National Drive Electric Week - Pittsburgh, PA

I took my i-MiEV to NDEW in Pittsburgh yesterday, our first in the area. We had a pretty good turnout:

about half a dozen Volts
5 Model S (3 happened to drive past and decided to stop)
2 Cadillac ELR's
3 BMW i3 (1 REx, 2 BEV)
3 Nissan LEAFs
1 Ford Ranger EV (Factory)
2 original RAV4-EVs
2 Ford Focus Electrics
1 Mitsubishi i-MiEV (mine)
1 Cub Cadet electric zero turn mower
Handful of miscellaneous eBikes

I first arrived at the nearby Electric Garage, owned by Carnegie Mellon University, where 8 of us met up for charging and a motorcade to the event. I got there around 7 AM to give myself the needed 2 hours to charge. I didn't quite get to full, but I had 16 bars. The weather started out very nice, it rained while we were driving (best time to do it), but it was nice the rest of the day. I gave 3 rides in my car (anticipated doing more). Many more people at least knew the i-MiEV existed than normal (other events, I'm lucky to talk to one other person that knows about it), and people seemed to really like it, namely its "cute" shape and interior comfort.

I rode in one of the Teslas and got to drive an i3. The i3 has quite a bit of torque, I'd say at least double the i-MiEV, and regen at the low end is about 3 times stronger. The strangest thing about the i3 (other than its looks) is how they have the pedal set up. There is no creep function, and taking your foot off of the accelerator will bring the car to a complete stop on level ground without touching the brake pedal. I didn't notice if there are controls for the regen, but coming straight from the i-MiEV to the i3 made judging the pedal difficult. It turns tighter than the i-MiEV, too.

Pictures here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/szq5mbz72xnc0gp/AAAD-mpmcWDBKsye8O4FisTqa?dl=0
https://www.facebook.com/pages/National-Drive-Electric-Week-Pittsburgh-September-21st-2014/1443684682567364

PV1, thanks for the account. Bet you were fascinated by that solar trailer - interesting how they made it a triangular shape for trailering and then simply flip up one side of the panels for full exposure. Don't suppose you have any detailed photos of their mechanism?

PV1 said:

It [BMW i3] turns tighter than the i-MiEV, too.

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Nope! According to Edmunds, the BMW i3 turning diameter is 32.3ft whereas our i-MiEV is 30.8 ft, beaten only by a Smart car (and a London taxi :roll: ). Shifting the i3 into neutral so you can coast is very awkward. Even though I really like heavy regen for city and mountain driving, on the open highway it's a pain in the leg. I definitely prefer our i-MiEV's ability to vary regen, and wouldn't mind even more in 'B' mode even though we can presently get about 2/3 of full power back which is better than most EVs.

JoeS said:

Nope! According to Edmunds, the BMW i3 turning diameter is 32.3ft whereas our i-MiEV is 30.8 ft, beaten only by a Smart car (and a London taxi :roll: ).

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I'll challenge that. :lol:

I've met the guys who built it before (I even charged from it). It's a very cool setup. They have hinges between the 2 rows of panels with two linear actuators driving the upper (left-hand side) row. The lower row is held in place by metal rods while they use the actuators to lift the top row. When the array is lined up, they bolt on two pieces of angle steel on to make the array rigid, unbolt the rods, and can adjust the tilt of the whole array with the actuators. They feed power into a huge bank of lead batteries (controller said 32 kWh when I plugged my car in at the other event), which then goes to an inverter to output 120/240 through standard 120 volt outlets (GFCI of course), and through an L14-30 socket. They have 4 LED flood lights on a tilt-down mast, and if things get tight, there's an onboard diesel generator for backup.

I don't have any pictures of the workings, but here's their website:
http://www.solarcast.us/

Here's a picture, you can see some of the workings:

I'll glom on some other Drive Electric Week reports to this thread

Steilacoom WA- a sunny Saturday for an EV Potluck at Sunnyside Beach Park with about two dozen EVs in attendance, including on other i-MiEV. A local Republican state representative put it together who is absolutely the biggest advocate EVs have at the state level right now (even though all of the EVSE at the state capital tend to be full when in session, most of those are stereotypically liberal Seattle Democrats. This guy is coming from an energy security angle, and has a national guard recruiting wrap on his LEAF!

Puyallup WA- Three days of EVangelism and display at the State Fair. I didn't participate after doing that duty for the past 4 years.

Issaquah WA- At least 70 vehicles, from the ubiquitous LEAF, Volts, and Tesla S to a BMW i-3, Cadillac ELR, VIA Motors VTruck, Fiat 500E, new and old RAV4 EV, factory Ford Ranger and S-10, plus a small group of conversions and three i-MiEV. MR BEAN made the 148 mile round trip towing the camping trailer that I built this summer, to transition to pusher trailer this winter.... (Tows beautifully. I'll try to post a how-to on hooking up the wiring. Range at 60 mph was 45 miles till the two-bar blink (which was actually 21% SOC according to CanION)). Cruising on the flats, my amp draws were absolutely normal at 57 amps = 57 mph.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/23079348@N08/15299104536/in/set-72157647894969501

https://www.flickr.com/photos/23079348@N08/15299103676/in/set-72157647894969501/

Sweet. We tried to get our only local Roadster owner to stop by, but he never did.

Jray3, were you the member who put the lowering springs on? Your i-MiEV looks like it's sitting pretty low compared to mine. That's great news that the i-MiEV tows a trailer with ease, and without a huge hit to range. It's making me more confident in attempting my own solar trailer, weighing in at 700 lbs, but very low profile and flat.

Living around Pittsburgh, it sounds strange to me that a Republican Rep is so big on EVs. Glad to hear it, regardless. Energy security, though, is one of the pluses we've been missing on in my area. The natural gas boom is blinding a lot of people to renewables and EVs right now. I'll have to take note of that.

PV1, thanks for the photos of the solar trailer. Nice unit, but more complex than what I have in mind for my own use.

Great to see the Drive Electric Week activities across the country. There was an event in Santa Cruz on Sunday
https://driveelectricweek.org/event.php?eventid=202
where Stella was again prominently displayed (she was at the Silicon Valley parade on Saturday)
https://www.facebook.com/SolarTeamEindhoven

PV1 said:

Jray3, were you the member who put the lowering springs on? Your i-MiEV looks like it's sitting pretty low compared to mine. That's great news that the i-MiEV tows a trailer with ease, and without a huge hit to range. It's making me more confident in attempting my own solar trailer, weighing in at 700 lbs, but very low profile and flat.

Click to expand...

Yes- MR BEAN is still lowered. Not ridiculously so; and you'll recall I had that issue with the CV joints, so the rear has been spaced back up, for only about 1" total lowering, and the trailer hitch can still clear a 6" curb. The front apron will barely clear most 6" curbs. In stock form, the car could clear (and climb over) an 8" curb.

That 1 inch makes a difference in making the car look a lot better, but the black paint helps, too.

I've been noticing a rumble under heavy acceleration, too. It doesn't help that I've insulated the doors and have been driving more with the radio off. Nothing alarming, though.

For anyone interested in the EcoHitch, it is $25 off until Sept 28th by using the discount code: DRIVEELECTRIC2014.

Thanks for the notice.

Jray3, how much does that camping trailer weigh?

In case anyone is interested, I posted a new thread "Custom 11 lb hitch receiver adapter". Seemed better to start a new thread for this.

http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2344&p=18912#p18912