Vanagon 100% electric with Chevy Bolt drivetrain

[DuncanS]

[Abscate]

You measure the power to maintain speed at 60 mph by coasting down from 65 to 55 and counting the seconds with windows open and windows closed, in neutral. Flat is best but if you back and do the test on the same piece of road that’s fairly flat it will work

That tells you the power lost to open windows. It will be really hard to measure the difference

Then compare it to the power of the AC compressor which will be about 3.7 kWatts

Power lost by air resistance is (M/2T) *(110^2-90^2) in Watts

M Car mass in kilograms
V Velocity in meters per second....65 mph is 110 km/hr, 55 is 90 km/hr
t is coast Time from 65 to 55
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[DuncanS]

Thanks Abscate. I get that except you are not measuring the power delta between 65 and 65 which is what we drive at. Measuring a degrading resistance from 60 to 55 doesn't seem like it produces a realistic drag coefficient to get meaningful results.

Here's shat I would propose. Do you realize how close the S is to the W on the keyboard? If you miss just a little, the entire paragraph become irrelevant as the reader struggles with a random expletive tossed in.

Find a hill a mile long with a decent grade. Power into the top of the hill and shift into neutral. On the first run all you care about is the speed the car will maintain for the bottom half. Then go back and enter the hill at that speed and watch the speedo all the way down. Take an average and do it again with the entry speed at the average. By now, with luck we have a hill which will give us an average coasting speed of 65. Do two or three with the windows open and two or three with the windows closed. Time the runs and note the drop in speed with the windows open.

Now I think we have data which can show the A/C--windows open results. But why do we care? Dave K loves his A/C and uses it. I wish I had one, but don't and use the open window method which doesn't work in the southern part of the country. Better yet, tow the vehicle with a strain gauge at the speed you want.

If we were given the challenge of designing a brand new eT3 from scratch--carbon fiber body and so on, then we need to know this information to design an appropriate power system and storage capability. Otherwise, isn't this kinna like knowing how many gallons of water it takes to flush a toilet? City sanitary engineers and toilet manufacturers need to know that, but do we?

Duncan P. S. I know my toilet usage and 3.14159265. What useless junk when I should have stuffed a poem in there instead.

[yabert]

Hey guys, the beauty with the Vanabolt is I can set the cruise control at 110 km/h, take note of the instant power shown in the cluster (blue arrow), drop down the windows, take note of the power et voilà

But hey, it's freezing temperatures here, so you will have your answer next summer

Not the Vanabolt cluster
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My 360 volts Vanabolt: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...highlight=

[Abscate]

[yabert]

[Abscate]

[poppiejag]

[Abscate]

Even at my crazy expensive electric rates of 25 cents per kWh..


20 kWh per 100 km works out to only 10 cents per mile, at our $3 US per gallon it’s 15 cents per mile

Hydro power and Canadian gas prices makes the difference much greater in favour of EV Bus
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[yabert]

[poppiejag]

Yes, mpg l/100km figures from daily driving are hard to interpret.
The figures I posted somewhere earlier in the thread were from 5 repeated deacceleration tests on a flat road.

Here are calculated rolling and air drag in kW at different speeds.
PaRoll is an unloaded bus m = 1500kg, PbRoll is a heavy vehicle 2300kg.
PvAir = vanagon. PwAir is the US westy with the inefficient luggage tray. (Later Euro westies had an aerodynamic molding instead of the luggage rack)
PbuzzAir = id.buzz

Ptotal = Proll+Pair is the power the engine needs to produce for constant speed on the flat road. Driving 100km/h in my relatively light '82 Westy is 6.13 + 22.85 = 29kW

v (km/h) PaRoll PvAir PwAir PbuzzAir Pbroll
20.00 1.23 0.15 0.18 0.10 1.88
40.00 2.45 1.20 1.44 0.78 3.76
60.00 3.68 4.04 4.85 2.62 5.64
80.00 4.91 9.58 11.49 6.20 7.52
100.00 6.13 18.71 22.45 12.12 9.40
120.00 7.36 32.33 38.79 20.94 11.28
140.00 8.58 51.33 61.60 33.25 13.16

[poppiejag]

On vehicles and power (illustrated with eBikes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALde6zhLPs0

[daklein]

Holy Awesome! Thanks for sharing! If you road trip through Michigan again, unlimited free solar power and boondock camping or spare room is available here.

Nice, GM did the battery pack recall for you on a salvaged car, wow! Congrats!

I found your van thread from mention of running your house off the van battery, very nice also.

Hartland, MI 48353 Dale

[campism]

Welcome!
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'87 Westy in Wolfram Grey Metallic, tragically crushed by a falling hickory tree in my own driveway and now gone, leaving me Vanagonless and with no plans to replace it, alas.

[yabert]

The Vanabolt is on the road since 5 years now.
Still working well.
Still water ingress everywhere despite repairs + 3M stuff

We still like it. It's roomy. It cost nothing to drive... but man, water ingress, rust and road noise/wind noise will end the love story sooner than expected.
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My 360 volts Vanabolt: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...highlight=

[fxr]

[boxer74]

Wow, not sure how I missed this thread.

Great job with this build!

Don't let rust kill this thing!
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74 Super
84 Westy

[yabert]

[yabert]

After 5 years and 120 000 km, it finally receive his logo.

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My 360 volts Vanabolt: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...highlight=

[yabert]

130 000 km and the CV joints ask for replacement.
Clearly they asked. I what amazed by the important noise generated by those CV joint compare to the little 1/16'' grooves I found on the central part of the joint. Even the balls was in perfect shape.

The used CV joint was those coming with the van 6 years ago that I modify with custom shaft for the conversion.
I hope the new one will last long time as they still have to pass 2520 Nm (1857 lbs-ft) of torque many time each day.
It's just too fun to floor an EV

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My 360 volts Vanabolt: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...highlight=