Re: electric vehicles | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Muriel Kranowski (murielkvt.edu) | |
Date: Sat, 8 Dec 2007 13:49:16 -0800 (PST) |
I posed the question about electric trucks to a friend here in town, David
Roper, a retired physics professor at Virginia Tech. Dave owns a ZAP Xebra
pickup and has made himself into the most public Electric Vehicle champion
in Blacksburg. Here's his reply (not speaking to shared ownership but
about the vehicles). He said I could include his email address:
roperld [at] vt.edu.
He also sent me a 2-page PDF file containing more information, his recommendations about dealers, etc., which I'll forward to anyone who asks for it.
----------------Dave's message--------------The ZAP Xebra PK pickup starting selling in the U.S. in Sept 2006. There were lots of things that needed to be improved, some of which I found with mine. There is a summary of those items at
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/Xebra_EV/files/Xebra%20Breeders%20Digest / (click on the Xebra Breeders Digest). I am told that many of those items have been fixed in the 2008 model. See: http://www.roperld.com/science/ZAPXebraPKRoper.htm http://www.roperld.com/science/zapxebrapkreview.htm http://www.roperld.com/science/ZapElectricCars.htm A log of my experience with the ZAP Xebra PK is http://www.roperld.com/science/RoperPKLog.htm .For any electric car with lead-acid batteries, the batteries will last much longer if they are not discharged all the way down, even though they are called "deep cycle" batteries. The most life-time energy can be gotten out of them if they are discharged only about half way.
I hope to move to lithium-ion-iron-phosphate batteries in a year or so(http://www.ewidistribution.com/batteries.html); right now they are about 3 times or more expensive than lead-acid AGM batteries (the best lead-acid batteries), which I now have. Their price should go down rapidly in the next few years.
The GEM can go only 25 mph, whereas the Xebra can go 40 mph.
-
community owned electric vehicles Audrey Watson, December 7 2007
- Message not available
- Re: electric vehicles Muriel Kranowski, December 8 2007
- Re: electric vehicles Stuart Joseph, December 9 2007
- Re: electric vehicles Judith Rosen, December 9 2007
- Message not available
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