it the lousy size/weight of the car?

She found that the Porsche should have a top speed of up to 100 miles per hour with an estimated range of 130 miles before the batteries need recharging--a task achieved by plugging it into a wall socket for about five hours. The car should consume about 185 watt-hours per mile of electricity, the equivalent of about 65 miles per gallon of gasoline.

 

[TylerDurden]

This seems pretty poor though, only 65mpg equivalent? Is it the lousy size/weight of the car?

Poorly written article.

(Electricity = $0.05/KWh) * .185 = $.009/mi

($4/gal) / (Avg. ICE = 25mpg) = $.16/mi

So (rounding to .01/mi), the e-porche gets the equivalent of 400mpg.


Shows the power of lithium over lead... my car weighs half as much but only gets half the range, because it's powered by lead-acid.

 

[needWheels]

I dare say your lead-acid cost far less than $40k.
So you are doing pretty well. What did you convert?

What's weird is I think they recycled this article from 2007:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/porsche-0605.html
practically the same thing. Oh and gas was "only" $2 gallon.

 

[TylerDurden]

The 40K pricetag of those batteries seems a tad inflated to me. I bet you could get them for 4k.

I own this car (Jason is one of the previous owners).

http://www.evalbum.com/1141

 

[slayer]

WOW now i know why in another post you say you get attention when you drive your ev ...you should open a thread on this car it looks very interesting the ev album don t reflect you (you talk more loll) i m sure a lot of people would like all the spec you know and how much you pay for it ...it s history etc.

 

[dogman dan]

Cool Ev. Definitely a six pack. I've seen a coulple on Ebay but they are nowhere near my house. What is so cool about that citicar is it only has to meet seventies safety standards. Today a new car has to carry all kinds of weight to meet the crash test.

 

[slayer]

oups ..ok i just read you are the new owner, Jason posted this on evalbum

 

[recumbent]

They used inflated prices, per cell, perhaps. And the hydro here is cheap,

TylerDurden keeps things in perspective for us.

 

[Lowell]

I was all excited to see maybe a Cayman S or something nice with lithium power, especially "$40k worth", but I must say electric power is an upgrade for any 914... :lol:

 

[needWheels]

That evalbum is really neat. Lots of fascinating conversions in there!

 

[Jay64]

This seems pretty poor though, only 65mpg equivalent? Is it the lousy size/weight of the car?

Poorly written article.

(Electricity = $0.05/KWh) * .185 = $.009/mi

($4/gal) / (Avg. ICE = 25mpg) = $.16/mi

So (rounding to .01/mi), the e-porche gets the equivalent of 400mpg.


Shows the power of lithium over lead... my car weighs half as much but only gets half the range, because it's powered by lead-acid.

It also sounds like she calculated that mpg using 100mph. I'm sure that would significantly jump if she calculated that using the same parameters that most auto makers use when they state their mpg.

 

[A1234LIFE]

The equivalent MPG can change drastically according to your location. In Tallahassee, FL we pay 14 cents per KWh for residential power and there are no off peak rates. The 185 Wh/mile seems a bit optimistic to me considering my electric bicycle use 40 Wh/mile. There are also inefficiences in the charging process so if you used 185 Wh and your charger is 80% efficient, you would need to pull 222 Wh from your utility company. Anyway, I expect a better number would be around 300 Wh/mile. That is about 4 cents per mile or 100 MPG versus the 25MPG IC car at $4.00 per gallon.

If I want to know how many miles per gallon my car gets, I fill up the tank, drive until it is low, fill up again, record the miles traveled since last fill up and divide by the number of gallons required for current fill up. I would expect everyone on the planet has done this at some point in time.

Same concept with an EV. Start with a full charge. Drive until the pack is low. Connect charger that is connected to a device (Watts Up Meter) between the charger and the outlet that will record KW hours used. You know when the charge occurred, so you should know how much you paid for the power whether you have variable or fixed rates per KWh. Now you have the total cost and you can divide by the number of miles traveled.

Steve

 

[TylerDurden]

Start with a full charge. Drive until the pack is low. Connect charger that is connected to a device (Watts Up Meter) between the charger and the outlet that will record KW hours used. You know when the charge occurred, so you should know how much you paid for the power whether you have variable or fixed rates per KWh. Now you have the total cost and you can divide by the number of miles traveled.

Don't EVerybody that actually own an EV do it this way?