offgridQLD
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2013
- Messages
- 101
Today we had a go at driving our Imiev from Brisbane to our off grid house in the Sunshine coast hinterland. Total distance was 104km with a 500m + climb up into the hinterland along with several hilly undulating sections along the way.
Below is a altitude profile of the trip.
We made it to the house 104km with 2 bars (2kwh) remaining on the SOC gauge and 9km on the RR gauge (though the last 20km were all uphill or undulating). We had a good load in the car to. two adults and one child, a 35lt Engel compressor style car fridge(40kg including the food inside), luggage 4 bags 30kg and the charger.
Parked the car in the shed at 11AM unplugged the air compressor and started charging. The solar charge controller sprung to life to cover the load.The inverter was showing around 2400w AC output 2 200w was the charger and the other 200w was the idle house load.
Looking at the solar charge controller it was pumping around 3300w into the battery's to hold float. 27% loss. 15% would be inverter loss and the remaining would be flooded lead acid battery's that are not very efficient. When I switch to lithium's on the House in a few years there will be a big improvement in efficiency.
Anyhow it shouldn't be a problem At the moment I am just using the 3960w of PV that's on the roof NE facing. When I have time I will put up the additional 4200w on the NW roof of the house. I thought it would be a good idea to get up on the roof and clean the solar panels as I have been lazy and the last time I did it was over a year ago
.
The plan is to pump 7kwh or so into the battery today and top of with another 7kwh tomorrow for the drive home Sunday afternoon..
I had the charger on from 11:00am 2:15pm today and pumped back 7kwh into the Imiev. The house battery's are full and on float so it was great to be able to actually use some of the excess kwh that just gets wasted each day. I Will top off the next 7kwh tomorrow and drive back to Brisbane on pure sun power tomorrow
.
I also had a go just for fun at fitting my old 15x6 polished five spoke Honda mags with 195,50,15 tyres on the front. As I was expecting the wheels fit as they are the same 4x100 PCD but being 6 inch wide with a 45 offset they clash with the strut just , as expected. Boy they looked great though.Completely transformed the look of the car.
I would say 16x5 or 16x5.5 wheels would be perfect as the strut leans away from the wheel so a larger OD wheel would gain some clearance along with a 5 or 5.5 inch width and a 45 offset would keep the stock geometry. I was getting 5lt/100km with the 195's at 40psi on my old civic and about the same with the stock 165's. So I don't see there being that much consumption difference going to say 185 up front on the Imiev over the silly 145's.
Kurt
Below is a altitude profile of the trip.

We made it to the house 104km with 2 bars (2kwh) remaining on the SOC gauge and 9km on the RR gauge (though the last 20km were all uphill or undulating). We had a good load in the car to. two adults and one child, a 35lt Engel compressor style car fridge(40kg including the food inside), luggage 4 bags 30kg and the charger.
Parked the car in the shed at 11AM unplugged the air compressor and started charging. The solar charge controller sprung to life to cover the load.The inverter was showing around 2400w AC output 2 200w was the charger and the other 200w was the idle house load.
Looking at the solar charge controller it was pumping around 3300w into the battery's to hold float. 27% loss. 15% would be inverter loss and the remaining would be flooded lead acid battery's that are not very efficient. When I switch to lithium's on the House in a few years there will be a big improvement in efficiency.
Anyhow it shouldn't be a problem At the moment I am just using the 3960w of PV that's on the roof NE facing. When I have time I will put up the additional 4200w on the NW roof of the house. I thought it would be a good idea to get up on the roof and clean the solar panels as I have been lazy and the last time I did it was over a year ago

The plan is to pump 7kwh or so into the battery today and top of with another 7kwh tomorrow for the drive home Sunday afternoon..
I had the charger on from 11:00am 2:15pm today and pumped back 7kwh into the Imiev. The house battery's are full and on float so it was great to be able to actually use some of the excess kwh that just gets wasted each day. I Will top off the next 7kwh tomorrow and drive back to Brisbane on pure sun power tomorrow

I also had a go just for fun at fitting my old 15x6 polished five spoke Honda mags with 195,50,15 tyres on the front. As I was expecting the wheels fit as they are the same 4x100 PCD but being 6 inch wide with a 45 offset they clash with the strut just , as expected. Boy they looked great though.Completely transformed the look of the car.
I would say 16x5 or 16x5.5 wheels would be perfect as the strut leans away from the wheel so a larger OD wheel would gain some clearance along with a 5 or 5.5 inch width and a 45 offset would keep the stock geometry. I was getting 5lt/100km with the 195's at 40psi on my old civic and about the same with the stock 165's. So I don't see there being that much consumption difference going to say 185 up front on the Imiev over the silly 145's.









Kurt