Formula E Race and EV West Visit
Last week I was fortunate enough to be able to travel out to California to see the Formula E race in Long Beach CA. This is something I have been wanting to do since the race series was announced last year. There were only two US dates, three weeks ago in Miami and last week in Long Beach. I knew the California race would be better because Long Beach is not far from San Marcos, where EV West is located. They hosted the race and had a get together before and after the race. I was able to shoot some video of race, a link to the video is below. The quality of the video is not that great. It was brilliantly sunny that day which was great for the race but made it very hard to see the LCD viewfinder on the camcorder. They also had a lot of barricades setup so it made it hard to get close to the race track. They have to do that because when the cars crash all kinds of parts come off the cars, some at velocities that are lethal. But the most notable feature of my video is how loud the cars are when racing. You don't get that sound on the produced video of the race that is on YouTube (Link here). The electric motors and gears really scream when they go by at 100MPH. And you can really hear the tires on the pavement too. The race had a really great turnout, probably well over 20,000 people. The admission was free, but it was Easter weekend. It was a really great time and I look forward to next year's race.
While I was out there I spent some time at EV West. For the past six months they have been involved with a Smart Car repurposing program. The Smart Car are fleet cars that have been salvaged. Instead of crushing the cars and recycling the metal EV West is removing all the usable parts and making them available for sale. Most notably are the battery packs, which are a Tesla design using the 18650 cells. They cannot sell the whole battery pack, but they can sell the battery modules inside. Each pack holds 8 modules that are 3KW/hr each. It is quite amazing how small 24Kw/hr is with the 18650 cells. I could almost put 48KW of these batteries in my 320i and probably take up less room and weigh less. Maybe something to consider for my next build. All the other parts of the drivetrain are available as well as all things like brakes and wheels. While I was there I also looked at a Scott Inverter. This is a 150KW inverter that might be a possible upgrade for the DMOC later this year. The Scott has a very extensive software control package with a lot of functionality. The only feature I did not see was the ability to program the amount of regen in the gas pedal position. That is something that can be done on the GEVCU and gives the ability to drive with one foot. The BMW i3 that I drove last year had that feature and I really like it.
In this past week I was also able to test the Delphi DC/DC converter that I replaced the HV input connector that I reviewed in the last blog and video. The Delphi is unusual in that it requires 12V on the output connector to enable the converter to startup. According to the user manual the Delphi requires that 12V to power up the internal circuitry and once the converter starts then the internal circuitry is powered by the HV. The converter also seems to need a CAN message to set the output voltage to 13.5V. This is very strange but it can be accommodated by the GEVCU. I initially had a problem with the CAN messaging because unknown to me the CAN transceiver on the GEVCU I was using was not working. Once I switched the CAN channel the converter started working and output current at 13.5V.
A video of the race and EV West visit can be found here.
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