I thought about this thread yesterday. Ford's announcement of a new lightning has intrigued me into EV possibilities.
I thought about this thread yesterday. Ford's announcement of a new lightning has intrigued me into EV possibilities.
Keith Tanner said:Jesse Ransom (FFS) said:In reply to Teh E36 M3 :
In line with my thoughts on the Leaf, the BGT will have both, I hope :-)
No heated Momo Prototipos out there, though.
Retrofitting steering wheel heat to a Prototipo would be a really interesting project. Really, it's just wires under the leather. What could go wrong?
I've found a couple of DIY heated steering wheel how-to's. Mainly a carbon heat tape under a leather wrap - make sure the carbon tape NEVER overlaps itself. So far, the tricky bit has been figuring out how to get power across the wheel to column joint. I never thought much about a heated steering wheel until buying my '17 GC which has one and I realized, "This. Is. Awesome. I want one in all of my cars!" - but especially my Triumphs which have kinda crappy heaters.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
Have you seen this guy doing full solar charging on his Tesla with a budget solar array?
Pretty cool. I love the solar on my Westy, it uses the sun to run my fridge which seems like a great cheat :)
I think this guy might be fudging the math a little. If you're using the car during the day, you can only use the power in the storage batteries in the trailer to charge at night. And they're 14kWh. Assuming perfect efficiency and full depletion of the batteries, that's about 50 miles of range. His calculation of over 100 miles of range is probably based on a full battery plus a day's worth of sunshine. But it is cool none the less.
I've thought about solar for my shop. I have a big unobstructed roof and we're in a great location for solar overall. It would also keep the interior of the shop cooler which is a nice bonus. Haven't taken the plunge yet.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
I live in Qualicum Beach on the east coast of Vancouver Island a lady down the street has solar she's on net metering. There is no gas connection so Hydro heat, hot water, and light her connection is net metering and she pays Hydro approximately nothing at annual reconciliation. I looked at the picture of your place and wondered why doesn't Keith have solar?
I am considering a non integrated experimental installation.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
I'm in NM this week & I keep seeing Marketplace listings for cheap solar panels in El Paso - like $68 used 250w panels.
I've only been in my current house for 3 years and there have been other things keeping my attention :) I may go to solar at some point, probably with a net metering setup but I'd want to come up with a way to feed it into the house in case of an extended outage. My Westfalia is my experimental setup, it's been quite successful. Going prices for used 250W panels are considerably higher in this area and electricity is not terribly expensive so there's not much driving me to get it done at the house level.
I think EVs and solar work really well together, but of course you don't need one to use the other.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
Is the car set up so you could pull power off of it during an outage.
It is not. I think the F150 Lightning may offer this capability when it comes to market. I'm not sure any of the current EVs are able to do it. You'd need an inverter that could handle a hefty load, I don't THINK the car has anything like that. You'd definitely need some sort of isolator switch on the house so you didn't toast a lineman.
Keith Tanner said:It is not. I think the F150 Lightning may offer this capability when it comes to market. I'm not sure any of the current EVs are able to do it. You'd need an inverter that could handle a hefty load, I don't THINK the car has anything like that. You'd definitely need some sort of isolator switch on the house so you didn't toast a lineman.
Ford has confirmed (quoted direct from the CEO) the F150 Lightning can backfeed power to a house that's properly set up.
I read something yesterday that stated that the Model 3 has that capability but Tesla has that function turned off in the software. EM made a statement that he didn't think V2G (vehicle to grid) was worthwhile and customers that wanted that function needed to purchase a power wall instead.
I would want to trace that information back to the source, "things you read" about Tesla are a minefield of bad information and clickbait. But I can see how it might be possible. I have some electrical questions about it based on fuzzy knowledge - I'm assuming you'd pull DC out because I doubt the Tesla has an inverter that can take the DC battery voltage and turn it into AC. Obviously the wiring in the car can handle pretty high amperage so that's not a concern.
The 82 KWh battery in our 3 is pretty big compared to the individual 13.5 KWh Powerwall packs. It would be a nice trick to pull although it would likely only be useful for outages instead of day to day as cars have a tendency to leave home, unlike Powerwalls. Filling the battery during the day with solar or with cheap off-peak grid energy and sucking it out when the sun is down/rates are up only works if your storage battery stays put :)
I suspect it's only become a topic of conversation of late because of the proposed F150 specs.
This is the article I read about V2G. I have no clue as to its veracity.
https://electrek.co/2020/05/19/tesla-bidirectional-charging-ready-game-changing-features/
This is the article where EM discusses it.
Apparently, the roadster has V2G capability but it is seldom used.
Electrek would be one of the better sources. I want to know more about what hardware is in that chain now, I'm going to look into this just for fun :)
The car does have the ability to work with a Powerwall and solar to manage charging and powering a household, but at the moment that's just commuicating with the Powerwall about charging rates and not transferring power out of the car.
I spent a good part of the day today doing a video shoot with a bunch of Miatas. At one point, I went to pull away from our parking area only to discover that the car was not actually running and thus the Miata would not move. I have become accustomed to complete silence at "idle".
Also, locking/unlocking now requires conscious thought on cars with RFID keys. Not for cars with mechanical keys, I think that's because you exit the car with them in your hands. I have been retrained.
Put the sun shields back in for summer - basically some mesh panels on the inside of the roof that cut down the solar gain in our high altitude environment. Quick and easy.
One thing I haven't mentioned is how this car is never really sleeping. I have a workshop in the garage where the car lives and it's always making science fiction noises as I work. Little whirs and clicks and occasional pump noises as it cares for its battery - we leave it plugged in all the time as Tesla recommends so it can do its thing. It's like sharing the garage with a living machine. It doesn't bother me at all, I just realized today that of course that's not "normal" but I've completely forgotten that.
If you ever feel the need to travel to the NWT https://cabinradio.ca/65274/news/heres-where-the-nwt-plans-to-put-electric-vehicle-fast-chargers/
There's talk of solar power in the article tomorrow in Yellowknife sunrise is 3:42 am sunset 11:39 pm
Keith Tanner said:Put the sun shields back in for summer - basically some mesh panels on the inside of the roof that cut down the solar gain in our high altitude environment. Quick and easy.
One thing I haven't mentioned is how this car is never really sleeping. I have a workshop in the garage where the car lives and it's always making science fiction noises as I work. Little whirs and clicks and occasional pump noises as it cares for its battery - we leave it plugged in all the time as Tesla recommends so it can do its thing. It's like sharing the garage with a living machine. It doesn't bother me at all, I just realized today that of course that's not "normal" but I've completely forgotten that.
We have this as well with the Bolt. The kids will be outside doing kid things and it will be whirring and clicking and whatnot. It's pretty neat.
Rons said:If you ever feel the need to travel to the NWT https://cabinradio.ca/65274/news/heres-where-the-nwt-plans-to-put-electric-vehicle-fast-chargers/
There's talk of solar power in the article tomorrow in Yellowknife sunrise is 3:42 am sunset 11:39 pm
I used to work up there. It would be a very, very challenging environment for an EV :) Most of the places I went there weren't even roads, we had to fly in. And solar wouldn't work well in the winter :) But as a technical exercise, it would be a really fun project to take on.
Test driving a new model 3 performance in the next days. 3.1 0-60 and a nice work car have me pretty convinced. May buy new if I can't find a nice savings to buy a used 20 model.
Definitely report back on driving impressions and what you find for pricing. From what I've seen, the resale values are pretty solid so you may not save much by picking up someone's used car at this point. The lack of clear model years may be a factor there.
84FSP said:Test driving a new model 3 performance in the next days. 3.1 0-60 and a nice work car have me pretty convinced. May buy new if I can't find a nice savings to buy a used 20 model.
I look at it like I look at 911 purchases. Buy the newest one you can afford.
That's less true of the 3 than the S due to the shorter production run and thus less evolution. I would be leery of quality in the very early cars, but in my experience that was well sorted out by Q3 2019 :)
Let me tell you how much I like being able to leave the climate control running and/or pre-cool the car this week. It has surprisingly little effect on reported range but it has a very big effect on occupant comfort. I am not built for these temperatures.
Now I have to go drive a V8 Miata with a black leather interior that's been sitting in the sun...
I'll have to pick your brain a number of things when I take delivery 7/12-8/1. Doing lots of reading on them in the meantime. I have an electrician buddy coming out to add a second box for more service in the basement (to finish it when wood prices return to earth) and have enough juice for a 60amp circuit for the used Tesla wall connect. I managed to snag one used for about the price of the standard second cord setup.
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