CarBEN EV5 Construction

This is the final version of the SketchUp model of CarBen EV5, which was used to generate 2D CAD drawings.  Those drawings were then used to generate the G-Code files for the CNC machine that cut the XPS foam sheets.

View from above showing the driver in the center

Views of the computer 3D SketchUp model

Vertical Cutaway front to back showing battery cells in floor four of the passengers

Plan Cutaway through the roof showing the five seating positions and the aisle way








These are all the profile sections cut through the model, and all of the layouts of the 2' x 8' x 1" thick foam sheets.  For most of the sheets, I cut two copies to make a 2" thick layer.

This is the PhlatPrinter 3 which is a 3-axis CNC machine I put together from a kit that I used to cut the 1" x 2' x 8' sheets of XPS foam.

I cut about 95 sheets of XPS foam - on a good day, I finished 10-12 sheets.  The pieces use jigsaw joints and I glued them together and then stacked the layers, forming a "stair-stepped" core of the chassis.

These are the first pieces ready to have the jigsaw joints glued together

I used 1/2" wooden dowels to align the layers as the glue dries.















Building up the front of the car, layer by layer

Bricks used to press glue surfaces together while the glue dries

Beginning the shaping process, using Stanley SurForm rasps

The rough shaping continues...

Nose of the car in approximate position




Adding more layers - the dashboard and the front of the battery bays and the placeholder front wheels

The base of the windshield place holder

CarBEN EV5 Ranch?

The first four feet of the front

Next section building up layer by layer

The first six feet of the CarBEN EV5 ready to be joined up - clamping with a ratchet strap and lots of weight required as the glue dries.

I built a level platform to add the rest of the chassis one layer at a time


The beginning of the main hatch door opening

The front half of the CarBEN EV5 chassis sitting in it's proper position.  You can see the battery bays getting larger

Sitting back on the platform getting 6"-8" glued on a typical day

8' ladders now required to get to the gluing level

I constructed a temporary shelter that is high enough for what will end up as a 12' high stack of foam layers!  The front 2' of the nose will be glued on after I don't need access to the front.

Last couple of layers of the very back/top of the chassis

Last layers of the rear bumper glued in place and drying!  I worked from a scaffolding platform on 8' step ladders, and some 12' high step ladders, as well.

All the major gluing is done - the hatch door and wheel skirt panels, etc. left to do.

CarBEN EV5 Open Source Project Goals

• Open Source means shared ideas and shared improvements – anybody can build one.  Creative Commons (instead of Patents) gives attribution but lets ideas get used as much as possible.

• Build working Prototype to test efficiency and improve construction methods

• Practical and safe and highest efficiency possible using renewable energy

• 300-400 Miles Range on Single Charge using ~55kWh lithium battery, <150Wh/m, >224MPGe

• Coefficient of Drag (Cd) <0.15 with 25.1 sq. ft. frontal area = CdA <3.77 sq. ft. (better than GM EV1)

Design Innovations & Key Features of CarBEN EV5

• Tapered Shape required for low drag w/ narrowed rear wheel track, covered wheels, smooth underside, crisp trailing edges aka Kamm back, wheel strakes, passive air flow through cabin

• Thermal insulation integral to chassis and dual layer windows, heated vests for passengers, slim ergonomic seats allow for air flow saving space and weight

• Center Position for driver for increased crash protection and better use of interior space, three ~6'-4”+ people, one ~5'-8” person, one ~5'-0” person

• All LED lighting, ideal ecodriving design, battery pack in floor for low Cg and better handling

• Side Video Mirrors for reduced frontal area and lowered Cd

Electric Car Advantages

• Energy Independence – No Oil from Foreign Countries & No Military Required & money stays in Local Economy

• Cleaner and cleaner energy over time as we transition to Renewable Energy & lower cost over time

• No gas, no idling, no oil changes, no tuneups, no exhaust system, no multi-gear transmission, no clutch or shifting, lower brake wear because of regenerative braking, virtually no regular maintenance

• Very low energy costs – 2-3¢ per mile vs ~15¢ per mile for average 23MPG car saving ~$12,000 per 100K miles @ $3.50/gal gasoline + ~$3,400 savings on regular maintenance per 100K miles = over $15,000 savings

• Very quiet, very smooth, quick acceleration, smooth torque, great for typical daily driving

Electric Cars & Plugin Hybrids you can buy today

• Nissan Leaf – 116MPGe, seats five, ~80 mile range, as low as ~$22,000 after tax credit

• Mitsubishi i MiEV – 112MPGe, seats four, ~65 mile range, as low as $21,625 ATC

• Tesla Model S – 89-95MPGe, seats five (+ two optional), ~208-265 miles range, ~$60,000 for 60kWh model and $70,000 for 85kWh model, both ATC

• Ford Focus Electric – 110MPGe, seats five, ~76 mile range, ~$31,700 ATC

• Toyota Prius Plugin – 95MPGe/50MPG, seats five, ~11 miles in EV mode + hybrid, ~$29,500 ATC

• Chevrolet Volt – 98MPGe/37MPG, seats four, ~38 miles in EV mod + hybrid, ~$31,645 ATC

Coming Soon: VW e-Golf, Smart ForTwo Electric Drive, Mitsubishi Outlander plugin hybrid, Fiat 500e, BMW i3 & i8, Ford Fusion Energi & C-Max Energi, Subaru Crosstrek Plugin Hybrid, Chevy Spark, Cadillac ELR, Tesla Model X, Honda Fit EV & Accord Plugin Hybrid, Toyota RAV4 EV, Infiniti LE, Volvo V70 & V60 & C30, and more...

I brought my CarBEN EV5 prototype to the Framingham Earth Day Festival this past Saturday (April 27th) on the Framingham Center Common, and it was every bit as good as I could have hoped for.

Previous blog post on CarBEN EV5 design: http://neilblanchard.blogspot.com/2011/03/carben-ev-open-source-project-part-4.html

Build thread:  http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/carben-ev5-full-sized-prototype-construction-5-seat-22529.html

Here's a longer, more detailed walkaround video:

I tried the stabilization in the camera, but it still needs the YouTube processing...

It's got it first dirty bird, and there are glue drops and runs, and rough edges...  My son will be helping me move it back into the shelter soon, so I can continue smoothing.  The left side in particular needs a fair bit of work.  They all show up much more readily in the full light of day!

This is how I am using the longboard sanding tool I bought from Jamestown Distributors.  It is a tool normally used on boat hulls, and it is nearly perfect for this, too.  The swirling motion and figure 8 motion tend to avoid any gouges or divots.

I was able to even up the surface so that the several low areas are largely gone.

I wish that my video camera had a wide angle lens - I had to position it quite far away, and I hope things so up clearly enough.

A Meteor the Size of Mount Everest

What does Brian Cox say about anthropogenic climate change?

What does David Attenborough say about anthropogenic climate change?

What does Neil DeGrasse Tyson say about anthropogenic climate change?

What does Bill Nye say about anthropogenic climate change?

What does Jane Goodall say about anthropogenic climate change?

What does Michio Kaku say about anthropogenic climate change?

What did Carl Sagan say about anthropogenic climate change?

What does Richard Dawkins say about anthropogenic climate change?

What does Vandana Shiva say about anthropogenic climate change?

What Steven Hawking say about anthropogenic climate change?

What does Craig Venter say about anthropogenic climate change?

***********

Climate change is the equivalent of a meteor the size of Mount Everest hurtling at 40,000 MPH about to hit the earth.  You know - like the size of the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.

We know that we humans are largely causing it - why would we choose to ignore it?  We need to choose to do as much as we can to get it to be a glancing blow.  We need to be responsible stewards of the only planet we share with all other known life.

Nearly Haiku...

No time like the present

We acknowledge our fragility

Live with gusto

Real Climate Change Issues

Food production is key to getting our economy going again, and to the survival of our culture.  Climate change directly affects our fragile fossil fuel dependent food production system.  It is not really farming, but rather it is soil and water mining.

If we switched back to real farming - using our knowledge to significantly improve on what we had been doing for about 10,000 years before we "discovered" nitrogen fertilizer and the internal combustion engine, then here are all the deadly problems we would solve, by putting ourselves back into step with the cycle of life:

* We would stop eating oil and gas, which as you and I know are finite.

* We would let the soil come alive again -- it decomposes the stuff of life and makes it available for growing new life, building and improving the soil making it better and deeper and sequestering carbon rather than mining it, eroding it, and poisoning our waterways.

* We would cut about 25% of our greenhouse gas output from the crappy-water-soluble-nitrogen-to-nitrous-oxide-nightmare, that also includes dead rivers and dead fishing zones along the way.

* Local food production not only means far less oil burned transporting food around the world (the average food item travels 1,500 miles to your mouth!), but it also means far more nutritious, much better tasting food that makes us all much healthier -- we probably would see cancer rates go down, too!

* We would totally solve both our immigration problems and our unemployment problems at the same time.  And we would make big dents into our drug problem, our prison problem, our hunger problems, and our decaying civil society would be renewing its way back to health.

Wes Jackson proposes that we move to 80% perennial agriculture within the next 50 years.  We need to listen to the wisdom among us if we want to solve our major problems.

We have a sustainable abundance of renewable energy -- up to 16X more energy than the needs of the entire world.  Everybody can have as much electricity as they need -- and all that economic activity supports all our local economies.

Since renewable energy is available everywhere, to any and all people -- then the need for a military largely goes away.  Since living soils store water much more readily than dead soil, we stop needing to use up our fossil water supply.

We simply must do as nature does -- we must have zero waste.  Waste means that we are not doing it right: no disposable plastic, no disposable people, no disposable land, no disposable species.

Ecodriving aka Hypermiling

What is EcoDriving?

In a nutshell, ecodriving is driving in the most economical way possible; and is also known as “hypermiling.” It starts with brisk acceleration (trying to use the peak torque of the engine) so you get to "cruising" speed fairly quickly, and then trying to use a minimum of throttle to maintain the speed. Obviously, uphills are your biggest challenge, where it takes throttle just to maintain speed -- if you can, it helps if you let yourself lose a little speed up hills.

There are three possible modes of driving:

1) Accelerating 2) Coasting 3) Decelerating

Accelerating uses energy, depending on the weight of the car, the steepness of the grade, and the rate of acceleration.

Coasting uses no added energy, and it uses the accumulated momentum / kinetic energy gained by the acceleration.  It only loses energy to aerodynamic and rolling drag.

Decelerating loses energy to energy to aerodynamic and rolling drag and converting kinetic energy to heat in the brakes. Whenever possible, you should downshift to use the engine to brake, as this shuts off the fuel completely.

To be the most efficient, we need to minimize the energy it takes to accelerate and the energy lost through braking, and we need the car to lose a minimum amount of kinetic energy by being as low aerodynamic and rolling drag as possible.

To cover the most distance with the least energy, we need to accelerate up to a speed that will then allow the car to coast as close to the end as possible, and then use the engine to brake to make use of the remaining kinetic energy.  The brakes needs to stay as cool as possible.

Of course, cruising longer distances and/or up hills requires some additional acceleration; either to maintain a constant speed, or to climb a hill / slope.  You can do pulse and glide instead of constant acceleration (using the terrain as possible) and climbing hills well requires what I call "swooping".  This involves accelerating ahead of the uphill slope (when gaining speed takes less energy) and then use this to help carry speed up the hill.  Think how a bicyclist would climb a hill, and you'll understand.

Coasting downhill is a “no-brainer”-- someone dubbed downhills “road candy”!  If you go too fast, then use the engine to slow down, which shuts off the fuel.  And prepare to "swoop" if there is an uphill.

Then use the downhills to ease way off the throttle, or if you need to carry speed, put it in neutral and coast (with the engine idling) -- at 60mph at idle in my xA, I can get well over 300mpg while coasting.

The other common situation is when you can coast, but you need to slow down, or will soon come to a stop -- then you should downshift into a lower gear. When the engine is being pushed by the wheels, in almost all modern fuel injected cars -- will completely shut off the fuel to the engine; yielding "infinite" mileage for the duration of this kind of coasting. I try to only use my brakes at the very end of the coast right before you stop.

So, if you only use just enough throttle to get you where you need to go, and do not waste energy as heat in the brakes; but instead use it to shut off fuel to the engine, and coast to carry speed whenever you can, carrying momentum as far as you can -- then you are most of the way to good ecodriving technique.

There are other things to try, like pulse and glide (when on flat-ish terrain), and minimizing your use of A/C -- and of course if you want to try some simple and reversible mods: like pumping up your tires a bit above the recommended pressure -- but below the maximum listed on the sidewall, or some of the aerodynamic mods on the grill, etc., then all the better.

Let's try this: how far above the EPA combined mileage rating can you average on a tankful?

My Scion xA is rated 27 City/30 Combined/34 Highway by the EPA, so this past summer I was nearly 75% above the Combined, and last winter I was ~43% above – 42mpg was the worst tank average all winter! Here's a (long) thread that I have written about all the aerodynamic modifications I have made on my car: http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/scion-xa-aero-mods-2969.html

To sum up the aerodynamic changes I've made: the front grill blocks and fog light covers added ~10-12% to my fuel economy, and the smooth wheel covers added ~6%, and yes the rear wheel skirts are ~3 to maybe 4%. The video mirrors and partial Kamm back also help somewhat. The rest is gained from ecodriving technique. I use a ScanGauge II to help me see how I am driving, and to help me practice and improve my ecodriving.

Not only should you try to combine several trips into one, it helps to drive to the farthest place first, and then drive to the rest of the places on the return. This lets the engine warm up fully as quickly as possible, and so it helps the engine be more efficient overall.

• Keep track of your fillups and fuel economy, and make use of fuel logs like on Ecomodder.com
• Get a Scan Guage II (save $ through EcoModder.com, or get an Ultra Gauge for feedback
• Learn to take advantage of your regular routes, traffic patterns, reduce stress – and save money!

Integrity Distilled

Everything matters.

Results of accidental habit, or intentional choice, or non-action, or random occurrence -- are all important.

Nothing is meaningless.

You know what I hate about wind turbines?

You know what I hate about wind turbines?

The smokestacks.
The smoke.
The smog.
The mercury pollution.
The cooling towers.
The explosions.
The spills.
The limited fuel supply.
The other countries that control the wind.
The military cost to defend the wind.
The radiation.
The death of miners.
The fly ash.
The tailing ponds.
The methane gas releases.
The huge carbon footprint.
The increasing cost over time.
The inefficiency.
The pipelines.
The contaminated water.
The damage to our lungs and overall health done by wind turbines is horrendous.
The acid rain is nasty.
The mountaintop removal.
The waste.

I also hate the fact that they look like graceful wind sculptures, that let us see the wind.  I hate the fact that they are much quieter than a highway.  The ranchers and farmers with wind turbines hate the "mailbox money".

+++

Not really...

PUT THEM IN MY BACK YARD -- PLEASE!