I can’t be any more clear about the subject of this post than what I’ve selected as the title: this post is a review, it’s about a tool, and … well, it’s not a happy story. I don’t intend on doing this sort of thing here very often, as that’s not what this site is about, but when I get this angry I really want to vent. I’ve been duped, by slick advertising and a full-scale marketing blitz involving several participating companies (including Coleman, Radio Shack, and others), into buying a cheap gimmick that can’t hope to live up to the claims of its manufacturer.

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Well at least I have half of it figured out. Today’s part is the brakes — the rear brakes, since the fronts are still stock. I haven’t quite decided what I’m going to do with the fronts yet, but the rears are in the bag, and I think they look pretty cool. These are zinc-washed Wilwood disk/drum brakes with vented, slotted and cross-drilled rotors, and four-piston calipers.

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One of the four main components of an electric vehicle is the controller, which sends power to the motor as you request it with the throttle, instead of all at once. In the same way that fuel injectors spray metered blasts of fuel into your engine, instead of having the spark plugs mounted in the fuel tank. The way this is done today is with semiconductors, but it was once done with switches. Big switches which rearrange the battery pack into different voltage configurations to provide varying power to the motor. And those big switches are the part for the day.

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I missed last night’s State of the Union Address, and this is actually pretty typical. I stopped listening to them because listening bothers and embarasses me on some level. Making no comments as to his actual intelligence or capability (this is certainly not the place for that), something about the way he talks seems to make even intelligent words sound poorly chosen.

Missing this one meant that I’ve gotten what I think is some pretty big news a day late. As part of his “Advanced Energy Initiative”, Bush announced a “22-percent increase in clean-energy research” including an increase in “our research in better batteries for hybrid and electric cars”.

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