CarBEN EV5 - Open Source 5 Seat scratch-built Electric Car

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I cleaned things up today - totally dismantled the shelter, and cleared out enough of the garage to get the chassis inside (just!). I had a friend's help and it made a big difference. (My strapping 6'-5"+ 16yo son on the other hand only managed to help stow 9 tires(!) in the basement.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_GCPnIWoPE&feature=c4-overview&list=UUL0K171ZJzmMEZaHg_-BttA


It was a near perfect day to do this - ~53F and partly sunny. Lotsa' melting goin' on! We are due to get rain, so I was not going to let CarBEN sit out in that - the shelter was a giant funnel right down into the inside ...
 
I traveled up to Keene NH Saturday and I decided to buy a 1993 Saab 900 as a parts donor car. A friend has his shop up there and he was able to spend a lot of time with me going over lots of possibilities. He was quite generous and sold it for a scrap price of just $300.



It will be providing the front suspension, brakes, and drive shafts, and also probably the rear suspension. Also, possibly the steering wheel with airbag, and likely other useful bits like power lock solenoids, heated seat elements, wheels, etc.

The rear suspension is quite compact, and the trick will be to locate the beam axle which is needed to control the toe, etc. I will need to get the steering rack out of a '94 or newer, as it is single ended, so I can shift it into a position where the steering column is centered. This '93 model has a much longer rack unit with the steering linkage at each end. They are available for $40-50 locally.

I will possibly be cutting out large pieces of the front inner fenders that can be attached to the CarBEN chassis with the geometry intact. The distance between the outputs on the differential is about 10" - which is about half of the width of the electric motor and differential I'm considering, and the front track on CarBEN is 4-5" narrower that the 900. The drive shafts are pretty long and the each have ~9" so in theory, they have enough length to be shortened, though obviously that may limit the suspension travel.

Unfortunately, the differential is in the same case as the transmission, so no way to just put an electric motor directly on the differential.

I'll tow it home in the spring, with my brother's Tacoma and a cradle trailer.
 
I had a productive day (so far) - I have cut the windshield opening! Here's the progression:



The big moment has arrived!









An interesting sidebar: Nissan is selling a new and improved Leaf battery pack for $5,500. I could buy two packs and fit them into CarBEN EV5; which would be awesome!
 
NeilBlanchard said:
An interesting sidebar: Nissan is selling a new and improved Leaf battery pack for $5,500. I could buy two packs and fit them into CarBEN EV5; which would be awesome!
Click to expand...
I'd be very interested to know if that's even possible. When I saw that price announcement I thought a compact 24kWh traction battery for $6.5k could be a big deal for a lot of EV projects, but only if Nissan's willing to sell them to all comers. Speculation is that at present they're losing money on every battery, so for now they could be limiting sales to Nissan dealership service departments. Similarly, the $1k credit for "trade-in" of the existing battery pack might be a complete head fake - in fact, Nissan might only be exchanging battery packs, not selling them at all except with that trade-in.

But at least it feels like things are moving in the right direction . . .
 
Since they are offering a $1K 'trade-in' it could be that they are selling reconditioned packs too - Check every cell and replace only those which are out of spec and resell them for $5,500. If they're paying money to get the old ones back, they must be turning them around for a profit somehow. I would think they would have to make some sort of disclaimer if this is what they're actually doing

Don
 
Don said:
Since they are offering a $1K 'trade-in' it could be that they are selling reconditioned packs too - Check every cell and replace only those which are out of spec and resell them for $5,500. If they're paying money to get the old ones back, they must be turning them around for a profit somehow. I would think they would have to make some sort of disclaimer if this is what they're actually doing
Click to expand...
This is absolutely not what Nissan is doing. The new battery packs are not only new batteries, they're a different, more heat-resistant chemistry, which was in part the point of the program (i.e., get those EZ-Bake batteries out of LEAFs in AZ before they generate any more PR black eyes). Nissan has said they intend to repurpose the exchanged batteries, most likely in stationary applications that are less sensitive to energy density. This point's been made before in other contexts - a battery that's no longer "usable" in an EV actually works just fine, but has lost enough capacity that it's left the EV with too little range. If you're stacking batteries in a utility building on a wind farm to serve as an on-demand buffer to the grid, all that really matters is the $$/kWh - space and weight aren't at anywhere near the premium they are for an EV. So "spent" EV batteries are far from worthless - yet one more discredited bullet point in the anti-EV narrative.
 
A few more hours of work, and I now have the windshield pretty much even; and I have to spray some foam around the back to thicken parts of it up again. I've started carving away the firewall up at the base of the windshield to fit in the wiper system.




Yes, I cut through at the sides and slightly at the middle, too. Cars made out of steel are a lot thinner, it turns out. ;-)

I am hoping to work on CarBEN on as many evenings as possible. I cannot believe it is July already!
 
Shouldn't there be a metal framed substructure to hold everything together? Is the foam strong enough to hold the wiper assembly? I read that you bought a used Saab for the parts. It will be interesting to see how you are going to attach all of that. I know you got this worked out already and I'm just jumping ahead here. It's been great watching your progress.
 
There will be metal subframes in the front and the back, to connect the suspension to the fiberglass composite sandwich chassis. The foam will have fiberglass skins inside and out, and that will be strong enough for things like the wiper system. I will probably have metal 'U' shaped liners in the two center battery bays in the floor, that will provide a tension connection between the front and the rear subframes. These will "clamp" the chassis and I think it will be massively strong.
 
After several hours of work today, I got the wiper system almost into place.



The firewall has several holes in it that will need to be filled in from the inside. The base of the 'A' pillars need to be built up - both to cover the holes needs to clear the ends of the push rods, and to make the ends of the vent bezel flush. I put the nose and the hood into place and the hood will need some more work to get it to fit over the bezel.

The 'A' pillars are a lot straighter than they used to be but I still see some wobbles ...

 
We've with us a tinker named Neil
Who could not find for sale the right wheel
So he's built one from foam
In a shed by his home
Man can he make pennies squeal!

The CarBen he calls his creation
It's built fit to weather damnation
Like offspring of Beetle and Bus
With space 'nuff to haul five of us
The design redefines innovation.
 
Anything new to report on the CarBEN EV5 Neil? It's been a long time since we've seen anything . . . . are you still working on the car?

Don
 

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