A project like this is full of small milestones that are pretty meaningless from a pragmatic perspective, but are important nonetheless for symbolic reasons. Tonight had one of those moments, in which I emptied the Hombre’s fuel tank, for the last time.

I’d been thinking I’d need to use some kind of pump or siphon arrangement to get the fuel out and I’d been dreading the task for a while. The solution I ended up using turned out to be a lot simpler; Mark Farver suggested I use the fuel pump. I opened the main fuse and relay box under the hood, ripped out the fuel pump relay, and in the contact holes I inserted the ends of a 2-conductor speaker wire. I ran the other end to the fuel tank in back where the disconnected fuel line was inserted into the gas can. Shorting the free ends of the speaker wire together turned on the fuel pump, and I let it run until the tank was empty. It took me 6 trips with the little 2 gallon fuel can, but the result was an empty tank in the Hombre, easily and with no mess.

Since my Integra has to use premium gas, I dumped it in my roommate’s truck. During the process a neighbor mentioned how much less crazy my project now seems, with fuel prices being so high these days. Sad that such a significant looming problem only becomes visible when it can be measured in dollars.

This is incredible news.

Austin’s plans for nationwide promotion of Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles (PHEVs) wowed the EAA representatives packed into a meeting room at the Austin Energy building for the EAA Chapters Conference we hosted here back in April. With so much development and advocacy of electric vehicles having historically come from the west coast (especially California), it was Austin’s moment to shine as a representative from the city discussed the plan to create a market for these vehicles — here in Austin, and in major cities across the country. At the delighted faces of visitors from California and elsewhere, I felt really proud of my city, and the massive project they’re trying to spearhead for the good of the entire country.

Yesterday those plans became public.

Additional reports from KUT, KXAN (click on the video “Promoting Hybrid Cars”), News 8 Austin (click on Push For Plug-Ins video button), and of course our local utility, Austin Energy.

More exciting EV production news, this time from Subaru.

Gizmag reports that Subaru is planning to produce an electric version of its popular Japanese-market R1, which will be called the R1e. I imagine this will also only be marketed in Japan, though perhaps there is hope that Subaru might try the idea here in the US and elsewhere.

From the article, a couple of interesting points. First, the production of the R1e has been pushed by popular demand — people actually want these cars (someone please tell GM; I don’t think they were listening). Second, the stock price actually rose on the news that Subaru would begin producing EVs and hybrids.

As I seem to like to complain about lately, work at the office has been consuming nearly all of my time for the past few months. Given that, I haven’t really had much time to devote to the truck, so it’s been sitting in my driveway for quite a while now. In the past few days some of that’s beginning to change.

First, I’ve finally sold off the remainder of the Saft BB600 batteries that I bought a few months ago when I was hoping they’d be a good power source for the truck. As a bit of background, “BB600″ is a military designation for a flooded 36Ah nickel-cadmium cell, and there are 3 manufacturers that I know of who offer a conforming product. I don’t know much about the GE cells, but the ones from Marathon are reported to produce enormous current, in excess of 2000A. The cells I bought were made by Saft, and as it turns out, aren’t good for much more than 1000A. (They’re still awesome batteries; the specification only calls for around 780A). So although they seem to be well-made cells that substantially over-deliver on both capacity and current, I had to let them go. All 1600lbs or so. Most of that (1300lbs) was in a single shipment I hauled to a freight terminal in a sagging Chevy Silverado late last week.

With those batteries out of the way, I was able to make room to move the truck into the garage, finally. With the advantage of air conditioning in the garage making it much easier to casually tinker from time to time, I’ve managed to start with a few minor disassembly details. I’ve removed a door this evening; the other door, bench seat, and hood will follow this weekend after Saturday’s AustinEV meeting.

I’ll soon be buying an engine crane to donate to AustinEV; this will probably be happening tomorrow so I can start thinking about removing the engine and fuel components.

Now this is something a lot of people have been waiting to see, for a long time.

Rick and Bryan Woodbury of Commuter Cars have pulled it off, delivering the first production Tango T600 to George Clooney. Unlike the familiar blue and red prototypes, this one’s black, and it’s looking really sweet.

0-60 in 4 seconds, 150mph top speed, full NHRA-spec roll cage, dual 9″ Advanced DC FB1-4001 motors and a 2000-amp Zilla controller (the same controller as I’ve bought for my truck project) running at 300VDC, this thing is a rocket. After helping out with modifying the battery tray for a new type of battery when I was in Portland for the Woodburn races a couple years ago, I got a brief opportunity afterward to take a ride as a passenger in the red prototype, with Rick at the wheel. Even with its detuned controller (to break in the new batteries), it accelerated like a cannon shell and took corners with no lean. I haven’t ridden in anything really exotic, but I also haven’t ridden in any sports car of any kind that handles as well as the Tango. All this, in a footprint that’s smaller than some full-size touring motorcycles.

Electrifying Times has a page on the delivery, with a couple large shots of the dude and his new ride.

Austin got a big treat, and an honor to be the starting point for two major solar car races — the high-school level race I posted about a week ago and the 2005 North American Solar Car Challenge, a college-level race that set out this morning. Unfortunately, it was raining as they filed out of town, so the race wasn’t off to as spirited a start as one might have hoped.

I checked out the cars as they were on display yesterday afternoon, and the designs were very impressive. Lots of custom tube frames, carbon fiber and aluminum honeycomb composites. And a few unprompted words I happened to overhear from a faculty advisor for the Michigan team echoing most EVer’s opinion about hydrogen — it’s an inefficient idea with a laundry list of difficult and important problems that will eventually fade as the automotive industry comes back to the technology it panned in the late 90s — batteries. For the record, I did see one hydrogen-powered car at the show-and-tell event downtown on Saturday, though I’m not sure how it figures into the solar car race.

Local press coverage for this and last week’s high school race here. My camera dump from Saturday here. I believe that Aaron Choate (also of AustinEV) has some better pictures than mine; if so I’ll post a link.

An AustinEV member, Andrew Donoho, has volunteered his 2004 Toyota Prius for checking out the EV mode option from Coastal Electronic Technologies. The option enables operation of the vehicle without gasoline up to speeds of 34-35mph, and to a deeper battery discharge level than the Prius would otherwise allow.

This option is actually a standard feature in the Prius, almost everywhere it’s sold except the United States, where Toyota must continue to defend the stigma it’s campaigned to place on battery-powered vehicles. After a false start, we ended up getting the retrofit device installed, and it worked exactly as advertised.

Pictures posted here.

A stressful but fun Thursday, as I took off work for the day to volunteer as a technical inspector, or scrutineer for the Dell-Winston School Solar Car Challenge.

In the searing heat of a freshly-laid black asphalt parking lot (which reportedly reached 150 degrees on the surface), Mark Farver and I represented AustinEV by volunteering to help perform safety inspections of the solar cars prior to the start of the race on Friday. Being involved with electric vehicles made us well-suited to performing electrical system inspections, so we manned station 2, inspecting such things as fuse ratings, battery placement and restraint, solar array sizing and wiring safety.

At the end of the day, we were totally exhausted and a bit burned (I had a sunburn even under the brim of my hat thanks to a bright white t-shirt), but a little sad we couldn’t stay on for the next two weeks as race judges. Though I may never be able to spare two straight weeks from work, this is something I’m certain I’d like to be a part of again in the future.

Photos on Flickr.

UPDATE: Photo gallery now installed. Though it’s not very well integrated with the rest of the site yet, you can see all the photos from Thursday and Friday morning here.

Just got back from a long day of putting stuff back together on Nick Viera’s converted Jeep Cherokee and was rewarded finally by getting to ride in it for the first time since he’d installed the new 1000-amp controller. The difference between that and his old 600-amp setup is enormous. As for the transmission swap that prompted these recent efforts, the new one is far less noisy and though we will ultimately know only when we have some hard data (watt-hours per mile, etc) it did seem to coast longer and have a little more power on tap than before the swap, he says. For me, the ride alone made the day worth it.

What I should consider a bonus are the small lessons that I would do well to pay attention to, as I plan my own conversion. The first of these lessons is design for maintenance. It takes longer, and in some respects requires some skill in predicting how certain design choices can create a nightmare later on. But the effort bears much fruit, as exemplified by something pretty unremarkable — nuts. Putting together battery racks and re-mounting equipment, the process was frequently slowed by dropping nuts and washers on the floor, which often needed to be held underneath while a bolt was inserted from the top. In nearly all of these cases, the nut could have been welded on underneath, making the entire operation faster and doable entirely from above with only one tool. Another example would be standardization of fasteners — try to have as few different fastener sizes as possible. Inside the Jeep there are about as many different sizes as their are bolts. Some of this is unavoidable, but the more standardization you have, the less time you have to spend remembering what bolt goes where.

The second lesson is the value of ziplock bags. When you disassemble something, place all its fasteners in a bag, label it, and file it. Failure to do this cost us time and money as some bolts we couldn’t find had to be replaced.

Note that none of this discussion is intended to malign Nick’s vehicle or his skills. On the whole the Cherokee is an impressive achievement, most notably since Nick began the project while still in high school (he is now about to begin his freshman year in college). Also, although Nick deserves credit for most of the design of the vehicle, Mark Farver and I did help with the construction of the battery racks, motor mounts, etc — so if some things aren’t quite what they could be, we can’t pretend we weren’t involved.

Mitsubishi is planning on selling what I think may be the first new mass-market electric vehicle since their extinction here in the US and elsewhere a few years back. This one will employ wheel hub motors, which I think is also a first from a major manufacturer (if you can still call Mitsubishi Motors “major”).

On this development, there is of course the rosy EV-friendly view and the somewhat less excited mainstream perspective.