Evaluation of Electric Vehicles as an Alternative for Work Trip and ...

Findings
The principal finding is that the 1995-model electric car must be
viewed in more than one context. Firstly, the vehicle body, chassis and
drive train are adequate for the transport of personnel within
Connecticut for most routine non-emergency state business. Drivers do
notice that the drivetrain is somewhat underpowered as compared with
most other vehicles on the road, but that was also true for the
gasoline-powered Geo Metro. The EV manufacturer that converted the Geo
Metro to an electric vehicle has placed a higher priority on efficiency
versus power, and both acceleration and top speed reflect that priority.
Secondly, the electric car must be viewed in the context of its
battery since many different batteries could power the car. Two
different battery types were evaluated in this project.
The first type was a 50 Ampere-hour conventional sealed lead acid
battery (CSLAB). The finding is that this car/battery configuration is
reliable, although actual cold-weather range was almost half the
manufacturer’s claimed warm-weather range, because of the power-draining
effect of the electric heater/defroster, rear-window defroster,
windshield wipers, and headlights. Fuel-fired heater/defroster units
are now options on this electric subcompact car and are anticipated to
provide more consistent year-round single-charge driving range.
The second type was an advanced lead acid battery (ALAB). The car
was operated on two (2) different versions of the production ALAB. The
first was a 95 Ampere-hour ALAB. The second was an 85 Ampere-hour
battery. Several combinations of battery chargers, charging profiles
and driving/operating parameters were utilized during the four years in
attempts to eliminate premature battery failure. The finding is that
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