Let's test this New J1772 Extension Cable to Charge our LEAF at an Autolib Station

Now that we have received this J1772 Extension Cable, we took it down to the parking to put it in the LEAF trunk, its new home ...

Any volunteer ? Yes, Clément :-)

He was coming to the Tesla Store with me anyways





When we got there, I thought, let's try it right here, between our wall mounted EVSE, and the LEAF => works like a charm :-)


and charges the LEAF - after turning OFF the charge program -



Remember my wall mounted second original EVSE, well it has been charging our LEAF for almost 2.5 years now ...



Clement filming his dad's experiments



Close up on the J1772 plug - extension -



On the ground, the EVSE 1772 plug is simply plugged into the J1772 extension inlet



Let's go to the Tesla Store ! 

....

Back in Paris, the Tesla Store is actually in Gennevilliers, close to Saint Ouen where I used to work, outside Paris, but in the relatively close suburb

So here we are, at one of our favorite charging locations, in Marais, behind Hotel de Ville, and one spot out of two is taken by a Renault Twizy, the other one, by a Bluecar / Autolib

Twizy and its telephone curled up blue cord


What is it doing here ??! ICEd by an Autolib - Take 2, not the first time -

Guess what, we just had to go 2 spots ahead and parked at the Autolib station :-), not a problem anymore with our new cable !

This cable is just perfect :-)

Locked up



Autolib charge cable extended

Ecopouce - Electric Transport with the Mia

Seen this week in the local newspaper, Ecopouce - you could translate by Eco Thumb - is a new small company providing local transportation using 8 Mia Electric small cars

A fixed rate of 4.90 EUR within the city of Boulogne, and 1 EUR / minute to go to any city touching Boulogne: Paris, Saint Cloud, Sèvres, Meudon, Neuilly, Suresnes, Issy Les Moulineaux

Good luck to this new fully Electric Transport Company !

2 thumbs up for this Green initiative !

New Rate : Autolib = 10€/month

Once again Autolib is lowering the Parisian EV rental rates to attract more customers; Received today an email from them with this picture, and if I can remember, it was 140 EUR for a year, so this is like a 20 EUR reduction for a year, almost 15% off, not bad ...

Ten Bucks a Litre - Dick Smith Documentary cherry picks the facts

A recently aired Australian documentary by local eccentric millionaire Dick Smith about alternatives to fossil fuels has stirred quite a hornets nest of feedback, both positive and negative.



While on the whole the Doco was fairly interesting and we here at EV News noted Dick's enthusiasm for electric cars, some facts seem to have been seriously cherry picked.

The EV segment starts @47 mins with Dick enthusing about an EV powered only by renewables and which has Vehicle to Grid Technology (V2G) that can held smooth the intermittency of renewable energy.

The cherry picking starts @50 mins when to close the segment Dick holds up a flask containing 1 litre of fuel stating that it weighs 700 grams and will take an average car approx 10 km. The bad news for EV's, we are told, is that the equivalent battery would weigh 25x as much! End of argument apparently and the story moves onto bio-fuels.

What Dick failed to mention was that the equivalent of that 1 litre of fuel (10 kWh) stored in an EV battery can propel an electric car 10x as far (100 km)... surely a worthy trade-off in energy efficiency Dick?

Of course, battery power may not be a solution for his Helicopter any time soon but Dick was so impressed with EVs he is now the proud owner of a solar powered Nissan Leaf.


Source: Electric Vehicle News

mia electric l'interview vérité après un an d'utilisation à Paris

Renaud Roubaudi is interviewed by a friend and tells us about his first year of driving the Mia Electric in & around Paris

Free - Each IKEA Store now has an Autolib Charging Station around Paris

Electronic Parts Store : 2 Capacitors, 2 Resistors & more

Saturday, I finally went to an electronics dealer in the southern close suburb of Paris and found some resistors and capacitors of different values to test in my search of a decent Economizer for my Tyco Kilovac EV200A1ANA Contactor

As I was there I also got some wide Heat Shrink, and a Solder sucker

82 and 68 Ohms 10W resistors

3300uF and 2200uF 35V capacitors

And back home, I tried every combination of resistor and capacitor and finally found out that the 82Ohms resistor along with the 4700uF capacitor was OK, especially at - low - 25V starting voltage - when the pack is empty -

and comsumption is quite low, around 0,3A at 25V, which should be around 8W

So these are the components I will mount on the ESS Control Board along with / next to the EV200A1ANA contactor, as soon as I find time for this