| Owner | Larry Povirk | ||||||||
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| Location | Richmond, Virginia US map | ||||||||
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| Vehicle | 1988 Ford Escort Wagon Professionally built on brand-new gliders from Ford in 1988. | ||||||||
| Motor | General Electric 5BT2366C18 Separately Excited DC BIG! 11.5" dia. x 16" long Nominal ratings: 25 hp, 103.7V, 205A | ||||||||
| Drivetrain | Stock 4-speed manual transmission and clutch 2nd gear takes it 0-45, 3rd for freeway driving | ||||||||
| Controller | Soleq 400-amp, 800 Hz PWM (Love that 800-Hz hum) BIG! 24" x 12" x 7" An engineering tour de force: 120 bipolar power transistors wired in parallel for armature control, plus 10 for the field, then another 60 just for the regenerative braking circuit. | ||||||||
| Batteries | 18 NAPA 8146, 6.00 Volt, Lead-Acid, Flooded 225 Ah, GC-2 size group, made by Exide. When I bought it, it had 18 worn-out Optima 12V D900 blue-tops, but it was clearly built for GC-2's | ||||||||
| System Voltage | 108 Volts | ||||||||
| Charger | Soleq Switchable 16, 20 and 30 amps | ||||||||
| Heater | 2-kW ceramic heater core, temperature-regulated | ||||||||
| DC/DC Converter | Soleq 40-amp Takes its 800-Hz switching signal from the controller | ||||||||
| Instrumentation | Digital voltmeter and ammeter under dash Batcon Batstat state-of-charge meter Analog AC ammeter, DC voltmeter on charger Onboard residential electric meter records line AC kWh used LEDS: Power on, Hi/Lo voltage, overheat | ||||||||
| Top Speed | 70 MPH (112 KPH) From historical data. Highest I've had it is 50, but it could certainly go faster. | ||||||||
| Acceleration | 0-30 in 10 sec 0-45 in 21 sec Pokey on upgrades, otherwise typical for a 20-yr-old compact. | ||||||||
| Range | 50 Miles (80 Kilometers) Just a guess really, at 30 mi the SOC reads about 50%. | ||||||||
| Watt Hours/Mile | 359 Wh/Mile Input line AC Whr as measured by the onboard electric meter for 3 months of real-life commuting in warm weather on surface roads. On a good day I can hit 3 mi/kWh, much better than I expected based on historical data of 1.6-1.9 mi/kWh. | ||||||||
| EV Miles |
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| Seating Capacity | 5 adults | ||||||||
| Curb Weight | 3,180 Pounds (1,445 Kilograms) | ||||||||
| Tires | Roadpro GK65 radials | ||||||||
| Conversion Time | ~60 hrs in repairs | ||||||||
| Conversion Cost | Originally, probably $30-40,000 Purchase price in 2007: $1850 Shipping from Albuquerque: $1300 New battery pack: $1700 Misc. repair parts: $400 | ||||||||
| Additional Features | Regenerative braking, max. 200 amps @ 130V. Heavy-duty struts Power brakes with 12V vacuum pump Air conditioning (not currently functional) runs off an AC inverter | ||||||||
| With its 32-hp GE sepex traction motor, its custom-built 200-transistor Soleq controller, regenerative braking and air conditioning, the EVcort was quite an ambitious and innovative design when it was introduced by Electric Vehicle Associates (EVA) in 1981. This EVcort was from a fleet of 4 built by Soleq in 1988 for the US Dept of Energy and used for battery and performance testing at Sandia Nat'l Lab, then held in storage until they were sold to a private owner in 2004. This one turned up on Ebay in 2007 and has been back on the road since March 2008. The 2800 mi are just since I bought it, the previous 18K were EV miles too. EVA originally planned to market EVcorts to the general public, but due to high production costs (price of a 1992 EVcort was $58,000), sales were effectively limited to institutions such as electric utilities and government agencies. The Energy Dept sponsored many of these purchases as part of its Site Operator program to evaluate the performance of various EV designs in fleet use. Because of liability issues, it was Soleq's policy that upon completion of testing, the cars should be scrapped rather than sold, and so few EVcorts have survived. There are probably less than 10 nationwide that still have a functional original controller, charger and DC/DC converter. By rights, this car should be in a museum instead of my driveway. Update Oct. 11, 2010: Well it’s been an eventful 2 years. In July 2009 the armature circuit on the Soleq controller shorted out. I’m still using the Soleq for the field but I added a Curtis 1221C for armature control. It’s mounted behind the front battery box where I removed the nonfunctional A/C compressors, and it’s controlled by a second potentiometer that’s mechanically linked to the Soleq potbox. I had to block the accelerator at about 3/4 throttle because the Curtis behaved oddly at max armature and low field. Now 2nd gear takes it to 25 mph and 3rd gear to 40. It took nearly a year, until June 2010, to get everything mounted and rewired. Meanwhile an 80-foot oak fell from my neighbor’s yard into my driveway; it completely crushed a parts car I had and put some dents in the roof of the EVcort. Then just two months after I got it back on the road the DC/DC controller shorted out, and was replaced with a Zivan NG1. For the moment everything’s working well although efficiency has decreased to about 400 Whr/mi. Otherwise no detectable loss of performance by the NAPA batteries at 6000 miles. I plan to eventually convert to LiFePO4 but hopefully I can get another a year or so from the NAPAs, and I’d like to someday rebuild the Soleq controller. | |||||||||
1988 Soleq EVcort
“Little Eva”
Last Updated 10-11-2010
Copyright © 1997-2012 by Mike Chancey