Electric Beck Conversion in Denver

I couldn't find a post on this. Sorry if it is a duplicate. There is a shop in Denver, CO who is selling Beck Speedsters. That's a good thing for us Coloradan's! The cool thing this shop is doing (Duke's Garage) is fully electric plug in versions of the Beck Speedsters. I stopped by the shop yesterday to look at the regular gas ones they had available and also a fully electric version they have built out. The electric version is still a prototype as they work out the nuances but it is fully functional. They even let me take it out for a spin around the block! I drove a 2005 used Beck silver with black interior with only 400 miles which was awesome and in perfect condition. The electric version drove great. About the same acceleration as the stock 2005 but dead silent. Very erie. Here is the link to their website below. I'm currently saving for a Speedster purchase...now I have to contemplate an electric version!

http://www.dukesgaragellc.biz/eSpeedster/eSpeedster_Main.aspx

Adam

Adam, while I fully appreciate the science, I don't like the electric conversion in a Speedster.
They should make noise and smell like old oil and gasoline. Tires should smell also. :)

how are they going to put webers on an electric motor, come on..

I'm afraid that a 70 mph top speed coupled with a 70 mile maximum range doesn't impress me. That seriously limits the usefulness of the car. Think seriously about how you want to use the car, because 70 max. range is probably at a slow speed. You wouldn't be able circumnavigate Denver at that range. No cruises, no trips to car shows outside of town.

Actually for long highway cruising you tow a gen set (http://www.evnut.com/images/rav4/rav_longranger/rav_longranger01.jpg)
that runs on gas and keeps the batteries in the car topped off. you could also tow 200 miles worth of batteries and stop at charging locations based on that interval. Another tactic I've seen but which scares the bejeezuz out of me is a pusher trailer that pushes the car with electric power from an IC engine generator setup.

Tomm

Adam - Please understand that I actually LIKE the idea of an electric Speedster. My problem is that the limitations that their (otherwise very nicely done) conversion put on the car would render it almost useless for me. Our living situations are doubtlessly different, so this may not apply to you, but many of the events that I enjoy in my car would exceed the distance and/or speeds that car is capable of. If you do want to go that route, see if there is a way to add more, and/or more powerful batteries.

I totally agree about the limitations of all EVs, I just thought it was pretty sweet they were doing it in a Speedster. Also I was impressed they just let me drive it! And it was a sweet drive. But I have to agree with you guys...I'm looking for a standard gas one! I have an electric motorcycle for my short commutes.

Also do you guys think $26k is a good price for the used Beck they have listed on their website? It has less than 500 miles and drove excellent. I just don't have anything to compare it to. Thanks.

Adam

Do they come with beehives?

Adam,

The gasoline car in Colorado is about $10K under new replacement cost. To top that off, I used that car as my training vehicle when I flew out to CO to train Duke's mechanics. Literally, almost everything was redone on the car. We went as far as to pull the motor and trans to show them how to replace a cracked nosecone mount, and went almost as far as that in the front, showing them brakes, spindles, etc... new plugs, carbs tuned, everything adjusted, torqued, torque marked, etc...

re: the electric car. I drove the one in Colorado, but at the time it was having a controller issue that was unresolved, so it was a short drive, and interesting to say the least. It was hard to get accustomed to the things mentioned here, like no sound other than wind and rubber. Not having to clutch to stop, or start, and really no shifting unless you wanted to.
I have another version here that we have been testing for a little while. Similar set-up, regen. braking, more power... Same EV issues with sound, etc, but I've had that car over 100MPH. The batteries were distributed to give it a 50/50 balance, and although heavier, once we switched to adjustable coil overs, it lost much of that heavy feeling.
It now has a bit over 2000 miles on the clock and cruising 35-45 MPH it will run just over 100 miles on a charge. Highway speeds cut the range to about 75 miles. Recharge time is about 6.5 hrs. EV is not my cup of tea either, but there is a demand for it, and 75-100 miles is more than a lot of people drive in a day.

Greg, I really think that is where my then worthless Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris cards went. The Roger Maris autographed photo I got from him when I was 10 y/o, is one that I do have.

Carey, Could you post some photos of the electric components in the car ? (if not top secret)
I know that I, would find it interesting as I have followed EV"s for 25 plus years. ~Alan

Carey - Now THOSE specs sound a lot more promising. With the 50/50 weight balance, how is the handling?

Don't you just put baseball cards with clothes pins against the Fuchs like I did years ago on my Schwinn bike?

Only advantage I see are energy tax incentives (stick it to the man) and ability to get on HOV (highly occupied vehicle) reserved "car-pool" lanes like in DC Metro area (Energy certified vehicles and motorcyles don't need 3 or 4 occupants). Oh, and no energy consumed as you sit on I95 parking lot traffic jams. No valve adjusting or oil leaks either! You'd have to rebadge as HOOVER or KIRBY though.

The blue speedster is the one that sits in Colorado. The silver spyder is another done by a customer in New York. He will be doing an EV 904 this winter.

http://www.beckspeedster.com/electricconversions.html

The specs of the test mule here are not being posted just yet. It was designed by an outside company and we are still working out a few details.

The 50/50 balance makes it feel much more like a spyder, corners flat, and doesn't have that classic throttle lift feeling of a rear engine car. At 100+ it also felt a bit more stuck to the road, due to the additional weight...

"additional weight"
over 2100# ??

Thanks for the reply Carey! I'm excited to have a Beck dealership in Denver now. I've had my eye on getting a speedster for several years. Now it is even more tempting! Time to save a few pennies. Thanks again.

Adam

Y'all have to understand something about Lane Anderson (Mr. Anderson to me).

Lane lives on the Northeast side of the Cooper River, just East of Charleston, SC.

He works somewhere on the Northwest side of the river, so he crosses over the Cooper River Bridge to get to work.

http://0.tqn.com/d/gosoutheast/1/0/R/E/-/-/11_New_Cooper_Bridge2a.JPG

This is a very tall bridge, to allow container ship traffic to traverse beneath it. Therefore, Lane needs an electric car that can go from about 5 feet above sea level (they don't call this the "Low Country" for nothin') to something like 1000 feet above sea level (OK, so I'm exaggerating here, but you get the idea - This is a wicked-steep bridge!)

An Electric car, for Lane, would have to have an extra 600 pounds of batteries, just to get over that silly bridge (twice) on his round trip.

LANE!

It might be better to move to Summerville on the West side...........

Then, no bridge!

gn

Wrongo, Gord-breath!!!!

That is a picture of the Ravenel bridge, which is ~600 feet at the top of the towers, but only a bit over 200 feet at the road surface. The Don Holt bridge over the Cooper river is relatively boring looking, so I couldn't find a picture of it. That's the one I cross on a daily basis. It's somewhat less that 200' above the water. Just get a good running start and coast up, right?

Here's a picture of me on the Ravenel Bridge taken by Cory when he and Teresa were here in '06.

That is interesting. I'll be curious if they get a lot of takers. In some ways, an electric speedster is a great idea. I suspect batteries will only get better from here. I think there will be that breakthrough that makes EVs much more practical for everyone. Then you'd just need solar panels or turbines or dams (sorry fishies) for clean power...

for all the wrong reasons, the Ecar would suit my needs to a effing Tee! I love tinkering with the engines and the carbs and the exhaust and adjusting for the weather and shifting and... well you get it. My commute is 7 miles each way all done at the amazing speed of 35mph with four red lights, two right turns and two left turns. I start at 3feet above sea level and finish at 3ft above sea level. Not having to shift gears for me now... lovely thought. No noise in the morning... even better. For all the positives, I can come up with the negatives too, but to dream a little dream helps.

I could probably live with an electric car for my commute, but at 17 miles each way, and including Charleston expressway speeds (0-85mph), I would be concerned about range. Any extracurricular trips would require some thought.

I posted here several years ago about being nearly run over by an electric vehicle while I was a pedestrian in a busy parking lot. You don't realize how much you use your ears in a situation like that, until your ears won't tell you what's happening behind you. I now hear that NHTSA is considering legislation for required noise emitters on all electric vehicles when traveling less than 20 MPH.

As for "pusher vehicles", I have seen an operating version. It was a tandem axle car trailer. One axle was powered by a Corvair engine, with throttle and gear selector cables (it was a Powerglide tranny) extended up to the towing vehicle. Totally illegal I suspect, but it worked effectively for climbing some local, very long steep grades. The trailer did have electric brakes. Tow vehicle was a 95 Hp Corvair Van.

I have one question about EVs...What do with all the batteries when they fail to maintain a charge? This will be a challenge as more and more EVs hit the road. I'm not optimistic about having rare earth metals floating around. China is re-processing TV tubes just to reclaim the rare earth metals. These metals are very toxic and many are paying the price for laboring at the reclamation sites. Horrible videos were shown by network TV of the process and it's effect.

What will we do with the batteries?

Batteries are the deal killer.

I have Lithium Ion batteries on a couple of bikes, they require special consideration for recharging. State of charge, temperature, and such require more electronic sophistication when charging than lead.

A short use of lead batteries requires a short charge, Li-Ion takes a full charge cycle for proper care no matter if the batt was used 10% or 90%.

Currently the Chinese are some years (I believe 5) ahead of us and the Korean technology is ahead of them. The Li-Ion systems I use are developed and marketed in Canada by Bionx.

Best we can do is a123 using MIT research:

http://www.a123systems.com/a123/company

Check their stock, up to 30 on issue late '09, around 10 now:

http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/AONE

Back to the question from Aaron about what to do with the waste, lead batteries are over 90% recycled - today. 97% ???

http://www.batterycouncil.org/LeadAcidBatteries/BatteryRecycling/tabid/71/Default.aspx

Like I said, batteries are the deal killer...

I think the thing with BEVs are that the best batteries haven't been developed yet. Batteries that seem to be practical to replace the gas engine in all its flexibility are always just around the corner. I got into EV research 4-5 years ago and dropped it because I am not an EE, and while I can do plug and play things I do not have the expertise to even convert a car to be a BEV. But the batteries keep getting better, but instead of the question "how fast do you want to go" it is "how far do you want to go?"

Maybe what will transform the industry is when a major auto manufacturer makes a kit with everything you need to convert a car and upgrade the batteries as they wear out.

The environmental question is where do you get the power from and what can you recycle with the batteries and so on.

I could see someone buying a Speedster BEV and doing major overhauls (i.e.: New batteries) every 5-10 years and getting a lighter and better car at each change. Somewhere around 2045 your grandkid would replace the batteries with a mr. fusion....

Looking more at this, Lithium iron batteries seem to be the best out there now. Those are the batteries that is in the car that Carey was talking about (I think). The thing about EVs are that they may be what keeps the car hobby going if peak oil and fuel shortages and emission standards are applied to our tubs.

Interesting post in the paper the other day to the effect that nearly ALL the current rare earth metals used in batteries, magnets, and many other things electronic, come from third world countries. Most of thse countries are under a dictatorship, if indeed they have any sort of controlling government at all. Think open pit mines, nasty chemical residue, no safety precautions, forced labor, child labor, et all.

Sorta like oil, other countries have some known reserves, but no way can they compete on a price delivered basis. So if we are going to need lots of batteries in the near future, we got no infrastructure to supply them.

But federal mandates, all ready in place, absolutely REQUIRE all car manufacturers to sell electric vehicles to get Zero Emission vehicle credits to offset their profit producing gas powered vehicles. There is NO other technology available.

So, we got no infrastructure to supply the demand. Can you see some unintended consequences coming regarding the current supplying countries?

Dave: The plot thickens........The Chinese have been quietly going around buying up the first rights to precious metals all over the world for the past two decades, both in their own county as well as all those third world places. First, it was for the production of semi-conductors (to capture the computer industry) and now it's for both that AND the battery industry, now and for the future.

They've just started using their leverage and monopolistic control of raw materials as an economic weapon against Japan. Should be interesting to see where this all leads, huh?

And we thought we had problems with oil, right?

We have problems with short term thinking.

First EVs we took part in were lead acid (many years ago) now we are using LiFePO

I understand the battery concerns - and confusion.

We use Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries - LiFePo4. First, they have no "toxic" metals. Indeed they are an order of magnitude more benign than lead acid cells. They are mostly aluminum and copper with a bit of graphite and the actiive cathode material is a Lithiium Iron Phosphate. There is no "lithium" metal in the cell at all.

We typically get between 100 and 110 miles on a standard set of 36 cells. I normally limit this to 80 miiles on the car with a little "limp mode" circuit that drops you to about 25 mph at 80% discharge - this prevents damage from overdischarge.

We have just completed a kind of powered up version with 57 cells. It does 0-60 in 9 seconds and has a max range of 150 miles. We'll probably limit that one to 130 - for the same reason.

These cells are NOT like the lithium polymer cells from radio controlled helicopters. They are not like the flashlight batteries. We use no BMS at all with these cells and they do just fine. We have a fixed charger that you plug in and walk away. It is NOT true that you have to fully charge the car. It is not true that you have to fully discharge it. You can drive as little or as much as you want out of the 80 miles, and charge it for 10 minutes or 6 hours and drive some more. The 10 minutes won't get you much further, but it won't hurt the batteries.

The car is very quiet, though you do hear the transmission and a bit from the tires on the road. IT accelerates very well and will go in excess of 100 mph. It is NOT like a golf cart. Picture Star Trek, Next Generation.

It is quite common just in testing to take country drives of a couple of hours on winding blacktop in hilly country at 45-55. I doubt I would want to drive one cross country. But that's more about the seats than the batteries frankly.

It is very different. If the Porsche engine sound is what you're after, I get it. I don't share it, but I get it. So why are you running a VW engine? I never heard of anyone lusting after the VW engine sound.???/

In any event, we continue to work on the electric Speedster and Spyder designs, and we're gettting better with each build.

We don't have any affiliation or connection with Duke's Garage and I didn't intend to steal their thread, just correct some badly off the mark battery info.

Jack Rickard
EVTV
http://evtv.me

Here's a link to the Owner's Manual we genned up in PDF format. It provides some additional information regarding charging, driving differences, and performance data.

http://media2.ev-tv.me/duhownersmanual.pdf

Enjoy

Jack RIckard
http://EVTV.me

Jack - I created the current Beck owner's manual, and I want to complement you on the one you created for the electric version. Nice job. How long does it take a full recharge from 80% depleted? Do you only charge from 120v or do you have a 240v option?

Well, then. I'll return the complement by noting I was quite taken with the new owners manual. And I was a technical writer for a couple of decades.

You might have read mine a bit though. Page 21 and 22 cover charging. You can charge from either 120vac or 240vac or really quite anything in between. At 240vac, if you have done the 80% depletion, the charger charges at about 24.5 amps and will require a little less than 7 hours to recharge. At 120 it will easily be twice that.

The key thing that is different with these cells is that they have no memory or sulphation. You can charge as often as you like. Partial charges are fine. And it terminates quite automatically.

Once you're set up in the garage, it's kind of a matter of picking up a cord and sticking it in. An 8 year old girl can do it quite safely. And you wake up in the morning to a full tank every day.

In actually living with these cars, the range issue is not precisely as important as you think, and the recharge time isn't at all. It's too long to stand there. And as I'm going to sleep sometime, that's as good a time as any.

There are those who drive these things cross country. I'm not one of them. But then I wouldn't drive an ICE Porsche cross country either. Maybe if I was 20. I'm afraid I'm not.

We'll have the cars hauled to Carlisle. I'll fly.

Jack Rickard

This thing sounds like the bomb. Good job, sir. I'll be looking for you at Carlisle.

Damn...I'm with Cory, the noise, the smell of fuel and burning rubber can't be beat. Who wants to look under the bonnet and not see at least a pair Webers?

mine is an older build obviously with these lead acid batteries but I thought if I didn't like it I'd just put an engine into it, don't know yet it's in transit from the west coast but for less the $6K I couldn't resist

I have been told that China is courting one of the Speedster builders with a deal to build electric Speedsters. Lots of them, for export to China and Asia.

......As if they couldn't build their own. They rip off everything else.

~WB