I'd love to bring it to a meet, logistics is the problem though due to its current low range :(

@ Yossarian G, OK, I'm a luddite with some technologies lol!!

I'd love to bring it to a meet, logistics is the problem though due to its current low range :(

Yes, you might have a problem getting to Gaydon and back.... Anyone able to offer a trailer?

Such a good professional install, looks factory finish fit and quality!

Absolutely amazing what people can achieve given a bit of patience and some careful thought

Fantastic car. This would go down a treat at the National meet.

Do you have any way of towing it?

So you just need to tweak the flux capacitor??

Lost in the science but blinded by the genius

We wait ages for an update then get a novel, better than new finish, inspiring

I'd love to bring it to a meet, logistics is the problem though due to its current low range :(

How far from the Humber Bridge are you? Having a meet nearer you might make an interesting diversion from the meet in Melton we've started recently. It'd be worth it to see the car.

What about a range extender, just need a towbar lol

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=221224186285

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

My workshop is only about 5 miles from the Humber Bridge actually

This amazing project needs to make it to Gaydon meet, please some kind soul with a trailer do the honourable thing and bring it down lol

Bit of a long shot but fire off an email to Skoda uk and Skoda cz linking this thread, appeal to their Skoda loving nature and ask if they could make a lift happen....you never know, it might just work.

Has there been any updates to this lately?

 

Would be great to see it up and about

What a cracking read. Fair play to you. Well done!

Any updates/running reports?

Would be great to see how this is coming along

Any chance of you bringing this to the national meet on 3rd August?

 

It's only down the road this time

 

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/302966-briskoda-2014-national-3rd-august/

Actually I'd love to come, the car is getting a Nissan Leaf battery module upgrade as soon as they arrive in May, this will give it a range of about 120 miles, so I can easily make it there and back.

 

I've also done loads of upgrades and improvements since last posting, when the batteries get here I'll do a marathon update for you all

 

In the meantime, this is what it's getting, well 51 of them actually, I got these 3 from Las Vegas baby! The others are coming in a pack on the slow boat from the states. They'll be configured as "triplets" like this one, giving a total of 17 x 195Ah x  7.6v nominal, giving a system voltage of just short of 130v under load and 25Kwh capacity

 

Edited 24 April, 201412 yr by favguy

Glad to see you're still around. I think most of us thought you'd disappeared. Looking forward to an update.

Well I'm not really around in the sense of frequenting the forum very much, but I am around as in not dead yet lol! 

Wow. Can't wait to see it.

 

That's an impressive range. More than you get from a nissan leaf!

 

Your work is comendable. I think when it's done you should get Rob to write a piece in the Skoda magazine about it.

 

Phil

Thanks, The Leaf runs 48 modules and is really heavy at about 1500Kg, I'm running 51 with an expected finished weight of about 1050Kg, The Leaf has better Aero. than I will, no doubt slightly better efficiency, but all things considered, I should beat the leaf range by around 30% - 40%

 

Would love a write up in the Skoda magazine (didn't know there was one!)

I thought it might be time for an update on the Fav-e

 

The new batteries are here! I finally decided overkill is always appropriate and went with a total of 54 of the AESC lithium modules ( http://www.eco-aesc-lb.com/en/product/liion_ev/ ) as used in the Nissan Leaf and Renault Fluence. You can't actually buy these for love nor money from either AESC, Nissan, or Renault, but I was lucky enough to get my hands on a new Renault Fluence battery from a liquidation sale of a failed battery swapping service in Israel called Better Place. Made in Japan, sent to Israel, shipped to the US following bankruptcy, from there over to Rotterdam and finally to my workshop, so it's pretty well travelled already! This is supplying 48 of the modules, the remaining 6 were sourced from a company in Las Vegas that specialise in Hybrid and electric car battery upgrades and quite literally fell off the back of a lorry, (complete with the new Leafs being delivered to the Nissan dealer!) . So I've somehow got to shoehorn these into the Fav-e.

The effects of this should however be quite astounding. The nominal running voltage will increase from 120v to 137v, but due to the much larger Ah capacity and chemistry of the new cells, there will now be negligible voltage sag under heavy load. This coupled with a weight saving of about 80Kg's over the old batteries should give a very significant performance gain. The original engine produced a weedy 50Kw at peak RPM, the new set up will give me 68.5Kw. Now a 37% power increase may not sound that outstanding... but, bear in mind we are talking about an electric motor here, so that 68.5Kw is available all the time! from zero RPM...so I'll probably not have to bother setting off in second any more unless it's up hill and skip straight to third...

The biggest improvement I'm hoping to see is range, the 1 hour rate on my old batteries was 65Ah, and I'd only been using 45Ah max of this to keep the batteries happy and maximise their life, so about 5.4Kwh useable. This gave me a range of about 22 miles. The new pack will be 27Kwh, of which I will probably use 25Kwh. This, in conjunction with the higher voltage and lower weight should give me a solid 120 mile range.   As a comparison, the Leaf, using 48 of these modules and weighing in at 1500Kg will do about 80 miles in real world driving, Fav-e will come in at around 1050Kg and have a 12.5% larger pack

A pic of the pack being broken down for re-configuration:
 

 

The modules are being grouped into threes, giving a total of 18 x 180Ah sets @ 7.6V nominal.

 

Due to the ability of the car to now run for much longer at sustained higher speeds, I'm also upgrading to a forced air cooling system for the motor along with custom made high performance brushes, I'll report more on this shortly.  

 

Here we see the new rear banks installed:

 

 

On a totally different topic, I've also upgraded the wheels and tyres to 15" rims with low profile, low rolling resistance tyres, again I'll report on this shortly.

 

Back soon...

Edited 20 June, 201411 yr by favguy

Loving this! Thanks for the updates.

Brilliant stuff, keep it up!

Nice Rover 75, is that next?

@ Yossarian G,

Not at the minute I do quite like the thought of doing a long range high powered AC EV version of the Rover 75, but funds and time won't permit it at present... When funds do permit, I'll probably be tempted to buy a used Model S Tesla instead though!, we'll just have to wait and see...

 

As for updates on the battery upgrade, I've been waiting on parts delivery in order to finish the mid and front battery installs, most bits are in now, just waiting for something from US, expected early to mid next week, then should have it finished by the weekend coming

Time for a little update on my slow progress of the battery upgrade. I've been waiting patiently for some parts to arrive from the US and from a useless sheet plastics company here in the UK that I won't be using anymore!. Anyway, I've now finished the rear and mid installs, except the monitoring cables, (which I'll do later once it's all finished).

I've had yet another change of mind on how I'm doing the front battery install, so have ordered a batch of aluminium cut to size. I was going to use polycarbonate, but it's just too flexible to clamp the modules in place without going to a very thick wall size. I think the end result will be nice now though, it's a combination of Aluminium for the sides of the batteries and Polycarb. for the end and top covers.

I've had a bit of dumb luck with the battery box sizing really. The boxes were initially made to accommodate 160Ah Thunderskys, (The Japanese Leaf/Renault cells didn't exist back in the day when I made up the boxes back in 2008!) but the boxes have worked out perfectly to accommodate a total of 54 of the new modules.

I also got a chance to make up the box cover for the rear set, (carpeted 9mm ply) In the end I've actually only sacrificed a total of 150mm (6 Inches) from the luggage compartment depth.

A few pictures...















Back soon...

 

PS... I need to change the silver battery box lid fixings to black, or paint them!

Edited 5 July, 201411 yr by favguy