AKA: "Pushing the Limits"
I took MR BEAN 150 miles down to Portland last week for the EV Roadmap 8 Conference. It was a great meeting, and I also got to dine with the Norwegian parlimentarian behind many of their EV incentives.
Itinerary was too tight to spend an extra 90+ minutes on fast charging to get there, so I took the pusher trailer. Excellent and flawless performance driving at 70+ mph. On the way back on Thursday, I got caught in a squeeze play between an RV and a merging semi, so rather than braking to get stuck behind that undynamic duo, I tapped the 200% power of my i/pusher combination and rocketed through the gap. A couple of minutes later, a lifted pickup also made it around, and the shoeless redneck that was cooling his heels out of the passenger window gave me an enthusiastic thumbs up, as did the motorcyclist right behind them!
Alas, the weather was breaking record high temps for the Pacific NW, hitting 102 F /39 C on Thursday. The pusher engine started pinging, so I increased speed to up the cooling fan revs and lean more on battery power in order to unload the engine, but it was too late and the overheated engine belched smoke as it lost compression in at least one cylinder. It still runs, but without much power and backfires through the carb; probably a burned valve.... SO, time to head for home on battery alone. The sick engine had used up too much of my battery buffer to reach the next fast charging station and I didn't want to abandon the trailer, so I did 90 minutes on L2 before hitting the next three fast charging stations, with a 'double pump' on the final AeroVironment L3 in order to accomplish the last 39 hilly miles home.
You may recall that this engine was locked at Wide Open Throttle, so a remote control throttle mechanism will be part of the next build, as well as a temperature readout. Meanwhile, the hot temps helped to enable record high 28.4 mpg in the Odyssey van on our next trip, which went deep into Idaho and back over the weekend.
Meanwhile, my friend with a similar VW pusher (wide open throttle and all) successfully drove over 3000 miles on his "through the road series hybrid" last week!
