Hello,
I am an electric engineer from Finland and I have been looking into the possibility to build/buy an ev since I and my fiancée are moving out of our home town (about 10 miles).
It seem to me that the development in ev technology is ages behind where it should be.
I have been building model planes for 7 years and I have seen an incredible development in electric propulsion for model planes in the past 5-6 years.
The first electric plane that I built about 6 years ago was weighing about 200 grammes (7oz). It flew on a 300mAh NiCd battery pack and barely had the power to get the plane over the tree tops. The flight time was about 5minutes.
Today (for less money) I could equip the same plane with 1500mAh LiPo batteries and a brushless motor giving the plane enough power to go vertical (having more thrust that weight) and I would be able to fly for over half an hour on a charge if I would fly economically.
Electric model planes have been around since the 1960´s and were equipped with standard motors and batteies developed for electric consumer products. The performance was only slightly improved during that 40 year period of time.
In the beginning of the 2000´s a technological revolution begun when the prices of the old technology slowly had reached a threshold where a lot of people were able to start experimenting with electric propulsion for a reasonable price.
I believe that the ev development will follow the same path and I hope that people will start buying electric scooters, hybrid cars and segways to stimulate the development of ev technology and to get the prices down to a reasonable level.
If a technical revolution could take place within a small business as the model plane business, we should be expecting an even bigger revolution in the ev business.
I have found a couple of interesting products designed for model planes that could be used in smaller evs.
-A 7kw brushless AC motor 149,95USD
http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=5139
-A 26V 80A (2kw) brushless controller 54,54USD
http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=3727
For the moment I am considering buying an EVT-4000 scooter (http://www.electric-bikes.org/EVT-4000-E.html). Does anybody have any experince with this scooter?
Best Regards,
Andreas