EV Beach Buggy Outing - long

[Scott Hull <ScottHull@compuserve.com>]

Today was the first real outing in the EV Manx. Memorial weekend is a big
deal at the Pismo/Oceano Dunes. I was going to drive at least as far as the
pier in Pismo to test the range of my new buggy. I've only put about 40
total miles on it as of this morning. I hooked up the on board charger (bad
boy) late last night and threw an extension cord under the seat. The pack
was full so I just checked the charger output voltage and left it at that.

I have been charging my 144 volt pack of group 24 flooded batteries with an
off board Fair Radio charger and it has worked well so far. The on board
charger is really just a rectifier with some safety features added. The
output voltage is not as high as I hoped (160 volts actual vs. 170 volts
expected). I attribute this to a significant drop across the bridge. If the
pack was low, it should deliver some charge at least.

It was a little cool but sunny so the open roadster was nice. My
11-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter climbed in with their beach gear
and we were off to Pismo Beach. The car will handle freeway speeds easily
but I decided to take the frontage roads to keep the speed and battery
current down. I drove about 40 mph most of the way (about 8 miles to
Pismo). There were the usual holiday crowds as we cruised slowly and
silently down Pismo's main street along with the bumper to bumper traffic.
We could here a lot of comments from the pedestrians as they pointed to the
electric dune buggy. I even heard a couple of police standing on one corner
comment how I was doing my part for the environment by driving an electric
buggy.

As we swung by the pier and promenade I noticed that my voltmeter had not
dropped any noticeable amount so with some confidence I told the kids we
would proceed farther down the coast to Grover Beach.

It was too much to resist seeing the other Manx's and OHVs heading out onto
the sand. I paid my $4 and we cruised down the long stretch of sandy beach.
Fortunately the tide was receding so we could drive in the hard packed
sand. It was great cruising silently down the beach and being able to hear
the waves crashing on our right and the voices of other people parked along
the sandy thoroughfare.

We drove a of couple miles south on the beach until we neared the water
crossing and Oceano dunes. The sand was getting softer as it was torn up by
the multitude of off-road vehicles mulling about at the entrance to the
dunes. I didn't want to have to let air out of my tires to continue (I had
pumped up the 10" wide off-road tires to their 32 psi maximum for range).
You need wide, low-pressure tires to run in the sand dunes. We were
starting to kick up the softer sand (and getting it in out teeth - and
covering the batteries) so I decided to turn around and head back. We
cruised back down to the park entrance and parked to let the kids play on
the beach for awhile. I answered EV questions from curious people.

I knew that I had stretched it driving down the beach since the sand
requires more amps than the road. We headed back home at a leisurely pace
and the batteries held up well until about 5 miles from home when they
seemed to fall of the cliff and started sagging to 90 volts under load as
we crested a small hill in shell beach. We cruised down the road for
another mile and I pulled into a campground and asked the person on duty if
I could use an outlet that I spotted. I talked to the gentlemen as my son
got out the cord and then I plugged it in. No reading on the charger
ammeter - but the battery voltage did start to go up a bit. I stayed for
about 20 minutes, unsure if we actually got any amps into the pack. The
cord end was slightly warm when we unplugged it so something was happening.
The volts held for about another two miles and then started sagging again.
I babied it the last couple of miles with two more stops so the batteries
could grow a few watts.

I had put about 25 miles (no odometer yet) on it so the range is a little
less than I expected considering the speed we drove at but it was
acceptable and might get better as the batteries age a little. It was a
good EV outing! Monday I'll have to vacuum out the sand and wash it.

Once home, I plugged in the on board charger to test on the very low
battery pack but still got no ammeter reading. I hooked up another meter in
line with the charger and read almost 4 amps so the built in meter is not
working. I had the charger apart twice last night and it looks like I'll do
it again soon to check the meter. I set the timer for 12 hours. My AC
watt-hour meter read 2 KWH after 4 hours into the charge. The charge rate
had dropped to about half what it was initially. I checked the AC line
voltage and saw it was down to about 116 volts from the normal 120 volts.
Maybe the early evening loads in the neighborhood reduce the voltage some.

The onboard charger only adds a couple of pounds to the car and it will let
me leave the car charging somewhere if I get stuck out but at 300-500
watts, it could take quite awhile to build up enough charge to get home.
Someday I will add a high-rate onboard charger and standard (if there ever
is one - maybe Avcon?) inlet.

Thanks for letting me tell this EV story.

Scott Hull
San Luis Obispo, CA - USA

EV Beach Buggy (Manx type)
24 volt scooter
48 volt Citicar
72 volt Comuta-car