solar powered festiva

[NovaSS]

watch the video, half way into it it shows a test drive in a solar powered festiva

http://www.comcast.net/data/fan/html/popup.html?v=772281864&pl=778371371.xml&plc=778371371&launchpoint=Cover&cid=fancover&attr=default_headline&config=/config/common/fan/default.xml

[MONSOON]

Thats pretty cool. I wonder what type of initial costs are involved in doing that conversion. They also didnt mention what type of MPCs they get. Remember the electric Festiva not too long ago on Ebay that only got something like 45 miles on a charge?

[Evan80]

Yeah, that'd be sweet to have, but I don't think it would work that well here in Western NY (We have about 60 sunny days a year )

[Pu241]

Yeah, that'd be sweet to have, but I don't think it would work that well here in Western NY (We have about 60 sunny days a year )

That's true the NE USA gets surprisingly few sunny days!
Read that somewhere.
But, the wind blows a fair amount of the time so a wind generator might be a possibility and if you have to, you can always plug it into the grid!

[V8Festiva]

Yellow Festivas work best for this conversion

[neanderpaul]

88-89 lx seats ftw

[Evan80]

Interesting theory Pu241, but I'm certain if that was a possibility someone probably would have thought of it before. I'm not certain of the actual numbers involved but I'm sure the blade length would have to be pretty substantial to generate enough electricity to keep the car going and to overcome the enormous amount of drag that would be needed to generate and significant amount of power. All you engineers out there back me up!

[Pu241]

Interesting theory Pu241, but I'm certain if that was a possibility someone probably would have thought of it before. I'm not certain of the actual numbers involved but I'm sure the blade length would have to be pretty substantial to generate enough electricity to keep the car going and to overcome the enormous amount of drag that would be needed to generate and significant amount of power. All you engineers out there back me up!

Where did I mention attaching the wind generator to the car?
The wind genny would be used to supplement the solar array, at the vehicle's base location.
Particularly, in areas of limited solar flux, like the western portions of New York.

[Evan80]

Oh, I thought you meant as another means of direct power, not stored.. Yeah actually I have looked into wind generators to put on my 5 acres of land, but right now the idea is not too popular as in the town over has a company building a wind farm and there are many unhappy people... Plus I haven't had time to sift through all the appropriate zoning laws to either a) find out it's fine or b) find a loophole to make it fine. Oh and the 6-10k I'm still working on that too

[Festiva_tunner]

Interesting theory Pu241, but I'm certain if that was a possibility someone probably would have thought of it before. I'm not certain of the actual numbers involved but I'm sure the blade length would have to be pretty substantial to generate enough electricity to keep the car going and to overcome the enormous amount of drag that would be needed to generate and significant amount of power. All you engineers out there back me up!

Some Home Generators can produce 1000W and only have a 6 foot swept area - larger ones produce 10,000 and have larger swept areas

[Pu241]

Some Home Generators can produce 1000W and only have a 6 foot swept area - larger ones produce 10,000 and have larger swept areas

You make a good point, why setup a wind gen unit only for the car.
If you sized it right, provided you have the wind resource (ie it blows regularly and consistently) you could well supplement your home/electric/gas bill.
Also means you could potentially store power either in a battery bank($$$) or via the grid (grid tied unit).
In any case, should be possible to get enough power between solar and wind to do a commute, provided you aren't running long distances say 100 miles or more round trip.
With gas at $4/gallon economically this might be worth looking into.
I can't begin to assess what an electric conversion for a fester would be, but the wind gens and associated equipment are all over the net.

[Pu241]

Yeah actually I have looked into wind generators to put on my 5 acres of land, but right now the idea is not too popular as in the town over has a company building a wind farm and there are many unhappy people...

Why are these people unhappy?
The noise can be some what moderated by blade design and speed.
I can't image it can be more annoying than what I hear night and day living next to a semi-major road, half way down a large hill, were the trucks use jake breaking to keep from burning up there brakes.

[Evan80]

Oh I was definitely looking into some grid tied generators, and I really like the SkyStream 3.7 (up to 2.4kw peak) made by Southwest Windpower, but even after state rebates it would be like 13k. And I don't have that kind of money right now, and probably not anytime soon. But it would be nice to come home to see a 6 dollar electricity bill. Or even better yet, a credit!

[Evan80]

Yeah well, they're just mad because a) it's making their already puny land values smaller b) to be frank, they're not known for their intellectual prowess and c) to that end, they don't have anything in the zoning laws that even comes close to putting a stop to it, so they're cheesed off that a company could buy a whole bunch of land and just put up tower after tower and there's nothing they can do about it. The company didn't even need to apply for any variances. lol Oh and I've been by there.. unless there's no traffic you can't even hear them.

[Pu241]

Also, unless I'm badly mistaken (and it happens pretty often), aren't New York's electric rates pretty high?